CWE-268: Privilege Chaining

Description

Two distinct privileges, roles, capabilities, or rights can be combined in a way that allows an entity to perform unsafe actions that would not be allowed without that combination.

Abstraction: BaseA weakness specific enough to point to detection and prevention methods.
Likelihood of exploit: High
Status: Draft

Common consequences

Access Control
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
A user can be given or gain access rights of another user. This can give the user unauthorized access to sensitive information including the access information of another user.

Potential mitigations

Architecture and DesignSeparation of Privilege
Consider following the principle of separation of privilege. Require multiple conditions to be met before permitting access to a system resource.
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

CAPEC attack patterns that exploit it

CWE 4.20 links no CAPEC attack pattern to this weakness.

Potential mitigations

Architecture and DesignSeparation of Privilege

Consider following the principle of separation of privilege. Require multiple conditions to be met before permitting access to a system resource.

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.