The product does not drop privileges before passing control of a resource to an actor that does not have those privileges.
In some contexts, a system executing with elevated permissions will hand off a process/file/etc. to another process or user. If the privileges of an entity are not reduced, then elevated privileges are spread throughout a system and possibly to an attacker.

Primary

Architecture and Design

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

Operation

High

Access Control
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
If privileges are not dropped, neither are access rights of the user. Often these rights can be prevented from being dropped.

Access Control
Non-Repudiation
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
Hide Activities
If privileges are not dropped, in some cases the system may record actions as the user which is being impersonated rather than the impersonator.

Architecture and Design
Separation of Privilege

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.

Architecture and Design
Operation
Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.

Architecture and Design
Separation of Privilege
Consider following the principle of separation of privilege. Require multiple conditions to be met before permitting access to a system resource.

The following code calls chroot() to restrict the application to a subset of the filesystem below APP_HOME in order to prevent an attacker from using the program to gain unauthorized access to files located elsewhere. The code then opens a file specified by the user and processes the contents of the file.

chroot(APP_HOME);chdir("/");FILE* data = fopen(argv[1], "r+");...

Constraining the process inside the application's home directory before opening any files is a valuable security measure. However, the absence of a call to setuid() with some non-zero value means the application is continuing to operate with unnecessary root privileges. Any successful exploit carried out by an attacker against the application can now result in a privilege escalation attack because any malicious operations will be performed with the privileges of the superuser. If the application drops to the privilege level of a non-root user, the potential for damage is substantially reduced.

CVE-2000-1213
Program does not drop privileges after acquiring the raw socket.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2000-1213

CVE-2001-0559
Setuid program does not drop privileges after a parsing error occurs, then calls another program to handle the error.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2001-0559

CVE-2001-0787
Does not drop privileges in related groups when lowering privileges.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2001-0787

CVE-2002-0080
Does not drop privileges in related groups when lowering privileges.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2002-0080

CVE-2001-1029
Does not drop privileges before determining access to certain files.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2001-1029

CVE-1999-0813
Finger daemon does not drop privileges when executing programs on behalf of the user being fingered.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-1999-0813

CVE-1999-1326
FTP server does not drop privileges if a connection is aborted during file transfer.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-1999-1326

CVE-2000-0172
Program only uses seteuid to drop privileges.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2000-0172

CVE-2004-2504
Windows program running as SYSTEM does not drop privileges before executing other programs (many others like this, especially involving the Help facility).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2004-2504

CVE-2004-0213
Utility Manager launches winhlp32.exe while running with raised privileges, which allows local users to gain system privileges.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2004-0213

CVE-2004-0806
Setuid program does not drop privileges before executing program specified in an environment variable.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2004-0806

CVE-2004-0828
Setuid program does not drop privileges before processing file specified on command line.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2004-0828

CVE-2004-2070
Service on Windows does not drop privileges before using "view file" option, allowing code execution.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2004-2070

Privilege Dropping / Lowering Errors

Allowed-with-Review
This CWE entry is a Class and might have Base-level children that would be more appropriate
Examine children of this entry to see if there is a better fit

CWE-271, CWE-272, and CWE-250 are all closely related and possibly overlapping. CWE-271 is probably better suited as a category.

PLOVER
2006-07-19
Draft 3
2006-07-19

Eric Dalci
Cigital
2008-07-01
updated Time_of_Introduction

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2008-09-08
updated Description, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings, Weakness_Ordinalities

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2008-10-14
updated Description, Maintenance_Notes

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-12-28
updated Potential_Mitigations

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2010-06-21
updated Potential_Mitigations

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-03-29
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-06-01
updated Common_Consequences

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2012-05-11
updated Common_Consequences, Demonstrative_Examples, Observed_Examples, References, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2012-10-30
updated Potential_Mitigations

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2017-11-08
updated Applicable_Platforms, Causal_Nature, Modes_of_Introduction, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2020-02-24
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2020-12-10
updated Potential_Mitigations

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-01-31
updated Description

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-04-27
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-06-29
updated Mapping_Notes