CWE-289: Authentication Bypass by Alternate Name
Description
The product performs authentication based on the name of a resource being accessed, or the name of the actor performing the access, but it does not properly check all possible names for that resource or actor.
- Abstraction
- BaseA weakness specific enough to point to detection and prevention methods.
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Status
- Incomplete
Common consequences
- Access Control
Bypass Protection Mechanism
Potential mitigations
- Architecture and DesignInput Validation
Avoid making decisions based on names of resources (e.g. files) if those resources can have alternate names.
- ImplementationInput Validation
Assume all input is malicious. Use an accept known good input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does. When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, boat may be syntactically valid...
- ImplementationInput Validation
Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174). Such errors could be used to bypass allowlist validation schemes by introducing dangerous inputs after they have been checked.
Related weaknesses
Parent weaknesses
CAPEC attack patterns that exploit it
CWE 4.20 links no CAPEC attack pattern to this weakness.