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

Primary

Resultant

An access control list (ACL) represents who/what has permissions to a given object. Different operating systems implement (ACLs) in different ways. In UNIX, there are three types of permissions: read, write, and execute. Users are divided into three classes for file access: owner, group owner, and all other users where each class has a separate set of rights. In Windows NT, there are four basic types of permissions for files: "No access", "Read access", "Change access", and "Full control". Windows NT extends the concept of three types of users in UNIX to include a list of users and groups along with their associated permissions. A user can create an object (file) and assign specified permissions to that object.

AuthZ
"AuthZ" is typically used as an abbreviation of "authorization" within the web application security community. It is distinct from "AuthN" (or, sometimes, "AuthC") which is an abbreviation of "authentication." The use of "Auth" as an abbreviation is discouraged, since it could be used for either authentication or authorization.

Implementation

REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.
A developer may introduce authorization weaknesses because of a lack of understanding about the underlying technologies. For example, a developer may assume that attackers cannot modify certain inputs such as headers or cookies.

Architecture and Design

Authorization weaknesses may arise when a single-user application is ported to a multi-user environment.

Operation

High

Confidentiality
Read Application Data
Read Files or Directories
An attacker could read sensitive data, either by reading the data directly from a data store that is not properly restricted, or by accessing insufficiently-protected, privileged functionality to read the data.

Integrity
Modify Application Data
Modify Files or Directories
An attacker could modify sensitive data, either by writing the data directly to a data store that is not properly restricted, or by accessing insufficiently-protected, privileged functionality to write the data.

Access Control
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands
When access control checks are not applied consistently - or not at all - an attacker could gain privileges and execute unauthorized code or commands by modifying or reading critical data directly, or by accessing insufficiently-protected, privileged functionality.

Automated Static Analysis

Automated static analysis is useful for detecting commonly-used idioms for authorization. A tool may be able to analyze related configuration files, such as .htaccess in Apache web servers, or detect the usage of commonly-used authorization libraries.
Generally, automated static analysis tools have difficulty detecting custom authorization schemes. In addition, the software's design may include some functionality that is accessible to any user and does not require an authorization check; an automated technique that detects the absence of authorization may report false positives.

Limited

Automated Dynamic Analysis
Automated dynamic analysis may find many or all possible interfaces that do not require authorization, but manual analysis is required to determine if the lack of authorization violates business logic

Manual Analysis

This weakness can be detected using tools and techniques that require manual (human) analysis, such as penetration testing, threat modeling, and interactive tools that allow the tester to record and modify an active session.
Specifically, manual static analysis is useful for evaluating the correctness of custom authorization mechanisms.

Moderate
These may be more effective than strictly automated techniques. This is especially the case with weaknesses that are related to design and business rules. However, manual efforts might not achieve desired code coverage within limited time constraints.

Manual Static Analysis - Binary or Bytecode

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Cost effective for partial coverage:

Binary / Bytecode disassembler - then use manual analysis for vulnerabilities & anomalies

SOAR Partial

Dynamic Analysis with Automated Results Interpretation

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Cost effective for partial coverage:

Web Application Scanner
Web Services Scanner
Database Scanners

SOAR Partial

Dynamic Analysis with Manual Results Interpretation

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Cost effective for partial coverage:

Host Application Interface Scanner
Fuzz Tester
Framework-based Fuzzer
Forced Path Execution
Monitored Virtual Environment - run potentially malicious code in sandbox / wrapper / virtual machine, see if it does anything suspicious

SOAR Partial

Manual Static Analysis - Source Code

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Cost effective for partial coverage:

Focused Manual Spotcheck - Focused manual analysis of source
Manual Source Code Review (not inspections)

SOAR Partial

Automated Static Analysis - Source Code

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Cost effective for partial coverage:

Context-configured Source Code Weakness Analyzer

SOAR Partial

Architecture or Design Review

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Highly cost effective:

Formal Methods / Correct-By-Construction

Cost effective for partial coverage:

Inspection (IEEE 1028 standard) (can apply to requirements, design, source code, etc.)

High

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 others with the same role.

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 intended to be accessible to the patient and the patient's doctor.

Architecture and Design
Libraries or Frameworks

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 restrict access to requests that are accompanied by an active and authenticated session token associated with a user who has the required permissions to access that page.

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.

This function runs an arbitrary SQL query on a given database, returning the result of the query.

function runEmployeeQuery($dbName, $name){mysql_select_db($dbName,$globalDbHandle) or die("Could not open Database".$dbName);
//Use a prepared statement to avoid CWE-89
$preparedStatement = $globalDbHandle->prepare('SELECT * FROM employees WHERE name = :name');$preparedStatement->execute(array(':name' => $name));return $preparedStatement->fetchAll();}
/.../

$employeeRecord = runEmployeeQuery('EmployeeDB',$_GET['EmployeeName']);

While this code is careful to avoid SQL Injection, the function does not confirm the user sending the query is authorized to do so. An attacker may be able to obtain sensitive employee information from the database.

The following program could be part of a bulletin board system that allows users to send private messages to each other. This program intends to authenticate the user before deciding whether a private message should be displayed. Assume that LookupMessageObject() ensures that the $id argument is numeric, constructs a filename based on that id, and reads the message details from that file. Also assume that the program stores all private messages for all users in the same directory.

sub DisplayPrivateMessage {my($id) = @_;my $Message = LookupMessageObject($id);print "From: " . encodeHTML($Message->{from}) . "<br>\n";print "Subject: " . encodeHTML($Message->{subject}) . "\n";print "<hr>\n";print "Body: " . encodeHTML($Message->{body}) . "\n";}
my $q = new CGI;
# For purposes of this example, assume that CWE-309 and

# CWE-523 do not apply.
if (! AuthenticateUser($q->param('username'), $q->param('password'))) {ExitError("invalid username or password");}
my $id = $q->param('id');DisplayPrivateMessage($id);

While the program properly exits if authentication fails, it does not ensure that the message is addressed to the user. As a result, an authenticated attacker could provide any arbitrary identifier and read private messages that were intended for other users.
One way to avoid this problem would be to ensure that the "to" field in the message object matches the username of the authenticated user.

CVE-2022-24730
Go-based continuous deployment product does not check that a user has certain privileges to update or create an app, allowing adversaries to read sensitive repository information
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2022-24730

CVE-2009-3168
Web application does not restrict access to admin scripts, allowing authenticated users to reset administrative passwords.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-3168

CVE-2009-2960
Web application does not restrict access to admin scripts, allowing authenticated users to modify passwords of other users.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-2960

CVE-2009-3597
Web application stores database file under the web root with insufficient access control (CWE-219), allowing direct request.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-3597

CVE-2009-2282
Terminal server does not check authorization for guest access.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-2282

CVE-2009-3230
Database server does not use appropriate privileges for certain sensitive operations.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-3230

CVE-2009-2213
Gateway uses default "Allow" configuration for its authorization settings.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-2213

CVE-2009-0034
Chain: product does not properly interpret a configuration option for a system group, allowing users to gain privileges.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-0034

CVE-2008-6123
Chain: SNMP product does not properly parse a configuration option for which hosts are allowed to connect, allowing unauthorized IP addresses to connect.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2008-6123

CVE-2008-5027
System monitoring software allows users to bypass authorization by creating custom forms.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2008-5027

CVE-2008-7109
Chain: reliance on client-side security (CWE-602) allows attackers to bypass authorization using a custom client.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2008-7109

CVE-2008-3424
Chain: product does not properly handle wildcards in an authorization policy list, allowing unintended access.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2008-3424

CVE-2009-3781
Content management system does not check access permissions for private files, allowing others to view those files.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2009-3781

CVE-2008-4577
ACL-based protection mechanism treats negative access rights as if they are positive, allowing bypass of intended restrictions.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2008-4577

CVE-2008-6548
Product does not check the ACL of a page accessed using an "include" directive, allowing attackers to read unauthorized files.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2008-6548

CVE-2007-2925
Default ACL list for a DNS server does not set certain ACLs, allowing unauthorized DNS queries.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2007-2925

CVE-2006-6679
Product relies on the X-Forwarded-For HTTP header for authorization, allowing unintended access by spoofing the header.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2006-6679

CVE-2005-3623
OS kernel does not check for a certain privilege before setting ACLs for files.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2005-3623

CVE-2005-2801
Chain: file-system code performs an incorrect comparison (CWE-697), preventing default ACLs from being properly applied.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2005-2801

CVE-2001-1155
Chain: product does not properly check the result of a reverse DNS lookup because of operator precedence (CWE-783), allowing bypass of DNS-based access restrictions.
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2001-1155

Missing Access Control

A10
Failure to Restrict URL Access
CWE More Specific

A2
Broken Access Control
CWE More Specific

SFP35
Insecure resource access

Discouraged
CWE-285 is high-level and lower-level CWEs can frequently be used instead. It is a level-1 Class (i.e., a child of a Pillar).
Look at CWE-285's children and consider mapping to CWEs such as CWE-862: Missing Authorization, CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization, CWE-732: Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource, or others.

Assuming a user with a given identity, authorization is the process of determining whether that user can access a given resource, based on the user's privileges and any permissions or other access-control specifications that apply to the resource.

7 Pernicious Kingdoms
2006-07-19
Draft 3
2006-07-19

Eric Dalci
Cigital
2008-07-01
updated Time_of_Introduction

Veracode
2008-08-15
Suggested OWASP Top Ten 2004 mapping

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

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-01-12
updated Common_Consequences, Description, Likelihood_of_Exploit, Name, Other_Notes, Potential_Mitigations, References, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-03-10
updated Potential_Mitigations

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-05-27
updated Description, Related_Attack_Patterns

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-07-27
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-10-29
updated Type

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-12-28
updated Applicable_Platforms, Common_Consequences, Demonstrative_Examples, Detection_Factors, Modes_of_Introduction, Observed_Examples, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2010-02-16
updated Alternate_Terms, Detection_Factors, Potential_Mitigations, References, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2010-04-05
updated Potential_Mitigations

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2010-06-21
updated Common_Consequences, References, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2010-09-27
updated Description

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-03-24
Critical
Changed name and description; clarified difference between "access control" and "authorization."

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-03-29
updated Background_Details, Demonstrative_Examples, Description, Name, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-06-01
updated Common_Consequences, Observed_Examples, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2012-05-11
updated Demonstrative_Examples, Potential_Mitigations, References, Related_Attack_Patterns, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2012-10-30
updated Potential_Mitigations

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2013-07-17
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2014-07-30
updated Detection_Factors, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2015-12-07
updated Relationships

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

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2018-03-27
updated References, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2019-01-03
updated Related_Attack_Patterns

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2019-06-20
updated Related_Attack_Patterns, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2020-02-24
updated References, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2020-08-20
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2020-12-10
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2021-03-15
updated Alternate_Terms

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2021-07-20
updated Related_Attack_Patterns

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2021-10-28
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2022-04-28
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2022-10-13
updated Observed_Examples

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-01-31
updated Description, Potential_Mitigations

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

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2023-06-29
updated Mapping_Notes

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2025-09-09
4.18
2025-09-09
updated Detection_Factors, References

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2025-12-11
4.19
2025-12-11
updated Applicable_Platforms, Common_Consequences, Description, Diagram, Relationships, Terminology_Notes, Weakness_Ordinalities

Missing or Inconsistent Access Control
Improper Access Control (Authorization)