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CWE CATEGORY: General Software Weaknesses that Appear in Products that Use or Support AI/ML Technology

Category ID: 1447
Vulnerability Mapping: PROHIBITED This CWE ID must not be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities
+ Summary
This category lists general software weaknesses in software that insecurely uses AI/ML components, but frequently appear in many kinds of software products that do not use AI/ML.
+ Membership
Nature Type ID Name
MemberOf ViewView - a subset of CWE entries that provides a way of examining CWE content. The two main view structures are Slices (flat lists) and Graphs (containing relationships between entries). 1448 Weaknesses Related to AI/ML Products
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory ('Path Traversal')
HasMember ClassClass - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource. 77 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command ('Command Injection')
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection')
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation ('Cross-site Scripting')
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 94 Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection')
HasMember VariantVariant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 95 Improper Neutralization of Directives in Dynamically Evaluated Code ('Eval Injection')
HasMember ClassClass - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource. 116 Improper Encoding or Escaping of Output
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 250 Execution with Unnecessary Privileges
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 434 Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 502 Deserialization of Untrusted Data
HasMember ClassClass - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource. 862 Missing Authorization
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 918 Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 1336 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements Used in a Template Engine
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 1426 Improper Validation of Generative AI Output
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 1427 Improper Neutralization of Input Used for LLM Prompting
HasMember BaseBase - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 1434 Insecure Setting of Generative AI/ML Model Inference Parameters
+ Vulnerability Mapping Notes

Usage: PROHIBITED

(this CWE ID must not be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities)

Reasons: Category, Frequent Misuse

Rationale:

This entry is a Category. Using categories for mapping has been discouraged since 2019. Categories are informal organizational groupings of weaknesses that can help CWE users with data aggregation, navigation, and browsing. However, they are not weaknesses in themselves.

Comments:

CWE users might be tempted to use this CWE for mapping, but it is a category (see Reasons). Mappers should consider whether a weakness is unique to AI/ML (in which case a high-level Pillar or class might still apply), or if it is a general software weakness that happens to appear in AI/ML related software.
+ Notes

Research Gap

As of CWE 4.20, it is still difficult to distinguish common AI/ML related attacks from the underlying weaknesses. The CWE AI Working Group has had many discussions about this general topic. Much of the latest research has focused on the attacks, and/or characterizing the underlying design and implementation of AI/ML related systems. From a CWE perspective, the distinction between "control" and "data" is not necessarily as deep as currently considered within the AI/ML community, since most weaknesses are characterized in terms of potentially insecure "behavior" - whether that behavior occurred due to design, insecure code, insecure configuration, or data-driven behaviors such as AI/ML. Since AI/ML is frequently derived from repositories of software that consume AI/ML components - many public reports of AI/ML vulnerabilities ultimately result from commonly-occurring weaknesses that appear in most kinds of software. There are several weakness-focused research efforts within the industry, but these efforts are still in the early stages.

Maintenance

This category is likely to be updated frequently in future versions. See Research Gaps.
+ References
[REF-1522] Christine Lai and Jonathan Spring. "Software Must Be Secure by Design, and Artificial Intelligence Is No Exception". US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. 2023-08-18. <https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/software-must-be-secure-design-and-artificial-intelligence-no-exception>. URL validated: 2026-04-27.
[REF-1523] Jonathan Spring. "AI Systems Are Software Systems". US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. 2023-08-18. <https://www.first.org/conference/vulncon26/program#pAI-Systems-Are-Software-Systems>. URL validated: 2026-04-27.
[REF-1525] CVE Program. "CVE ID Assignment and CVE Record Publication for AI-Related Vulnerabilities". <https://www.cve.org/Media/News/item/blog/2025/02/18/CVE-ID-CVE-Record-AIrelated-Vulnerabilities>. URL validated: 2026-04-28.
+ Content History
+ Submissions
Submission Date Submitter Organization
2026-04-27
(CWE 4.20, 2026-04-30) 		CWE Content Team MITRE
Page Last Updated: April 30, 2026
 

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