Privilege Abuse

An adversary is able to exploit features of the target that should be reserved for privileged users or administrators but are exposed to use by lower or non-privileged accounts. Access to sensitive information and functionality must be controlled to ensure that only authorized users are able to access these resources.

Abstraction

What is this attack pattern?

Extended description

If access control mechanisms are absent or misconfigured, a user may be able to access resources that are intended only for higher level users. An adversary may be able to exploit this to utilize a less trusted account to gain information and perform activities reserved for more trusted accounts. This attack differs from privilege escalation and other privilege stealing attacks in that the adversary never actually escalates their privileges but instead is able to use a lesser degree of privilege to access resources that should be (but are not) reserved for higher privilege accounts. Likewise, the adversary does not exploit trust or subvert systems - all control functionality is working as configured but the configuration does not adequately protect sensitive resources at an appropriate level.

Requirements

What does the attack require?

Prerequisites

The target must have misconfigured their access control mechanisms such that sensitive information, which should only be accessible to more trusted users, remains accessible to less trusted users.
The adversary must have access to the target, albeit with an account that is less privileged than would be appropriate for the targeted resources.

Skills required

Low: Adversary can leverage privileged features they already have access to without additional effort or skill. Adversary is only required to have access to an account with improper priveleges.

Resources required

None: No specialized resources are required to execute this type of attack. The ability to access the target is required.

Impact

What does a successful attack lead to?

Modify Data

Affected scopes: Integrity

Read Data

Affected scopes: Confidentiality

Execute Unauthorized Commands

Affected scopes: Authorization

Gain Privileges

Affected scopes: Authorization

Bypass Protection Mechanism

Affected scopes: Access Control, Authorization

Defence

How is it prevented and mitigated?

Configure account privileges such privileged/administrator functionality is not exposed to non-privileged/lower accounts.

Real world

MITRE example instances

Example instance 1Detail

Improperly configured account privileges allowed unauthorized users on a hospital's network to access the medical records for over 3,000 patients. Thus compromising data integrity and confidentiality in addition to HIPAA violations.