CWE-266: Incorrect Privilege Assignment

Description

A product incorrectly assigns a privilege to a particular actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.

Abstraction: BaseA weakness specific enough to point to detection and prevention methods.
Likelihood of exploit: Not rated by MITRE
Status: Draft

Common consequences

Access Control
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

Architecture and DesignOperation
Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
Architecture and DesignOperationEnvironment Hardening
Run your code using the lowest privileges that are required to accomplish the necessary tasks. 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.

Related weaknesses

Parent weaknesses

CWE-269Improper Privilege Management

Child weaknesses

Can also be

CWE-286Incorrect User Management

CAPEC attack patterns that exploit it

CWE 4.20 links no CAPEC attack pattern to this weakness.

Potential mitigations

Architecture and DesignOperation

Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.

Architecture and DesignOperationEnvironment Hardening

Run your code using the lowest privileges that are required to accomplish the necessary tasks. 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.