Compound Element ID: 689 (Compound Element Base: Composite)
Status: Draft
Description
Description Summary
The product, while copying or cloning a resource, does not set
the resource's permissions or access control until the copy is complete, leaving
the resource exposed to other spheres while the copy is taking
place.
database product creates files world-writable
before initializing the setuid bits, leading to modification of
executables.
Other Notes
This is a general issue, although few subtypes are currently known. The
most common examples occur in file archive extraction, in which the product
begins the extraction with insecure default permissions, then only sets the
final permissions (as specified in the archive) once the copy is complete.
The larger the archive, the larger the timing window for the race condition.
This weakness has also occurred in some operating system utilities that
perform copies of deeply nested directories containing a large number of
files.
Weakness Ordinalities
Ordinality
Description
Primary
(where the
weakness exists independent of other weaknesses)
Under-studied. It seems likely that this weakness could occur in any
situation in which a complex or large copy operation occurs, when the
resource can be made available to other spheres as soon as it is created,
but before its initialization is complete.
Description
