CWE-637 1 CVEs MITRE definition ↗

CWE-637: Unnecessary Complexity in Protection Mechanism (Not Using 'Economy of Mechanism')

Overview

CWE-637 (Unnecessary Complexity in Protection Mechanism (Not Using 'Economy of Mechanism')) 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

The product uses a more complex mechanism than necessary, which could lead to resultant weaknesses when the mechanism is not correctly understood, modeled, configured, implemented, or used.

Applicable platforms

Kind Name Class Prevalence OS / CPE
language — Not Language-Specific 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-2026-9058 2026-05-25 Szafir SDK returns a success status code from the cryptographic digital signature verification process (i.e. /VerifyingTaskItem/Signature/VerificationResult/Result/@code == 0, "Positively verified") e…

Previous names

  • Design Principle Violation: Not Using Economy of Mechanism (2009-01-12)
  • Failure to Use Economy of Mechanism (2010-12-13)

Content submission

Name
Pascal Meunier
Organization
Purdue University
Date
2008-01-18
Version
Draft 8

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 Description, Relationships, Weakness_Ordinalities
2009-01-12 CWE Content Team 1.2 — updated Description, Name
2010-12-13 CWE Content Team 1.11 — updated Name, Research_Gaps
2011-06-01 CWE Content Team 1.13 — updated Common_Consequences
2012-05-11 CWE Content Team 2.2 — updated Relationships
2012-10-30 CWE Content Team 2.3 — updated Potential_Mitigations
2014-07-30 CWE Content Team 2.8 — updated Relationships
2017-11-08 CWE Content Team 3.0 — updated Applicable_Platforms, Causal_Nature
2020-02-24 CWE Content Team 4.0 — updated Relationships
2022-10-13 CWE Content Team 4.9 — updated References
2023-01-31 CWE Content Team 4.10 — updated Description
2023-04-27 CWE Content Team 4.11 — updated References, Relationships
2023-06-29 CWE Content Team 4.12 — updated Mapping_Notes
2023-10-26 CWE Content Team 4.13 — updated Demonstrative_Examples
2025-04-03 CWE Content Team 4.17 — updated Mapping_Notes

Contributions

Type Name Date Comment
Feedback David Rothenberg 2024-09-13 Suggested changes to the mapping notes.
cvelogic Threat Intelligence