Update Cryptographic Language (e.g. "weak")

[sydseter]

This PR closes #3200.

This PR replaces imprecise “weak” terminology with more specific language (e.g., “predictable,” “broken,” “risky”), expands cryptographic guidance (e.g., forward-compliance, post-quantum, CBC-MAC pitfalls), and updates several titles, statuses, and references across weaknesses, tests, rules, demos, and documentation.

• Refinement of terminology and titles to improve clarity and precision
• Addition of detailed overviews, impacts, modes of introduction, and mitigations for various crypto weaknesses
• Alignment of tests, rules, and demos to use the updated terminology

---

New terminology:

• Insufficient:
  A protection or behavior exists but does not meet required strength or standards.
  Used for things that vary on a sliding scale like key length, entropy, iteration counts.
  “It’s there but not enough.”

• Missing:
  A required protection or behavior is entirely absent.
  Used for things like missing HMAC, salt, certificate validation.
  “It’s not there at all.”

• Incorrect:
  A protection is implemented, but done improperly.
  Used for logic flaws, misuse of cryptographic operations, or broken error handling.
  “It’s there but it’s wrong.”

• Broken:
  The cryptographic primitive or mode is fundamentally insecure due to known attacks, regardless of implementation (e.g. disallowed or deprecated by NIST).
  Example: SHA-1, ECB mode.

• Improper:
  A broad term used to cover missing, insufficient, or incorrect behavior.
  Acts as a wrapper for multiple failure types.

• Risky:
  A configuration or usage is not formally disallowed (e.g. by NIST) but has reduced safety margins or known weaknesses under some conditions.
  Example: AES-CBC with PKCS#7, RSA PKCS#1 v1.5.

• Weak (DO NOT USE):
  Ambiguous term discouraged in precise taxonomies.
  Avoid using it, as it can mean both broken or risky.

Here's how it applies to this PR:

Term	Used In	Applied To	Examples
Insufficient	Demo titles, Test titles	Key size, Key length	Cryptographic Key Generation With Insufficient Key Length Uses of Insufficient Key Size in SecKeyCreateRandomKey Insufficient Key Sizes (tests)
Broken	Demo titles, Test titles	Hashing algorithms, Encryption algorithms, Modes of operation	Uses of Broken Hashing Algorithms in CommonCrypto Broken Symmetric Encryption Algorithms Broken Encryption Modes
Improper	Weakness titles	Catch-all for missing, incorrect, or insufficient implementation	Improper Encryption Improper Cryptographic Key Generation Improper Hashing
Missing	Not yet used in titles	—	—
Incorrect	Not yet used in titles	—	—
Risky	Not yet used in titles	—	—

Here's a summary of how I applied them to the specific components in this PR:

• MASWE-0009: Improper Cryptographic Key Generation

  • MASTG-TEST-0208: Insufficient Key Sizes

    • MASTG-DEMO-0012: Cryptographic Key Generation With Insufficient Key Length

  • MASTG-TEST-0209: Insufficient Key Sizes

    • MASTG-DEMO-0011: Uses of Insufficient Key Size in SecKeyCreateRandomKey with r2

• MASWE-0010: Improper Cryptographic Key Derivation

• MASWE-0019: Risky Cryptography Implementations

• MASWE-0020: Improper Encryption

  • MASTG-TEST-0221: Broken Symmetric Encryption Algorithms

    • MASTG-DEMO-0022: Uses of Broken Symmetric Encryption Algorithms in Cipher with semgrep

  • MASTG-TEST-0232: Broken Symmetric Encryption Modes

    • MASTG-DEMO-0023: Uses of Broken Encryption Modes in Cipher with semgrep

  • MASTG-TEST-0210: Broken Symmetric Encryption Algorithms

    • MASTG-DEMO-0018: Uses of Broken Encryption Algorithms in CommonCrypto with r2

• MASWE-0021: Improper Hashing

  • MASTG-TEST-0211: Broken Hashing Algorithms

    • MASTG-DEMO-0015: Uses of Broken Hashing Algorithms in CommonCrypto with r2
    • MASTG-DEMO-0016: Uses of Broken Hashing Algorithms in CryptoKit with r2

• MASWE-0023: Risky Padding

• MASWE-0024: Improper Use of Message Authentication Code (MAC)

• MASWE-0025: Improper Generation of Cryptographic Signatures

• MASWE-0027: Improper Random Number Generation

---

Other changes include:

• Addition concerning Symmetric encryption.
• Additional advice on forward compliance with NIST.
• Additional recommendation on the use of EdDSA with Edwards448.
• Post-Quantum recommendations.
• Additional recommendations concerning the use of a key-derivation key.
• CSPRNG alignment with ASVS.
• Additional recommendation when using CBC with MAC.
• Attack related to CBC-MAC.
• MASWE-0023:
  • Added RFC 4055 reference recommending RSASSA-PSS for signatures
  • Expanded on RFC 8017 and NIST SP 800-131A deprecation details
  • Refined wording around Bleichenbacher’s padding-oracle attack

[sydseter]

@cpholguera What do you do with external links that return HTTP status 403 or 0, but that can be reached by human browsing?

[sydseter]

I am leaving the internal links as they are. It's ok to use the word "weak" as a general term when talking about a category of issues. My reaction and corrections is meant to make it more specific as to what we are talking about when we are referring to cryptographic concepts. A padding scheme can be predictable, the bit-size of an algorithm insufficient, input validation and crypto configuration, inappropriate or improper and so on.
I think it is better to rename the links as more MASWE gets defined. As I see it now, it isn't very problematic to leave it as it is.

[sydseter]

There is something not working with the MASTG-DEMO tests. The moment I started touching them, the matrix broke. So I am leaving them aside.

[cpholguera]

@cpholguera What do you do with external links that return HTTP status 403 or 0, but that can be reached by human browsing?

Is this about the GitHub action failing? You can add them to https://github.com/OWASP/owasp-mastg/blob/master/.github/workflows/config/url-checker-config.json

[cpholguera]

There is something not working with the MASTG-DEMO tests. The moment I started touching them, the matrix broke. So I am leaving them aside.

I just fixed the matrix. If you git pull origin master it should be fine again. Thanks for letting me know!

[cpholguera]

Just a quick first pass for now, thanks a lot @sydseter!

[cpholguera]

Idea: maybe we could also build a glossary for these and other terms.

See:

• https://cwe.mitre.org/documents/glossary/index.html#Insufficient
• https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary