CWE WEAKNESSES  /  CWE-835

CWE-835

Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')

What it is

The product contains an iteration or loop with an exit condition that cannot be reached, i.e., an infinite loop.

Impact

Real-world CVE examples

• CVE-2025-32399 — Chain: library for implementing Profinet devices does not check an input for a loop condition (CWE-606), allowing an infinite loop (CWE-835) via a crafted RPC p
• CVE-2022-22224 — Chain: an operating system does not properly process malformed Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Type/Length/Value Identifiers (TLV) (CWE-703), which can cause th
• CVE-2022-25304 — A Python machine communication platform did not account for receiving a malformed packet with a null size, causing the receiving function to never update the me
• CVE-2011-1027 — Chain: off-by-one error (CWE-193) leads to infinite loop (CWE-835) using invalid hex-encoded characters.
• CVE-2011-1142 — Chain: self-referential values in recursive definitions lead to infinite loop.
• CVE-2011-1002 — NULL UDP packet is never cleared from a queue, leading to infinite loop.
• CVE-2006-6499 — Chain: web browser crashes due to infinite loop - "bad looping logic [that relies on] floating point math [CWE-1339] to exit the loop [CWE-835]"
• CVE-2010-4476 — Floating point conversion routine cycles back and forth between two different values.
• CVE-2010-4645 — Floating point conversion routine cycles back and forth between two different values.
• CVE-2010-2534 — Chain: improperly clearing a pointer in a linked list leads to infinite loop.
• CVE-2013-1591 — Chain: an integer overflow (CWE-190) in the image size calculation causes an infinite loop (CWE-835) which sequentially allocates buffers without limits (CWE-13
• CVE-2008-3688 — Chain: A denial of service may be caused by an uninitialized variable (CWE-457) allowing an infinite loop (CWE-835) resulting from a connection to an unresponsi

Related weaknesses

Source: MITRE CWE. View on cwe.mitre.org →