CWE-268
Privilege Chaining
AI Translation Available
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.
Status
draft
Abstraction
base
Likelihood
high
Affected Platforms
Technical Details
AI Translation
Common Consequences
access control
Impacts
gain privileges or assume identity
Potential Mitigations
Phases:
architecture and design
operation
Descriptions:
•
Consider following the principle of separation of privilege. Require multiple conditions to be met before permitting access to a system resource.
•
Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
•
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.