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Inappropriate coding practices - Cyclomatic complexity

Description​

The application has source code with high McCabe cyclomatic complexity, making the code difficult to understand and maintain, promoting the appearance of new security vulnerabilities and hindering their detection and solution.

Impact​

Promote the creation of security vulnerabilities

Recommendation​

Refactor the complex code by simplifying methods, subroutines or conditionals

Threat​

Authenticated attacker from the Internet with write access to the code.

Expected Remediation Time​

⌚ 30 minutes.

Score​

Default score using CVSS 3.1. It may change depending on the context of the vulnerability.

Base​

  • Attack vector: N
  • Attack complexity: H
  • Privileges required: H
  • User interaction: N
  • Scope: U
  • Confidentiality: N
  • Integrity: L
  • Availability: N

Temporal​

  • Exploit code madurity: P
  • Remediation level: X
  • Report confidence: X

Result​

  • Vector string: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N/E:P/RL:X/RC:X
  • Score:
    • Base: 2.2
    • Temporal: 2.1
  • Severity:
    • Base: Low
    • Temporal: Low

Code Examples​

Compliant code​

The application correctly implements coding principles to avoid high cyclomatic complexity within each function or class

public static void main(String[] args) {
  try {
    if(username.equals(username) && password.equals(password)){
      //Code to handle login
    }
  } catch (InterruptedException e) {
    //Code to catch exception when log in is not successful
  }
}

Non compliant code​

There are functionalities in the code high a cyclomatic complexity higher than recommended values

def thisFunction(**args):
  inputs...
  try...
    if...
      if...
        for i in...
          if...
            while...
              if...
              else if...
          else if...
            for...
              if...
              else...
          while...
        if...
          somefunction();
        else if...
          newfunction();
    else if...
  catch
    if...

Requirements​

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