The elevated privilege level required to perform operations such as chroot() should be dropped immediately after the operation is performed.
Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
Follow the principle of least privilege when assigning access rights to entities in a software system.
Compartmentalize the system to have "safe" areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area. Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.
An attacker may be able to access resources with the elevated privilege that could not be accessed with the attacker's original privileges. This is particularly likely in conjunction with another flaw, such as a buffer overflow.
According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: ``` Cost effective for partial coverage: ``` Compare binary / bytecode to application permission manifest
Effectiveness: SOAR Partial
According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: ``` Cost effective for partial coverage: ``` Host-based Vulnerability Scanners - Examine configuration for flaws, verifying that audit mechanisms work, ensure host configuration meets certain predefined criteria
Effectiveness: SOAR Partial
According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: ``` Highly cost effective: ``` Manual Source Code Review (not inspections) ``` Cost effective for partial coverage: ``` Focused Manual Spotcheck - Focused manual analysis of source
Effectiveness: High
According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: ``` Cost effective for partial coverage: ``` Source code Weakness Analyzer Context-configured Source Code Weakness Analyzer
Effectiveness: SOAR Partial
According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: ``` Cost effective for partial coverage: ``` Permission Manifest Analysis
Effectiveness: SOAR Partial
According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful: ``` Highly cost effective: ``` Inspection (IEEE 1028 standard) (can apply to requirements, design, source code, etc.) Formal Methods / Correct-By-Construction ``` Cost effective for partial coverage: ``` Attack Modeling
Effectiveness: High