CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management Improper Privilege Management
Weakness ID: 269 (Weakness Base) Status: Incomplete
Description
Description Summary
The software does not properly assign, modify, track, or check privileges for an actor , creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.
Time of Introduction
Architecture and Design
Implementation
Operation
Common Consequences
Scope Effect Access Control
Technical Impact: Gain privileges / assume
identity
Likelihood of Exploit
Observed Examples
Reference Description CVE-2001-1555 Terminal privileges are not reset when a user logs
out. CVE-2001-1514 Does not properly pass security context to child
processes in certain cases, allows privilege
escalation. CVE-2001-0128 Does not properly compute
roles.
Potential Mitigations
Phases: Architecture and Design; Operation
Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of
privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
Phase: Architecture and Design
Strategy: Separation of Privilege
Follow the principle of least privilege when assigning access rights
to entities in a software system.
Phase: Architecture and Design
Strategy: Separation of Privilege
Consider following the principle of separation of privilege. Require
multiple conditions to be met before permitting access to a system
resource.
Weakness Ordinalities
Ordinality Description Primary
(where
the weakness exists independent of other weaknesses)
Relationships
Causal Nature
Taxonomy Mappings
Mapped Taxonomy Name Node ID Fit Mapped Node Name PLOVER Privilege Management Error
References
[REF-17] Michael Howard, David LeBlanc
and John Viega. "24 Deadly Sins of Software Security". "Sin 16: Executing Code With Too Much Privilege." Page
243. McGraw-Hill. 2010.
[REF-7] Mark Dowd, John McDonald
and Justin Schuh. "The Art of Software Security Assessment". Chapter 9, "Dropping Privileges Permanently", Page
479.. 1st Edition. Addison Wesley. 2006.
Maintenance Notes
The relationships between privileges, permissions, and actors (e.g. users and groups) need further refinement within the Research view. One complication is that these concepts apply to two different pillars, related to control of resources (CWE-664 ) and protection mechanism failures (CWE-396 ).
Content History
Submissions Submission Date Submitter Organization Source PLOVER Externally Mined Modifications Modification Date Modifier Organization Source 2008-07-01 Eric Dalci Cigital External updated Time_of_Introduction 2008-09-08 CWE Team Internal Moved this entry higher up in the Research
view. 2008-09-08 CWE Content Team MITRE Internal updated Description, Maintenance_Notes, Name,
Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings,
Weakness_Ordinalities 2009-05-27 CWE Content Team MITRE Internal updated Name 2009-12-28 CWE Content Team MITRE Internal updated Potential_Mitigations 2010-06-21 CWE Content Team MITRE Internal updated Potential_Mitigations 2011-03-29 CWE Content Team MITRE Internal updated Description, Relationships 2011-06-01 CWE Content Team MITRE Internal updated Common_Consequences 2012-05-11 CWE Content Team MITRE Internal updated References, Relationships 2012-10-30 CWE Content Team MITRE Internal updated Potential_Mitigations 2013-02-21 CWE Content Team MITRE Internal updated Potential_Mitigations Previous Entry Names Change Date Previous Entry
Name 2008-09-09 Privilege Management
Error 2009-05-27 Insecure Privilege
Management
Description
