CWE-285

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

Common consequences

• Confidentiality → Read Application Data, Read Files or Directories
• Integrity → Modify Application Data, Modify Files or Directories
• Access Control → Gain Privileges or Assume Identity, Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands

Mitigations

• 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 o
• Architecture and Design: Ensure that you perform access control checks related to your business logic. These checks may be different than the access control checks that you apply 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 int
• Architecture and Design: 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 res
• System Configuration, Installation: 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.