COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATIONDraft

CWE-266

Incorrect Privilege Assignment

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

Abstraction

Base

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

Medium

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

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

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Implementation

REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

Gain Privileges or Assume Identity

Affected security scopes: Access Control

A user can access restricted functionality and/or sensitive information that may include administrative functionality and user accounts.

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

Architecture and Design · Operation

Defence to apply across several lifecycle phases

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

Architecture and Design · Operation

Environment Hardening

Detail
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.
CWE-266: Common Weakness Enumeration Entry CWE-266 · DayBreach Sözlük · DayBreach