CWE-272
Least Privilege Violation
AI Translation Available
The elevated privilege level required to perform operations such as chroot() should be dropped immediately after the operation is performed.
Status
incomplete
Abstraction
base
Affected Platforms
Technical Details
AI Translation
Common Consequences
access control
confidentiality
Impacts
gain privileges or assume identity
read application data
read files or directories
Detection Methods
automated static analysis - binary or bytecode
dynamic analysis with automated results interpretation
manual static analysis - source code
automated static analysis - source code
automated static analysis
architecture or design review
Potential Mitigations
Phases:
architecture and design
operation
Descriptions:
•
Follow the principle of least privilege when assigning access rights to entities in a software system.
•
Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
•
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.