Weakness · High

CWE-862: Missing Authorization

What it is

The product does not perform an authorization check when an actor attempts to access a resource or perform an action.

Likelihood of exploit: High12 exploited in the wildMITRE CWE 4.19.1

Severity (our rating): High
Likelihood of exploit: High
Introduced during: Architecture and Design, Implementation, Operation
Exploited in the wild: 12 known exploited CVEs

What an attacker can do

Read Application Data (Confidentiality)
Read Files or Directories (Confidentiality)
Modify Application Data (Integrity)
Modify Files or Directories (Integrity)
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity (Access Control)
Bypass Protection Mechanism (Access Control)
DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart (Availability)
DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU) (Availability)
DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory) (Availability)
DoS: Resource Consumption (Other) (Availability)

How to prevent it

Architecture and Design

Divide the product into anonymous, normal, privileged, and administrative areas. Reduce the attack surface by carefully mapping roles with data and functionality. Use role-based access control (RBAC) to enforce the roles at the appropriate boundaries. Note that this approach may not protect against horizontal authorization, i.e., it will not protect a user from attacking others with the same role.
Ensure that access control checks are performed related to the business logic. These checks may be different than the access control checks that are applied to more generic resources such as files, connections, processes, memory, and database records. For example, a database may restrict access for medical records to a specific database user, but each record might only be intended to be accessible to the patient and the patient's doctor.
Use a vetted library or framework that does not allow this weakness to occur or provides constructs that make this weakness easier to avoid. For example, consider using authorization frameworks such as the JAAS Authorization Framework and the OWASP ESAPI Access Control feature.
For web applications, make sure that the access control mechanism is enforced correctly at the server side on every page. Users should not be able to access any unauthorized functionality or information by simply requesting direct access to that page. One way to do this is to ensure that all pages containing sensitive information are not cached, and that all such pages restrict access to requests that are accompanied by an active and authenticated session token associated with a user who has the required permissions to access that page.

System Configuration

Use the access control capabilities of your operating system and server environment and define your access control lists accordingly. Use a "default deny" policy when defining these ACLs.

How to find it

Automated Static Analysis. Automated static analysis is useful for detecting commonly-used idioms for authorization. A tool may be able to analyze related configuration files, such as .htaccess in Apache web servers, or detect the usage of commonly-used authorization libraries. Generally, automated static analysis tools have difficulty detecting custom authorization schemes. In addition, the software's design may include some functionality that is accessible to any user and does not require an authorization check; an automated technique that detects the absence of authorization may report false positives.
Automated Dynamic Analysis. Automated dynamic analysis may find many or all possible interfaces that do not require authorization, but manual analysis is required to determine if the lack of authorization violates business logic.
Manual Analysis. This weakness can be detected using tools and techniques that require manual (human) analysis, such as penetration testing, threat modeling, and interactive tools that allow the tester to record and modify an active session. Specifically, manual static analysis is useful for evaluating the correctness of custom authorization mechanisms.
Manual Static Analysis - Binary or Bytecode. According to SOAR, the following detection techniques may be useful: Cost effective for partial coverage: Binary / Bytecode disassembler - then use manual analysis for vulnerabilities & anomalies
Dynamic Analysis with Automated Results Interpretation. According to SOAR, the following detection techniques may be useful: Cost effective for partial coverage: Web Application Scanner Web Services Scanner Database Scanners
Dynamic Analysis with Manual Results Interpretation. According to SOAR, the following detection techniques may be useful: Cost effective for partial coverage: Host Application Interface Scanner Fuzz Tester Framework-based Fuzzer
Manual Static Analysis - Source Code. According to SOAR, the following detection techniques may be useful: Cost effective for partial coverage: Focused Manual Spotcheck - Focused manual analysis of source Manual Source Code Review (not inspections)
Automated Static Analysis - Source Code. According to SOAR, the following detection techniques may be useful: Cost effective for partial coverage: Source code Weakness Analyzer Context-configured Source Code Weakness Analyzer
Architecture or Design Review. According to SOAR, the following detection techniques may be useful: Highly cost effective: Inspection (IEEE 1028 standard) (can apply to requirements, design, source code, etc.) Formal Methods / Correct-By-Construction

CWE-862 on MITRE's CWE site

Exploited in the wild: 12 CVEs

Vulnerabilities caused by CWE-862 that attackers have used, from CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, newest first.

All known exploited vulnerabilities

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Source: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.