CWE-396 2 CVEs MITRE definition ↗

CWE-396: Declaration of Catch for Generic Exception

Overview

CWE-396 (Declaration of Catch for Generic Exception) documents a weakness type used across vulnerability databases and security assessments. Use the sections below for definition, context, and mapped CVEs.

Security impact
Security impact: Depends on product and context; use CVE records, severity scores, and MITRE guidance to prioritize.

Description

Catching overly broad exceptions promotes complex error handling code that is more likely to contain security vulnerabilities.

Applicable platforms

Kind Name Class Prevalence OS / CPE
language C++ Undetermined
language Java Undetermined
language C# Undetermined
language Python Undetermined

Related CVEs in this database

These CVEs are mapped to this weakness in this database and kept for traceability and search.

CVE Published Summary
CVE-2026-40149 2026-04-09 PraisonAI is a multi-agent teams system. Prior to 4.5.128, the gateway's /api/approval/allow-list endpoint permits unauthenticated modification of the tool approval allowlist when no auth_token is con…
CVE-2026-27482 2026-02-21 Ray is an AI compute engine. In versions 2.53.0 and below, thedashboard HTTP server blocks browser-origin POST/PUT but does not cover DELETE, and key DELETE endpoints are unauthenticated by default. I…

Previous names

  • Overly-Broad Catch Block (2008-04-11)

Content submission

Name
7 Pernicious Kingdoms
Date
2006-07-19
Version
Draft 3

Content modifications

Date Name Version Importance Comment
2008-07-01 Eric Dalci 1.0 updated Time_of_Introduction
2008-09-08 CWE Content Team 1.0 updated Applicable_Platforms, Relationships, Other_Notes, Taxonomy_Mappings
2008-09-24 CWE Content Team 1.1 Removed C from Applicable_Platforms
2008-10-14 CWE Content Team 1.0.1 updated Applicable_Platforms
2009-03-10 CWE Content Team 1.3 updated Relationships
2009-05-27 CWE Content Team 1.4 updated Demonstrative_Examples
2009-10-29 CWE Content Team 1.6 updated Description, Other_Notes
2011-06-01 CWE Content Team 1.13 updated Common_Consequences
2012-05-11 CWE Content Team 2.2 updated References, Relationships
2014-07-30 CWE Content Team 2.8 updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2019-01-03 CWE Content Team 3.2 updated References, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2020-02-24 CWE Content Team 4.0 updated References
2023-04-27 CWE Content Team 4.11 updated Applicable_Platforms, Description, Detection_Factors, Relationships, Time_of_Introduction
2023-06-29 CWE Content Team 4.12 updated Mapping_Notes
2025-04-03 CWE Content Team 4.17 updated Common_Consequences, Demonstrative_Examples
2025-12-11 CWE Content Team 4.19 updated Relationships, Weakness_Ordinalities

Contributions

Type Name Date Comment
Content Drew Buttner 2023-03-06 Suggested additional Applicable_Platforms and modification to extended description.
cvelogic Threat Intelligence