Privilege Defined With Unsafe Actions
Incomplete Base
Structure: Simple
Description
A particular privilege, role, capability, or right can be used to perform unsafe actions that were not intended, even when it is assigned to the correct entity.
Common Consequences 1
Scope: Access Control
Impact: Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
A user can access restricted functionality and/or sensitive information that may include administrative functionality and user accounts.
Potential Mitigations 2
Phase: Architecture and DesignOperation
Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
Phase: Architecture and DesignOperation
Strategy: Environment Hardening
Run your code using the lowest privileges that are required to accomplish the necessary tasks [REF-76]. If possible, create isolated accounts with limited privileges that are only used for a single task. That way, a successful attack will not immediately give the attacker access to the rest of the software or its environment. For example, database applications rarely need to run as the database administrator, especially in day-to-day operations.
Demonstrative Examples 1
ID : DX-127
This code intends to allow only Administrators to print debug information about a system.Code Example:
Bad
Java
javaWhile the intention was to only allow Administrators to print the debug information, the code as written only excludes those with the role of "GUEST". Someone with the role of "ADMIN" or "USER" will be allowed access, which goes against the original intent. An attacker may be able to use this debug information to craft an attack on the system.
Observed Examples 17
CVE-2002-1981Roles have access to dangerous procedures (Accessible entities).
CVE-2002-1671Untrusted object/method gets access to clipboard (Accessible entities).
CVE-2004-2204Gain privileges using functions/tags that should be restricted (Accessible entities).
CVE-2000-0315Traceroute program allows unprivileged users to modify source address of packet (Accessible entities).
CVE-2004-0380Bypass domain restrictions using a particular file that references unsafe URI schemes (Accessible entities).
CVE-2002-1154Script does not restrict access to an update command, leading to resultant disk consumption and filled error logs (Accessible entities).
CVE-2002-1145"public" database user can use stored procedure to modify data controlled by the database owner (Unsafe privileged actions).
CVE-2000-0506User with capability can prevent setuid program from dropping privileges (Unsafe privileged actions).
CVE-2002-2042Allows attachment to and modification of privileged processes (Unsafe privileged actions).
CVE-2000-1212User with privilege can edit raw underlying object using unprotected method (Unsafe privileged actions).
CVE-2005-1742Inappropriate actions allowed by a particular role(Unsafe privileged actions).
CVE-2001-1480Untrusted entity allowed to access the system clipboard (Unsafe privileged actions).
CVE-2001-1551Extra Linux capability allows bypass of system-specified restriction (Unsafe privileged actions).
CVE-2001-1166User with debugging rights can read entire process (Unsafe privileged actions).
CVE-2005-1816Non-root admins can add themselves or others to the root admin group (Unsafe privileged actions).
CVE-2005-2173Users can change certain properties of objects to perform otherwise unauthorized actions (Unsafe privileged actions).
CVE-2005-2027Certain debugging commands not restricted to just the administrator, allowing registry modification and infoleak (Unsafe privileged actions).
References 1
Least Privilege
Sean Barnum and Michael Gegick
14-09-2005
ID: REF-76
Applicable Platforms
Languages:
Not Language-Specific : Undetermined
Modes of Introduction
Architecture and Design
Implementation
Operation
Related Attack Patterns
Related Weaknesses
Taxonomy Mapping
- PLOVER
Notes
Maintenance
Note: there are 2 separate sub-categories here:
```
- privilege incorrectly allows entities to perform certain actions
- object is incorrectly accessible to entities with a given privilege
```