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Home/CWEs/CWE-836
Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-836: Use of Password Hash Instead of Password for Authentication

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The product records password hashes in a data store, receives a hash of a password from a client, and compares the supplied hash to the hash obtained from the data store.

Abstraction
Base
Related CVEs
0

▪References & documentation

MITRE CWE definitionNVD CWE listing

▪ How attackers exploit CWE-836

MITRE ATT&CK techniques associated with this weakness class (mapped via MITRE CAPEC). A vulnerability of this type could let an adversary carry out:

T1078Valid Accountsstealth · persistence · privilege-escalation · initial-accessT1550Use Alternate Authentication Materiallateral-movementT1558Steal or Forge Kerberos Ticketscredential-access

Step-by-step: how CWE-836 gets exploited

A stage-by-stage walkthrough of the attack, mapped to the real MITRE ATT&CK tactics for this weakness — what the attacker is trying to do, what's at risk (what can be stolen or damaged), and how you defend. Understanding the playbook is how you shut it down.

  1. 1
    Initial accessinitial-access

    Use the weakness as the way in — the first foothold on the system.

    At risk / what's stolen

▪ Related CVEs

No CVEs in the Gold index currently reference CWE-836. New matches appear here as the crawler indexes them.

The vulnerable entry point (an input, endpoint, or dependency) that accepts attacker-controlled data.

How you defend

Validate and sanitise all input at the boundary; patch to a fixed version.

  • 2
    Persistencepersistence

    Stay in even after reboots, patches, or credential changes.

    At risk / what's stolen

    Startup hooks, scheduled tasks, config, and accounts the attacker can plant a backdoor in.

    How you defend

    Integrity monitoring of code, config, and scheduled tasks; short-lived credentials.

  • 3
    Privilege escalationprivilege-escalation

    Gain higher privileges — from a limited account to admin/root.

    At risk / what's stolen

    Over-permissioned services, weak file/permission boundaries, and setuid paths.

    How you defend

    Drop privileges, enforce least privilege, and lock down file permissions.

  • 4
    Credential accesscredential-access

    Steal passwords, tokens, keys, and session material.

    At risk / what's stolen

    Passwords, API keys, session tokens, SSH/TLS keys, and secrets in memory, env, or config.

    How you defend

    Secret managers, short-lived tokens, and no secrets in code/env/logs.

  • 5
    Lateral movementlateral-movement

    Pivot from the compromised system to others on the network.

    At risk / what's stolen

    Adjacent servers, databases, and internal services reachable from the foothold.

    How you defend

    Segmentation, per-service auth, and blocking reused credentials across systems.

  • This is a defensive, conceptual walkthrough for education — stages reflect MITRE ATT&CK tactics associated with this weakness class, not a working exploit. Not every attack uses every stage.