CWE-655: Insufficient Psychological Acceptability

Source-backed guidance

Additional facts reviewed against primary or authoritative security sources.

Verify controls for CWE-655 with SSDF evidence

Use NIST SSDF verification and vulnerability-response practices to detect CWE-655, Insufficient Psychological Acceptability, throughout the product lifecycle. Derive review questions, static or dynamic checks, and negative tests from the CWE's causal behavior; define the components and lifecycle stages each check covers; and retain findings with enough evidence to distinguish the root cause from symptoms and impacts. Track escapes and false negatives, then improve the verification plan after every confirmed occurrence.

NIST SP 800-218 Secure Software Development Framework — National Institute of Standards and Technology

Address Insufficient Psychological Acceptability during Testing

MITRE associates mitigation with Testing, and Architecture and Design; recorded impacts include Bypass Protection Mechanism; related weaknesses include CWE-657, and CWE-693. Use these source-defined anchors to turn CWE-655 into implementation, review, and verification checks for the affected component.

CWE-655: Insufficient Psychological Acceptability — MITRE CWE

Triage CWE-655 against known exploitation evidence

Use CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog to test whether a vulnerability mapped to CWE-655, Insufficient Psychological Acceptability, has evidence of exploitation in the wild. Confirm the CVE-to-CWE root-cause mapping independently before attaching the example, then capture the affected product, required action, and remediation deadline. A missing KEV match is not evidence that the weakness is unexploited, and a KEV entry must not be generalized to every occurrence of this CWE.

Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog — Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Apply precise root-cause mapping to CWE-655

Apply MITRE's full root-cause mapping guidance when using CWE-655, Insufficient Psychological Acceptability. Separate weakness language from attacker prerequisites and technical impact, check the entry's abstraction and vulnerability-mapping notes, and prefer the most specific Base or Variant supported by the evidence. Record the rejected alternatives and require an independent review before the mapping is used for remediation trends or program metrics.

CVE to CWE Root Cause Mapping Guidance — MITRE CWE

Validate CWE-655 with root-cause mapping checks

Apply MITRE's root-cause mapping quick tips to CWE-655, Insufficient Psychological Acceptability. Confirm the finding describes the causal weakness rather than an impact or attack pattern, compare the abstraction and mapping notes with plausible alternatives, and have a second reviewer challenge the selection. Preserve the evidence and reasoning so recurring defects can be measured against one consistent identifier.

CVE to CWE Root Cause Mapping Quick Tips — MITRE CWE

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CWE-655: Insufficient Psychological Acceptability?+

CWE-655: Insufficient Psychological Acceptability is a Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) entry maintained by MITRE. The product has a protection mechanism that is too difficult or inconvenient to use, encouraging non-malicious users to disable or bypass the mechanism, whether by accident or on purpose.

What are the security consequences of Insufficient Psychological Acceptability?+

If exploited, CWE-655 (Insufficient Psychological Acceptability) it can compromise Access Control, leading to outcomes such as Bypass Protection Mechanism.

How do you prevent or mitigate Insufficient Psychological Acceptability?+

Recommended mitigations for CWE-655 include: Where possible, perform human factors and usability studies to identify where your product's security mechanisms are difficult to use, and why. Make the security mechanism as seamless as possible, while also providing the user with sufficient details when a security decision produces unexpected results.

Which programming languages are affected by Insufficient Psychological Acceptability?+

CWE-655 commonly affects Not Language-Specific. Note that weaknesses are often language-agnostic patterns, so secure coding practices apply broadly.

What is the difference between a CWE and a CVE?+

A CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) like CWE-655 describes a category of software weakness — the underlying flaw type. A CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) identifies a specific, real-world vulnerability in a particular product. In short, a CWE is the kind of mistake, and a CVE is an instance of that mistake being found in software.

CWE-655: Insufficient Psychological Acceptability

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