CWE-324

Use of a Key Past its Expiration Date
AI Translation Available

The product uses a cryptographic key or password past its expiration date, which diminishes its safety significantly by increasing the timing window for cracking attacks against that key.

Status
draft
Abstraction
base
Likelihood
low

While the expiration of keys does not necessarily ensure that they are compromised, it is a significant concern that keys which remain in use for prolonged periods of time have a decreasing probability of integrity. For this reason, it is important to replace keys within a period of time proportional to their strength.

Common Consequences

access control
Impacts
bypass protection mechanism gain privileges or assume identity

Potential Mitigations

Phases:
architecture and design
Descriptions:
• Adequate consideration should be put in to the user interface in order to notify users previous to the key's expiration, to explain the importance of new key generation and to walk users through the process as painlessly as possible.