CWE-278

Insecure Preserved Inherited Permissions

Weakness Description

A product inherits a set of insecure permissions for an object, e.g. when copying from an archive file, without user awareness or involvement.

Potential Mitigations

Architecture and DesignOperation

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

Architecture and Design

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.

Common Consequences

ConfidentialityIntegrity
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