CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management

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Description

The product does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.

Extended Description

N/A

ThreatScore

Threat Mapped score: 0.0

Industry: Finiancial

Threat priority: Unclassified

Observed Examples (CVEs)

Related Attack Patterns (CAPEC)

Attack TTPs

Malware

Modes of Introduction

Phase Note
Architecture and Design N/A
Implementation REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.
Operation N/A

Common Consequences

Potential Mitigations

Applicable Platforms

Demonstrative Examples

Intro: This code temporarily raises the program's privileges to allow creation of a new user folder.

Body: While the program only raises its privilege level to create the folder and immediately lowers it again, if the call to os.mkdir() throws an exception, the call to lowerPrivileges() will not occur. As a result, the program is indefinitely operating in a raised privilege state, possibly allowing further exploitation to occur.

def makeNewUserDir(username): if invalidUsername(username): #avoid CWE-22 and CWE-78 print('Usernames cannot contain invalid characters') return False try: raisePrivileges() os.mkdir('/home/' + username) lowerPrivileges() except OSError: print('Unable to create new user directory for user:' + username) return False return True

Intro: The following example demonstrates the weakness.

seteuid(0); /* do some stuff */ seteuid(getuid());

Intro: The following example demonstrates the weakness.

AccessController.doPrivileged(new PrivilegedAction() { public Object run() { // privileged code goes here, for example: System.loadLibrary("awt"); return null; // nothing to return }

Intro: This code intends to allow only Administrators to print debug information about a system.

Body: While the intention was to only allow Administrators to print the debug information, the code as written only excludes those with the role of "GUEST". Someone with the role of "ADMIN" or "USER" will be allowed access, which goes against the original intent. An attacker may be able to use this debug information to craft an attack on the system.

public enum Roles { ADMIN,USER,GUEST } public void printDebugInfo(User requestingUser){ if(isAuthenticated(requestingUser)){ switch(requestingUser.role){ case GUEST: System.out.println("You are not authorized to perform this command"); break; default: System.out.println(currentDebugState()); break; } } else{ System.out.println("You must be logged in to perform this command"); } }

Intro: This code allows someone with the role of "ADMIN" or "OPERATOR" to reset a user's password. The role of "OPERATOR" is intended to have less privileges than an "ADMIN", but still be able to help users with small issues such as forgotten passwords.

Body: This code does not check the role of the user whose password is being reset. It is possible for an Operator to gain Admin privileges by resetting the password of an Admin account and taking control of that account.

public enum Roles { ADMIN,OPERATOR,USER,GUEST } public void resetPassword(User requestingUser, User user, String password ){ if(isAuthenticated(requestingUser)){ switch(requestingUser.role){ case GUEST: System.out.println("You are not authorized to perform this command"); break; case USER: System.out.println("You are not authorized to perform this command"); break; default: setPassword(user,password); break; } } else{ System.out.println("You must be logged in to perform this command"); } }

Notes

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