A particular privilege, role, capability, or right can be used to perform unsafe actions that were not intended, even when it is assigned to the correct entity.

Primary

Architecture and Design

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

Operation

Access Control
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
A user can access restricted functionality and/or sensitive information that may include administrative functionality and user accounts.

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 intends to allow only Administrators to print debug information about a system.

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

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

While the intention was to only allow Administrators to print the debug information, the code as written only excludes those with the role of "GUEST". Someone with the role of "ADMIN" or "USER" will be allowed access, which goes against the original intent. An attacker may be able to use this debug information to craft an attack on the system.

CVE-2002-1981
Roles have access to dangerous procedures (Accessible entities).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2002-1981

CVE-2002-1671
Untrusted object/method gets access to clipboard (Accessible entities).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2002-1671

CVE-2004-2204
Gain privileges using functions/tags that should be restricted (Accessible entities).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2004-2204

CVE-2000-0315
Traceroute program allows unprivileged users to modify source address of packet (Accessible entities).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2000-0315

CVE-2004-0380
Bypass domain restrictions using a particular file that references unsafe URI schemes (Accessible entities).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2004-0380

CVE-2002-1154
Script does not restrict access to an update command, leading to resultant disk consumption and filled error logs (Accessible entities).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2002-1154

CVE-2002-1145
"public" database user can use stored procedure to modify data controlled by the database owner (Unsafe privileged actions).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2002-1145

CVE-2000-0506
User with capability can prevent setuid program from dropping privileges (Unsafe privileged actions).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2000-0506

CVE-2002-2042
Allows attachment to and modification of privileged processes (Unsafe privileged actions).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2002-2042

CVE-2000-1212
User with privilege can edit raw underlying object using unprotected method (Unsafe privileged actions).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2000-1212

CVE-2005-1742
Inappropriate actions allowed by a particular role(Unsafe privileged actions).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2005-1742

CVE-2001-1480
Untrusted entity allowed to access the system clipboard (Unsafe privileged actions).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2001-1480

CVE-2001-1551
Extra Linux capability allows bypass of system-specified restriction (Unsafe privileged actions).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2001-1551

CVE-2001-1166
User with debugging rights can read entire process (Unsafe privileged actions).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2001-1166

CVE-2005-1816
Non-root admins can add themselves or others to the root admin group (Unsafe privileged actions).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2005-1816

CVE-2005-2173
Users can change certain properties of objects to perform otherwise unauthorized actions (Unsafe privileged actions).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2005-2173

CVE-2005-2027
Certain debugging commands not restricted to just the administrator, allowing registry modification and infoleak (Unsafe privileged actions).
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2005-2027

Unsafe Privilege

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.

Note: there are 2 separate sub-categories here:

- privilege incorrectly allows entities to perform certain actions
- object is incorrectly accessible to entities with a given 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 Description, Maintenance_Notes, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2008-11-24
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2009-12-28
updated Potential_Mitigations

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2010-06-21
updated Potential_Mitigations

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2011-06-01
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, Modes_of_Introduction, References, Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2019-01-03
updated Related_Attack_Patterns

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2019-09-19
updated Demonstrative_Examples

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2020-02-24
updated Relationships

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2020-08-20
updated Demonstrative_Examples

CWE Content Team
MITRE
2021-03-15
updated Maintenance_Notes

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

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

Unsafe Privilege