Two distinct privileges, roles, capabilities, or rights can be combined in a way that allows an entity to perform unsafe actions that would not be allowed without that combination.

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
A user can be given or gain access rights of another user. This can give the user unauthorized access to sensitive information including the access information of another user.

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.

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

Architecture and Design
Operation
Environment Hardening
Run your code using the lowest privileges that are required to accomplish the necessary tasks [REF-76]. If possible, create isolated accounts with limited privileges that are only used for a single task. That way, a successful attack will not immediately give the attacker access to the rest of the software or its environment. For example, database applications rarely need to run as the database administrator, especially in day-to-day operations.

This code allows someone with the role of "ADMIN" or "OPERATOR" to reset a user's password. The role of "OPERATOR" is intended to have less privileges than an "ADMIN", but still be able to help users with small issues such as forgotten passwords.

public enum Roles {ADMIN,OPERATOR,USER,GUEST}
public void resetPassword(User requestingUser, User user, String password ){
if(isAuthenticated(requestingUser)){
switch(requestingUser.role){
case GUEST:System.out.println("You are not authorized to perform this command");break;
case USER:System.out.println("You are not authorized to perform this command");break;
default:setPassword(user,password);break;}
}

else{System.out.println("You must be logged in to perform this command");}
}

This code does not check the role of the user whose password is being reset. It is possible for an Operator to gain Admin privileges by resetting the password of an Admin account and taking control of that account.

CVE-2005-1736
Chaining of user rights.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2005-1736

CVE-2002-1772
Gain certain rights via privilege chaining in alternate channel.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2002-1772

CVE-2005-1973
Application is allowed to assign extra permissions to itself.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2005-1973

CVE-2003-0640
"operator" user can overwrite usernames and passwords to gain admin privileges.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2003-0640

Privilege Chaining

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.

There is some conceptual overlap with Unsafe Privilege.

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 Relationships, Other_Notes, Relationship_Notes, Taxonomy_Mappings, Weakness_Ordinalities

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-03-10
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-12-28
updated Other_Notes, Potential_Mitigations, Research_Gaps

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2010-06-21
updated Potential_Mitigations

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-06-01
updated Common_Consequences

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

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

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

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2019-09-19
updated Demonstrative_Examples

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2022-04-28
updated Research_Gaps

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2022-10-13
updated References

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

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-06-29
updated Mapping_Notes, Relationships