CWE · MITRE source
CWE-291Reliance on IP Address for Authentication
The product uses an IP address for authentication.
IP addresses can be easily spoofed. Attackers can forge the source IP address of the packets they send, but response packets will return to the forged IP address. To see the response packets, the attacker has to sniff the traffic between the victim machine and the forged IP address. In order to accomplish the required sniffing, attackers typically attempt to locate themselves on the same subnet as the victim machine. Attackers may be able to circumvent this requirement by using source routing, but source routing is disabled across much of the Internet today. In summary, IP address verification can be a useful part of an authentication scheme, but it should not be the single factor required for authentication.
Last updated: 04 July 2026 00:28 UTC
Cumulative inbound coverage
How completely the frameworks we cross-walk collectively cover this — the verdict is the strongest single mapping (overlapping partials are not summed); breadth shows the corroboration behind it.
Collective: full · 5 mapping(s) from 3 framework(s): ATT&CK 3 (partial) · OWASP-Web 1 (full) · CAPEC 1 (partial)
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
This weakness contributes to A07:2025 Authentication Failures.
NIST 800-53 r5 controls that address this weakness (1)AI
| Control | Title | Family | Why it addresses this CWE |
|---|---|---|---|
IA-3 | Device Identification and Authentication | IA | Mandates proper device-level authentication instead of weaker identifiers such as IP addresses that are easily forged. |
MITRE ATT&CK techniques this weakness enables
Our own two-way CWE↔ATT&CK cross-walk — a direct mapping with no public source (the CWE→CAPEC→ATT&CK chain leaves most top weaknesses, incl. XSS and SQLi, mapped to nothing). Drafted by Grok and spot-checked by Claude Opus 4.8.
Direction: ← other covers this;
→ this covers other (F/M/P = full / mostly /
partial).
Top CVEs of this weakness type, ranked by Risk Priority
| CVE | Risk | CVSS | EPSS | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
CVE-2022-46415 | 7.0 | 9.1 | 0.0091 | 2023-03-27 |
CVE-2024-23309 | 7.0 | 9.0 | 0.0091 | 2024-10-30 |
CVE-2025-66602 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0030 | 2026-02-09 |
CVE-2026-4252 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0126 | 2026-03-16 |
CVE-2025-34202 | 5.5 | 8.8 | 0.0092 | 2025-09-19 |
CVE-2026-3690 | 5.5 | 7.4 | 0.0067 | 2026-04-11 |
CVE-2023-35906 | 3.5 | 5.3 | 0.0031 | 2023-09-05 |
CVE-2023-7211 | 3.5 | 5.6 | 0.0094 | 2024-01-07 |
CVE-2024-32765 | 3.5 | 4.2 | 0.0021 | 2024-08-12 |