CWE-268

Privilege Chaining

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.

Mitigation ID: MIT-49

Phase: Architecture and Design

Strategy: Separation of Privilege

Description:

  • Consider following the principle of separation of privilege. Require multiple conditions to be met before permitting access to a system resource.
Mitigation ID: MIT-1

Phases: Architecture and Design, Operation

Description:

  • Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
Mitigation ID: MIT-17

Phases: Architecture and Design, Operation

Strategy: Environment Hardening

Description:

  • 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.

No CAPEC attack patterns related to this CWE.

Back to CWE stats page