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CWE-360

Trust of System Event Data

High Exploit Likelihood

Weakness Description

Security based on event locations are insecure and can be spoofed.

Events are a messaging system which may provide control data to programs listening for events. Events often do not have any type of authentication framework to allow them to be verified from a trusted source. Any application, in Windows, on a given desktop can send a message to any window on the same desktop. There is no authentication framework for these messages. Therefore, any message can be used to manipulate any process on the desktop if the process does not check the validity and safeness of those messages.

Potential Mitigations

Architecture and Design

Never trust or rely any of the information in an Event for security.

Common Consequences

IntegrityConfidentialityAvailabilityAccess Control
Gain Privileges or Assume IdentityExecute Unauthorized Code or Commands

If one trusts the system-event information and executes commands based on it, one could potentially take actions based on a spoofed identity.

Related Weaknesses