The product assigns the wrong ownership, or does not properly verify the ownership, of an object or resource.

Primary

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

Access Control
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity

Automated Static Analysis
Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)
High

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

This function is part of a privileged program that takes input from users with potentially lower privileges.

def killProcess(processID):os.kill(processID, signal.SIGKILL)

This code does not confirm that the process to be killed is owned by the requesting user, thus allowing an attacker to kill arbitrary processes.
This function remedies the problem by checking the owner of the process before killing it:

def killProcess(processID):
user = getCurrentUser()

#Check process owner against requesting user
if getProcessOwner(processID) == user:os.kill(processID, signal.SIGKILL)return
else:print("You cannot kill a process you don't own")return

CVE-1999-1125
Program runs setuid root but relies on a configuration file owned by a non-root user.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-1999-1125

File or Directory

Ownership 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

The relationships between privileges, permissions, and actors (e.g. users and groups) need further refinement within the Research view. One complication is that these concepts apply to two different pillars, related to control of resources (CWE-664) and protection mechanism failures (CWE-693).

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 Maintenance_Notes, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings

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 Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2014-07-30
updated Relationships

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

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2019-09-19
updated Maintenance_Notes

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2020-02-24
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-01-31
updated Description

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-04-27
updated Detection_Factors, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-06-29
updated Mapping_Notes

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-10-26
updated Demonstrative_Examples

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2025-12-11
4.19
2025-12-11
updated Relationships, Weakness_Ordinalities

Ownership Issues