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CWE-271

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CWE-271

Privilege Dropping / Lowering Errors

Class
Incomplete

Description

The product does not drop privileges before passing control of a resource to an actor that does not have those privileges.

In some contexts, a system executing with elevated permissions will hand off a process/file/etc. to another process or user. If the privileges of an entity are not reduced, then elevated privileges are spread throughout a system and possibly to an attacker.

Common Consequences

Scope

Access Control

Impact

Gain Privileges or Assume Identity

Scope

Access Control
Non-Repudiation

Impact

Gain Privileges or Assume Identity, Hide Activities

Potential Mitigations

Architecture and Design

Compartmentalize the system to have "safe" areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area. Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.

Architecture and Design
Operation

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

Architecture and Design

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

CVE-2000-1213

Program does not drop privileges after acquiring the raw socket.

CVE-2001-0559

Setuid program does not drop privileges after a parsing error occurs, then calls another program to handle the error.

CVE-2001-0787

Does not drop privileges in related groups when lowering privileges.

CVE-2002-0080

Does not drop privileges in related groups when lowering privileges.

CVE-2001-1029

Does not drop privileges before determining access to certain files.

CVE-1999-0813

Finger daemon does not drop privileges when executing programs on behalf of the user being fingered.

CVE-1999-1326

FTP server does not drop privileges if a connection is aborted during file transfer.

CVE-2000-0172

Program only uses seteuid to drop privileges.

CVE-2004-2504

Windows program running as SYSTEM does not drop privileges before executing other programs (many others like this, especially involving the Help facility).

CVE-2004-0213

Utility Manager launches winhlp32.exe while running with raised privileges, which allows local users to gain system privileges.

+3 more examples

Applicable Platforms

Not Language-Specific

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