CWE-394Unexpected Status Code or Return Value

Abstraction: Base · CVEs in our corpus: 17

The product does not properly check when a function or operation returns a value that is legitimate for the function, but is not expected by the product.

Last updated: 14 October 2026 20:41 UTC

OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)

This weakness contributes to A10:2025 Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions.

Control responseHuman-reviewed

Answering this weakness across the control lifecycle, from our framework cross-walks.

Prevent

Stop it (NIST 800-53 / CSF Protect)

PR.PS-06
SA-11 Developer Testing and Evaluation
SA-8 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles
SA-15 Development Process, Standards, and Tools

Detect

Catch it (CSF Detect / Respond)

—

Harden

Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

Validate

Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

—

NIST 800-53 r5 controls PROPOSED for this weakness (0)AI-assisted

These are model PROPOSALS, not graded mappings. They come from controls_to_cwe_proposals, which carries no grade field at all; across the CWE pages 1,540 of 1,722 such associations (89%) have never been graded by anything. The heading said “address” until 2026-09-29, which asserted a relationship the data does not carry. Graded cross-walks are on the framework map, not here.

Control	Title	Family	Why it addresses this CWE
No NIST controls proposed yet.

Top CVEs of this weakness type, ranked by Risk Priority

CVE	Risk	CVSS	EPSS	Published
`CVE-2025-12515`	7.2	9.8	0.0037	2025-10-30
`CVE-2025-12516`	7.2	9.8	0.0037	2025-10-30
`CVE-2026-25085`	6.6	8.6	0.0050	2026-02-27
`CVE-2019-0066`	6.1	7.5	0.0136	2019-10-09
`CVE-2023-25948`	5.9	7.5	0.0057	2023-07-13
`CVE-2018-20802`	5.4	6.5	0.0158	2020-11-23
`CVE-2019-20924`	5.4	6.5	0.0130	2020-11-23
`CVE-2024-1713`	5.3	7.2	0.0055	2024-03-14
`CVE-2025-48510`	5.1	7.1	0.0013	2025-11-24
`CVE-2022-24880`	4.7	5.3	0.0121	2022-04-25
`CVE-2026-76956`	4.6	5.9	0.0029	2026-08-20
`CVE-2023-28975`	3.7	4.6	0.0029	2023-04-17
`CVE-2023-48429`	2.7	2.7	0.0059	2023-12-12
`CVE-2026-73064`	2.4	2.9	0.0010	2026-09-24