The product exposes a resource to the wrong control sphere,
providing unintended actors with inappropriate access to the
resource.
Extended Description
Resources such as files and directories may be inadvertently exposed
through mechanisms such as insecure permissions, or when a program
accidentally operates on the wrong object. For example, a program may intend
that private files can only be provided to a specific user. This effectively
defines a control sphere that is intended to prevent attackers from
accessing these private files. If the file permissions are insecure, then
parties other than the user will be able to access those files.
A separate control sphere might effectively require that the user can only
access the private files, but not any other files on the system. If the
program does not ensure that the user is only requesting private files, then
the user might be able to access other files on the system.
In either case, the end result is that a resource has been exposed to the
wrong party.
A "control sphere" is a set of resources and behaviors that are accessible
to a single actor, or a group of actors. A product's security model will
typically define multiple spheres, possibly implicitly. For example, a
server might define one sphere for "administrators" who can create new user
accounts with subdirectories under /home/server/, and a second sphere might
cover the set of users who can create or delete files within their own
subdirectories. A third sphere might be "users who are authenticated to the
operating system on which the product is installed." Each sphere has
different sets of actors and allowable behaviors.
Description
