CWE-768 1 CVEs MITRE definition ↗

CWE-768: Incorrect Short Circuit Evaluation

Overview

CWE-768 (Incorrect Short Circuit Evaluation) 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 contains a conditional statement with multiple logical expressions in which one of the non-leading expressions may produce side effects. This may lead to an unexpected state in the program after the execution of the conditional, because short-circuiting logic may prevent the side effects from occurring.

Applicable platforms

Kind Name Class Prevalence OS / CPE
language Not Language-Specific Undetermined
language C 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-2026-35378 2026-04-22 A logic error in the expr utility of uutils coreutils causes the program to evaluate parenthesized subexpressions during the parsing phase rather than at the execution phase. This implementation flaw …

Content submission

Name
CWE Content Team
Organization
MITRE
Date
2009-03-03
Version
1.4

Content modifications

Date Name Version Importance Comment
2010-09-27 CWE Content Team 1.10 updated Description
2011-09-13 CWE Content Team 2.1 updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2012-05-11 CWE Content Team 2.2 updated Relationships
2014-07-30 CWE Content Team 2.8 updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2017-11-08 CWE Content Team 3.0 updated Likelihood_of_Exploit, Taxonomy_Mappings
2020-02-24 CWE Content Team 4.0 updated Relationships
2023-01-31 CWE Content Team 4.10 updated Common_Consequences, Description
2023-04-27 CWE Content Team 4.11 updated Relationships
2023-06-29 CWE Content Team 4.12 updated Mapping_Notes
2023-10-26 CWE Content Team 4.13 updated Common_Consequences
2025-12-11 CWE Content Team 4.19 updated Applicable_Platforms, Detection_Factors, Weakness_Ordinalities
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