flawfinder.1: Minor text cleanup about CWEs

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David A. Wheeler 2014-07-13 13:30:29 -04:00
parent ba451aceb7
commit e97d0e6c18
1 changed files with 11 additions and 15 deletions

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@ -694,30 +694,27 @@ of compilation error messages.
.SH COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATION (CWE)
.PP
The Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)
is "a formal list or dictionary of common software weaknesses
is ``a formal list or dictionary of common software weaknesses
that can occur in software's architecture, design, code or implementation
that can lead to exploitable security vulnerabilities [that]
was created to serve as a common language for
describing software security weaknesses"
describing software security weaknesses''
(http://cwe.mitre.org/about/faq.html).
For more information on CWEs, see http://cwe.mitre.org.
.PP
Flawfinder supports CWE.
Hit descriptions typically a relevant
Flawfinder supports the CWE.
Hit descriptions typically include a relevant
Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) identifier in parentheses
where there is known to be a relevant CWE.
For example, many of the buffer-related hits mention
CWE-120, the CWE identifier for
``buffer copy without checking size of input''
(aka ``Classic Buffer Overflow'').
Flawfinder is designed to meet the CWE-Output requirement.
CWE version 2.7 (released June 23, 2014) was used for the mapping.
In this way, flawfinder is designed to meet the CWE-Output requirement.
Note that many of these CWEs are identified in the CWE/SANS top 25 list
(http://cwe.mitre.org/top25/).
.PP
.PP
Flawfinder can report on the following CWEs
(these are the CWEs that flawfinder covers):
@ -735,17 +732,16 @@ CWE-676
CWE-732
CWE-807
CWE-829.
CWE version 2.7 (released June 23, 2014) was used for the mapping.
.PP
Flawfinder may fail to find a
vulnerability, even if the vulnerability
is covered by one of these CWE weaknesses listed above.
Flawfinder may fail to find a vulnerability, even if flawfinder covers
one of these CWE weaknesses listed above.
That said, flawfinder does find vulnerabilities listed by the CWEs it covers,
and it will not report lines without those vulnerabilities in many cases.
Thus, flawfinder has a rate of false positives less than 100%,
and a rate of false negatives less than 100%, as required for
any tool intending to be CWE compatible.
Thus, as required for any tool intending to be CWE compatible,
flawfinder has a rate of false positives less than 100%
and a rate of false negatives less than 100%.
.PP
You can select a specific subset of CWEs to report by using