The product assigns an owner to a resource, but the owner is outside of the intended control sphere.
This may allow the resource to be manipulated by actors outside of the intended control sphere.

Primary

Architecture and Design

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

Operation

Confidentiality
Integrity
Read Application Data
Modify Application Data
An attacker could read and modify data for which they do not have permissions to access directly.

Automated Analysis
Use automated tools to check for privilege settings.

Policy
Periodically review the privileges and their owners.

CVE-2024-43199
product installs binaries with potentially insecure user/group ownership
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-43199

CVE-2007-5101
File system sets wrong ownership and group when creating a new file.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2007-5101

CVE-2007-4238
OS installs program with bin owner/group, allowing modification.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2007-4238

CVE-2007-1716
Manager does not properly restore ownership of a reusable resource when a user logs out, allowing privilege escalation.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2007-1716

CVE-2005-3148
Backup software restores symbolic links with incorrect uid/gid.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2005-3148

CVE-2005-1064
Product changes the ownership of files that a symlink points to, instead of the symlink itself.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2005-1064

CVE-2011-1551
Component assigns ownership of sensitive directory tree to a user account, which can be leveraged to perform privileged operations.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2011-1551

Allowed
This CWE entry is at the Base level of abstraction, which is a preferred level of abstraction for mapping to the root causes of vulnerabilities.
Carefully read both the name and description to ensure that this mapping is an appropriate fit. Do not try to 'force' a mapping to a lower-level Base/Variant simply to comply with this preferred level of abstraction.

This overlaps verification errors, permissions, and privileges.
A closely related weakness is the incorrect assignment of groups to a resource. It is not clear whether it would fall under this entry or require a different entry.

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2008-09-09
1.0
2008-09-09
Note: this date reflects when the entry was first published. Draft versions of this entry were provided to members of the CWE community and modified between Draft 9 and 1.0.

Eric Dalci
Cigital
2008-07-01
updated Potential_Mitigations, Time_of_Introduction

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-03-10
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-05-27
updated Description

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-06-01
updated Common_Consequences, Maintenance_Notes, Other_Notes

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

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2012-10-30
updated Observed_Examples, Potential_Mitigations

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2014-07-30
updated Relationships

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

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 Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-06-29
updated Mapping_Notes

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2025-12-11
4.19
2025-12-11
updated Detection_Factors, Observed_Examples, Potential_Mitigations, Weakness_Ordinalities