CWE-287: Improper Authentication

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Description

When an actor claims to have a given identity, the product does not prove or insufficiently proves that the claim is correct.

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

APTs (Intrusion Sets)

Modes of Introduction

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

Common Consequences

Potential Mitigations

Applicable Platforms

Demonstrative Examples

Intro: The following code intends to ensure that the user is already logged in. If not, the code performs authentication with the user-provided username and password. If successful, it sets the loggedin and user cookies to "remember" that the user has already logged in. Finally, the code performs administrator tasks if the logged-in user has the "Administrator" username, as recorded in the user cookie.

Body: Unfortunately, this code can be bypassed. The attacker can set the cookies independently so that the code does not check the username and password. The attacker could do this with an HTTP request containing headers such as:

my $q = new CGI; if ($q->cookie('loggedin') ne "true") { if (! AuthenticateUser($q->param('username'), $q->param('password'))) { ExitError("Error: you need to log in first"); } else { # Set loggedin and user cookies. $q->cookie( -name => 'loggedin', -value => 'true' ); $q->cookie( -name => 'user', -value => $q->param('username') ); } } if ($q->cookie('user') eq "Administrator") { DoAdministratorTasks(); }

Intro: In January 2009, an attacker was able to gain administrator access to a Twitter server because the server did not restrict the number of login attempts [REF-236]. The attacker targeted a member of Twitter's support team and was able to successfully guess the member's password using a brute force attack by guessing a large number of common words. After gaining access as the member of the support staff, the attacker used the administrator panel to gain access to 33 accounts that belonged to celebrities and politicians. Ultimately, fake Twitter messages were sent that appeared to come from the compromised accounts.

Intro: In 2022, the OT:ICEFALL study examined products by 10 different Operational Technology (OT) vendors. The researchers reported 56 vulnerabilities and said that the products were "insecure by design" [REF-1283]. If exploited, these vulnerabilities often allowed adversaries to change how the products operated, ranging from denial of service to changing the code that the products executed. Since these products were often used in industries such as power, electrical, water, and others, there could even be safety implications.

Body: Multiple vendors did not use any authentication or used client-side authentication for critical functionality in their OT products.

Notes

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