Rule Definition
Directly catching the Exception class means that the try/catch will process all the exceptions in the same way: "RuntimeException" will be processed in the same way as application specific exceptions such "BankingException" or "CredentialException". This will prevent the application from carrying out the specific recovery process that is needed and as a consequence will threaten both application robustness and security. For example, each exception related to resource allocation whose catch does not explicitly release the resource might create a "resource leak". When a leak occurs on a limited set of available resources, such as a database connection, the application can then become unusable because resources cannot be allocated any more. The application also becomes difficult to support and run in production as root-cause analysis is made more difficult. The support teams might not even be aware that something went wrong (by catching Exception, RuntimeException might not be visible any more).

Remediation
Always Subclass Exception and use the Sub classed Classes with appropriate and specific recovery code.

Violation Code Sample

try
{ ,,, }
catch (Exception /*e*/) // <= VIOLATION
{ ,,, }

Fixed Code Sample

try
{ ,,, }
catch (SpecificException /*e*/) 
{ ,,, }

Catching and Throwing Standard Exception Types http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229007(VS.80).aspx