Time after time, we’ve seen breaches caused not by a lack of cryptography—but by doing it wrong. This proves the point that encryption is only as strong as its implementation. Things can go wrong when cryptographic standards are ignored or poorly applied, leaving long-term consequences for user privacy, compliance, and organizational trust.
Cryptographic failures taking the second spot in the OWASP list highlights how serious the issue is, especially when it was not part of the previous OWASP Top 10 list in 2017.
Read more on OWASP Top 10 Security Risks
This blog dives deeper to explain the cryptographic failures, causes, prevention & best practices for mitigation of cryptographic failure risks.
Understanding Cryptographic Failures
OWASP explains it as weaknesses in encryption design, implementation, or key management. This may occur due to multiple reasons like inadequate key management, weak encryption, or incorrect application of cryptographic methods.
Notable CWEs include:
- CWE-259 (hard-coded passwords)
- CWE-327 (broken or weak cryptographic algorithms)
- CWE-331 (insufficient entropy)
According to OWASP, cryptographic failures had a maximum incidence rate of 46.44% out of 233,788 recorded occurrences.
Types of Cryptographic Failures
Cryptographic failures can be broadly categorized into three categories:
Cryptographic design flaws
Cryptographic design flaws occur due to inherent weaknesses in encryption algorithms or protocols. For example, using outdated encryption algorithms like MD5 or SHA-1 can give predictable outputs, resulting in cryptographic protocols, such as weak SSL/TLS versions.
Errors in implementation
When cryptographic mechanisms are incorrectly applied in software or hardware, such as improper padding schemes. It makes systems susceptible to side-channel vulnerabilities.
Key management issues
These failures often stem from poor key handling, which can undermine even strong cryptographic systems. It can even undermine even the most robust cryptographic systems.
Common Causes of Cryptographic Failures
Below, we have presented a list of reasons for cryptographic failures:
Weak Encryption Algorithms
Encryption algorithms like DES or MD5 have become outdated. They’re no longer secure as hackers can easily decrypt these algorithms. Experts suggest transitioning to more robust algorithms like AES-256.
Using Deprecated Cryptographic Padding Methods
Using deprecated padding methods like PKCS#1 v1.5, can result in attacks like padding Oracle attacks. Such methods have become obsolete. Implementing modern padding standards, such as OAEP, can mitigate cryptographic failure risks significantly.
Side Channel Attack Vulnerabilities
Cybercriminals can exploit physical or operational characteristics of a system, like power consumption or timing, to extract cryptographic keys. Preventing these vulnerabilities requires secure hardware design.
Outdated Protocols
Using outdated versions of TLS can be susceptible to interception and tampering as these protocols lack the capability to secure data-in-transit.
Insecure Storage Practices
Storing cryptographic keys in plaintext or unprotected files makes them easy targets for attackers. As a result, the entire encryption ecosystem becomes vulnerable.
Lack of Encryption
Failing to encrypt sensitive data, whether at rest or in transit, leaves it exposed to unauthorized access.
Hardcoded Keys
Embedding cryptographic keys directly in the source code or configuration files is a risky practice. If hackers discover them, they can easily decrypt encrypted information, pretending to be an authorized user. This renders your encryption useless.
Inconsistent Key Rotation Practices
Infrequent or irregular key rotation increases the risk of key compromise. For threat actors, it may provide an opportunity to decrypt sensitive data. Attackers gain extended access to decrypt sensitive information.
Poor Session Management
Weak session management, such as using predictable session IDs or failing to invalidate sessions after logout, can lead to session hijacking. Threat actors can decrypt data, impersonate users, undermining cryptographic security.
Ignoring Initialization Vectors (IVs)
The purpose of IVs is to make sure identical plaintexts are encrypted to different ciphertexts. The lack of unique IV for each encryption, can help in analyzing ciphertexts to infer plaintext patterns. Additionally, reusing IVs can also expose encryption keys over time.
Using Deprecated Hash Functions
Using legacy hash functions like SHA-1 can compromise data integrity and authenticity. Security experts need to adopt stronger hash functions, such as SHA-256 or SHA-3 that ensures data integrity and resistance to such attacks.
Insufficient Entropy
From the code snippet given below, you can easily see the user ID is predictable (e.g., it might be an incremental integer or a known value). Example Language: PHP
function generateSessionID($userID){
srand($userID);
return rand();
}If the seed is fixed for each user ID, the system generates the same session ID every time. This makes session values predictable.
Learn more about the insufficient entropy
Use of Weak Hash
Weak hash functions, especially when used in insecure contexts like unsalted password storage, allow attackers to exploit vulnerabilities. For example, unsalted hashes (e.g., MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2) can enable rainbow table attacks, where adversaries can reverse-engineer passwords. Proper usage of cryptographically secure hashes is essential to prevent such exploits.
Business Risks of Cryptographic Failures on Organizations
With an average incidence rate of 4.49% and average weighted impact of 6.81%, cryptographic failures underscores the necessity for robust cryptographic practices in securing sensitive data against evolving threats.Organizations can face regulatory fines, loss of customer trust, and remediation costs as a result of cryptographic failures.
Real-World Incidents of Cryptographic Failures
Real-world incidents show how such failures can lead to major data breaches and security breakdowns:
Example #1: Heartbleed vulnerability
In 2014, the Heartbleed bug in OpenSSL exposed a cryptographic vulnerability in TLS. Attackers used this security loophole to steal private keys, credentials, and other sensitive data.
Example # 2: Equifax breach
The Equifax breach happened because of several security gaps, including poor cryptographic practices. Attackers got in through an unpatched vulnerability in a web application. It exposed millions of Social Security data.
Example Attack Scenarios of Cryptographic Failures
Scenario # 1: SQL injection exposes encrypted data
An app encrypts credit card details using built-in database features. But due to a SQL injection flaw, an attacker can still run custom queries, retrieve the encrypted data, and then decrypt it.
Scenario # 2: No TLS enforcement leads to session hijacking
If a site doesn’t force HTTPS on every page, attackers on public Wi-Fi can downgrade the connection to HTTP. They can intercept requests, steal user’s session cookies, and take over the logged-in session.
Scenario # 3: Weak hashes put passwords at risk
If passwords are stored using unsalted or fast hashes, attackers can download the hash file and crack it offline.
Methods for Identifying Cryptographic Failure
Automated Vulnerability Analysis
It involves identifying weaknesses in cryptographic systems using automated API scanners. These tools search for hardcoded keys, weak API keys, and poorly built random number generators. They can also help in proactively identifying security issues, such as improper encryption settings or inappropriate certificate validation.
Frequent Security Audit
Regular security audits allow auditors to review everything in detail, from how keys are generated, stored, and retired, to whether encryption methods meet required standards. They also examine certificate management, infrastructure setup, and API documentation to ensure everything is secure and properly maintained.
Penetration Testing
This is a simulated attack where ethical hackers try to find vulnerabilities in cryptographic systems. They look for security vulnerabilities, such as weak encryption settings, flawed certificate validation, or poor error handling. This helps detect real-world issues that automated tools may miss.
Monitor Error Messages
Sometimes, error messages can leak sensitive details from cryptographic systems. Monitoring these messages helps ensure they don’t reveal information that attackers could exploit.
Best Practices for Preventing Cryptographic Failures
1. Classify and minimize sensitive data storage
- Identify and categorize data based on sensitivity (e.g., PII, financial data).
- Store only what’s necessary for business operations.
- Regularly audit data repositories and delete outdated or unnecessary information.
- Implement data retention policies to limit storage duration.
- Use data masking or tokenization to further protect sensitive fields.
2. Use strong encryption and proper key management
- Encrypt sensitive data-at-rest using robust algorithms like AES-256.
- Securely manage encryption keys using hardware security modules (HSMs) or key management services (KMS).
- Rotate keys periodically and ensure access is restricted to authorized personnel.
- Avoid hardcoding keys in code or storing them in plaintext.
Proper key management ensures data remains secure even if other defenses are breached, maintaining confidentiality and integrity.
3. Encrypt data-in-transit with secure protocols
Encrypting data-in-transit protects information from interception, ensuring secure communication between clients, servers, and APIs.
- Avoid outdated protocols like SSL or TLS 1.0, which are vulnerable to attacks.
- Encrypt all data in transit with secure protocols such as TLS with forward secrecy (FS) ciphers.
- Implement perfect forward secrecy (PFS) to ensure session keys are not compromised.
4. Store passwords using strong hashing functions
Proper password storage ensures user credentials remain secure even if the database is compromised.
- Use hash passwords with algorithms like bcrypt, Argon2, or PBKDF2, which are designed to resist brute-force attacks.
- Always use unique, random salts for each password to prevent rainbow table attacks.
- Avoid weak hashing methods like MD5 or SHA-1.
- Implement rate limiting and account lockout mechanisms to further protect against credential stuffing.
5. Ensure cryptographic randomness with high entropy sources
- Use cryptographically secure random number generators for generating keys, salts, and nonces.
- Avoid predictable sources like system time or simple random functions. High entropy ensures randomness, making it difficult for attackers to guess or replicate cryptographic values.
- Regularly test and validate randomness sources to maintain security. This is critical for creating secure tokens, session IDs, and encryption keys.
6. Avoid deprecated cryptographic algorithms and padding schemes
- Avoid using outdated algorithms like DES, RC4, or SHA-1, which are vulnerable to attacks.
- Use modern, vetted algorithms like AES, RSA (with proper key sizes), and SHA-256.
- Regularly update cryptographic libraries and follow industry best practices to ensure robust protection against evolving threats.
7. Test for paddling oracle
Padding oracle enables cybercriminals to decrypt the encrypted arbitrary data without knowledge of the key used for these cryptographic operations. It may leak sensitive business data, or cause privilege escalation vulnerabilities.
Conclusion
The modern digital environment is replete with challenging threats like cryptographic failures, which can expose business-critical data to threat actors for exploitation. As organizations increasingly rely on digital systems to store and transmit sensitive information, preventing such threats becomes a necessity to ensure compliance and maintain customer’s trust in the brand. Ignoring cryptographic failures can be risky for businesses. Contact us now to see how SecureLayer7 can help deal with such challenges.
Reference resources:
Cryptographic Storage – OWASP Cheat Sheet Series
A02 Cryptographic Failures – OWASP Top 10:2021
OWASP Top 10: The Risk of Cryptographic Failures | HackerOne
