The product violates the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) specification by using the class loader.
The Enterprise JavaBeans specification requires that every bean provider follow a set of programming guidelines designed to ensure that the bean will be portable and behave consistently in any EJB container. In this case, the product violates the following EJB guideline: "The enterprise bean must not attempt to create a class loader; obtain the current class loader; set the context class loader; set security manager; create a new security manager; stop the JVM; or change the input, output, and error streams." The specification justifies this requirement in the following way: "These functions are reserved for the EJB container. Allowing the enterprise bean to use these functions could compromise security and decrease the container's ability to properly manage the runtime environment."

Primary

Implementation

Confidentiality
Integrity
Availability
Other
Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
Varies by Context

Architecture and Design
Implementation
Do not use the Class Loader when writing EJBs.

The following Java example is a simple stateless Enterprise JavaBean that retrieves the interest rate for the number of points for a mortgage. The interest rates for various points are retrieved from an XML document on the local file system, and the EJB uses the Class Loader for the EJB class to obtain the XML document from the local file system as an input stream.

@Statelesspublic class InterestRateBean implements InterestRateRemote {

private Document interestRateXMLDocument = null;
public InterestRateBean() {
try {

// get XML document from the local filesystem as an input stream

// using the ClassLoader for this class
ClassLoader loader = this.getClass().getClassLoader();InputStream in = loader.getResourceAsStream(Constants.INTEREST_RATE_FILE);

DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();interestRateXMLDocument = db.parse(interestRateFile);} catch (IOException ex) {...}
}

public BigDecimal getInterestRate(Integer points) {return getInterestRateFromXML(points);}

/* member function to retrieve interest rate from XML document on the local file system */

private BigDecimal getInterestRateFromXML(Integer points) {...}
}

This use of the Java Class Loader class within any kind of Enterprise JavaBean violates the restriction of the EJB specification against obtaining the current class loader as this could compromise the security of the application using the EJB.

An EJB is also restricted from creating a custom class loader and creating a class and instance of a class from the class loader, as shown in the following example.

@Statelesspublic class LoaderSessionBean implements LoaderSessionRemote {

public LoaderSessionBean() {try {ClassLoader loader = new CustomClassLoader();Class c = loader.loadClass("someClass");Object obj = c.newInstance();/* perform some task that uses the new class instance member variables or functions */...} catch (Exception ex) {...}}
public class CustomClassLoader extends ClassLoader {
}
}

SFP3
Use of an improper API

Allowed
This CWE entry is at the Variant level of abstraction, which is a preferred level of abstraction for mapping to the root causes of vulnerabilities.
Carefully read both the name and description to ensure that this mapping is an appropriate fit. Do not try to 'force' a mapping to a lower-level Base/Variant simply to comply with this preferred level of abstraction.

CWE Community
2006-12-15
Draft 5
2006-12-15
Submitted by members of the CWE community to extend early CWE versions

Eric Dalci
Cigital
2008-07-01
updated Potential_Mitigations, Time_of_Introduction

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2008-09-08
updated Relationships, Other_Notes

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-10-29
updated Description, Other_Notes

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-12-28
updated Demonstrative_Examples, Potential_Mitigations

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-06-01
updated Common_Consequences

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-06-27
updated Common_Consequences

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2012-05-11
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2014-07-30
updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2020-02-24
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-01-31
updated Description

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-04-27
updated Relationships, Time_of_Introduction

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-06-29
updated Mapping_Notes

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2025-12-11
4.19
2025-12-11
updated Weakness_Ordinalities