863

DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart; DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)

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) [ REF-229 ] 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.

Architecture and Design

Architecture and Design

Strategy: Libraries or Frameworks

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 [ REF-233 ] and the OWASP ESAPI Access Control feature [ REF-45 ].

Architecture and Design

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; Installation

REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.

A developer may introduce authorization weaknesses because of a lack of understanding the underlying technologies. For example, a developer may assume that attackers cannot modify certain inputs such as headers or cookies.

Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

Web Server (Often Prevalent)

Database Server (Often Prevalent)

Class: Not Technology-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

The following code could be for a medical records application. It displays a record to already authenticated users, confirming the user's authorization using a value stored in a cookie.

The programmer expects that the cookie will only be set when getRole() succeeds. The programmer even diligently specifies a 2-hour expiration for the cookie. However, the attacker can easily set the "role" cookie to the value "Reader". As a result, the $role variable is "Reader", and getRole() is never invoked. The attacker has bypassed the authorization system.

Note: this is a curated list of examples for users to understand the variety of ways in which this weakness can be introduced. It is not a complete list of all CVEs that are related to this CWE entry.