CWE-520: .NET Misconfiguration: Use of Impersonation
.NET Misconfiguration: Use of Impersonation
Weakness ID: 520 (Weakness Variant)
Status: Incomplete
Description
Description Summary
Allowing a .NET application to run at potentially escalated levels of access to the underlying operating and file systems can be dangerous and result in various forms of attacks.
Time of Introduction
Architecture and Design
Implementation
Operation
Common Consequences
Scope
Effect
Access Control
Technical Impact: Gain privileges / assume
identity
Potential Mitigations
Run the application with limited privilege to the underlying operating
and file system.
Other Notes
.NET server applications can optionally execute using the identity of the
user authenticated to the client. The intention of this functionality is to
bypass authentication and access control checks within the .NET application
code. Authentication is done by the underlying web server (Microsoft
Internet Information Service IIS), which passes the authenticated token, or
unauthenticated anonymous token, to the .NET application. Using the token to
impersonate the client, the application then relies on the settings within
the NTFS directories and files to control access. Impersonation enables the
application, on the server running the .NET application, to both execute
code and access resources in the context of the authenticated and authorized
user.
Description
