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: 09 May 2026 03:25 UTC
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. |
Top CVEs of this weakness type, ranked by Risk Priority
| CVE | Risk | CVSS | EPSS | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
CVE-2025-66602 | 2.0 | 9.8 | 0.0006 | 2026-02-09 |
CVE-2026-4252 | 2.0 | 9.8 | 0.0037 | 2026-03-16 |
CVE-2022-46415 | 1.9 | 9.1 | 0.0069 | 2023-03-27 |
CVE-2024-23309 | 1.8 | 9.0 | 0.0006 | 2024-10-30 |
CVE-2025-34202 | 1.8 | 8.8 | 0.0050 | 2025-09-19 |
CVE-2026-3690 | 1.5 | 7.4 | 0.0020 | 2026-04-11 |
CVE-2023-35906 | 1.1 | 5.3 | 0.0001 | 2023-09-05 |
CVE-2023-7211 | 1.1 | 5.6 | 0.0008 | 2024-01-07 |
CVE-2024-32765 | 0.8 | 4.2 | 0.0003 | 2024-08-12 |
CVE-2025-59101 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0004 | 2026-01-26 |