CWE · MITRE source
CWE-754Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions
The product does not check or incorrectly checks for unusual or exceptional conditions that are not expected to occur frequently during day to day operation of the product.
The programmer may assume that certain events or conditions will never occur or do not need to be worried about, such as low memory conditions, lack of access to resources due to restrictive permissions, or misbehaving clients or components. However, attackers may intentionally trigger these unusual conditions, thus violating the programmer's assumptions, possibly introducing instability, incorrect behavior, or a vulnerability. Note that this entry is not exclusively about the use of exceptions and exception handling, which are mechanisms for both checking and handling unusual or unexpected conditions.
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 · 6 mapping(s) from 4 framework(s): STIG oracle linux 8 2 (mostly) · ATT&CK 2 (partial) · OWASP-Web 1 (full) · STIG oracle linux 9 1 (partial)
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
This weakness contributes to A10:2025 Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions.
NIST 800-53 r5 controls that address this weakness (9)AI
| Control | Title | Family | Why it addresses this CWE |
|---|---|---|---|
CP-12 | Safe Mode | CP | Implements detection of unusual or exceptional conditions followed by safe mode entry, reducing the window for exploitation of unchecked conditions. |
CP-3 | Contingency Training | CP | Training ensures users perform required checks for unusual or exceptional conditions as part of contingency roles, limiting attacker leverage from skipped validations. |
SI-13 | Predictable Failure Prevention | SI | MTTF determination forces explicit checks for conditions that precede predictable component failure. |
SI-6 | Security and Privacy Function Verification | SI | Anomaly detection and alerting implement checks for unusual conditions that would otherwise go unnoticed. |
AU-5 | Response to Audit Logging Process Failures | AU | Requires detection and response to audit logging failures as an unusual or exceptional condition. |
IR-3 | Incident Response Testing | IR | IR testing directly validates checks for unusual or exceptional conditions that could indicate security incidents. |
PM-31 | Continuous Monitoring Strategy | PM | Requires ongoing monitoring of organization-defined metrics and analysis, enabling checks for unusual or exceptional conditions. |
SA-11 | Developer Testing and Evaluation | SA | Security testing routinely checks for unusual or exceptional inputs/conditions, identifying missing validation steps that flaw remediation then resolves. |
SC-24 | Fail in Known State | SC | Requires detection of unusual conditions followed by a controlled transition to the defined failure state. |
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-2021-3560 KEV | 10.0 | 7.8 | 0.2219 | 2022-02-16 |
CVE-2023-41992 KEV | 10.0 | 7.8 | 0.0292 | 2023-09-21 |
CVE-2023-41993 KEV | 10.0 | 8.8 | 0.2918 | 2023-09-21 |
CVE-2024-3393 KEV | 10.0 | 7.5 | 0.2664 | 2024-12-27 |
CVE-2022-39288 | 8.0 | 7.5 | 0.5924 | 2022-10-10 |
CVE-2023-30591 | 8.0 | 7.5 | 0.5380 | 2023-09-29 |
CVE-2024-4367 | 8.0 | 8.8 | 0.7265 | 2024-05-14 |
CVE-2019-0036 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0097 | 2019-04-10 |
CVE-2019-15900 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0211 | 2019-10-18 |
CVE-2019-19646 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0538 | 2019-12-09 |
CVE-2020-10571 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0174 | 2020-03-14 |
CVE-2020-8986 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0154 | 2020-03-24 |
CVE-2020-15202 | 7.0 | 9.0 | 0.0123 | 2020-09-25 |
CVE-2020-28037 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0774 | 2020-11-02 |
CVE-2021-0211 | 7.0 | 10.0 | 0.0132 | 2021-01-15 |
CVE-2021-33622 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0126 | 2021-06-15 |
CVE-2022-20130 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0839 | 2022-06-15 |
CVE-2017-20166 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0128 | 2023-01-10 |
CVE-2023-37303 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0095 | 2023-06-30 |
CVE-2024-3729 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0081 | 2024-05-02 |
CVE-2024-7826 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0036 | 2024-10-03 |
CVE-2024-52316 | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0629 | 2024-11-18 |
CVE-2026-24054 | 7.0 | 10.0 | 0.0044 | 2026-01-29 |
CVE-2026-4689 UPD | 7.0 | 10.0 | 0.0066 | 2026-03-24 |
CVE-2026-8091 UPD | 7.0 | 9.8 | 0.0044 | 2026-05-07 |