CWE-272 (最小特权原则违背) — Vulnerability Class 38

38 vulnerabilities classified as CWE-272 (最小特权原则违背). AI Chinese analysis included.

CWE-272 represents a critical implementation weakness where a process retains elevated privileges beyond the specific operations that require them. This flaw typically arises when developers fail to drop high-level access, such as root permissions, immediately after executing privileged tasks like chroot() or file system modifications. Attackers exploit this by leveraging the lingering elevated rights to escalate privileges, access sensitive data, or execute arbitrary code, effectively bypassing security boundaries intended to limit damage. To mitigate this risk, developers must adhere to the principle of least privilege by designing systems that request the minimum necessary permissions for each task. Implementing immediate privilege drops post-operation, utilizing sandboxing, and conducting rigorous code reviews ensure that processes operate with restricted rights, thereby containing potential breaches and reducing the overall attack surface of the application.

MITRE CWE Description

The elevated privilege level required to perform operations such as chroot() should be dropped immediately after the operation is performed.

Common Consequences (1)

Access Control, Confidentiality Gain Privileges or Assume Identity, Read Application Data, Read Files or Directories

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.

Mitigations (3)

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

Architecture and Design Follow the principle of least privilege when assigning access rights to entities in a software system.

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 separatio…

Examples (2)

The following example demonstrates the weakness.

setuid(0); // Do some important stuff setuid(old_uid); // Do some non privileged stuff.

Bad · C

The following example demonstrates the weakness.

AccessController.doPrivileged(new PrivilegedAction() { public Object run() { // privileged code goes here, for example: System.loadLibrary("awt"); return null; // nothing to return }

Bad · Java

CVE ID	Title	CVSS	Severity	Published
CVE-2024-28829	Privilege escalation in mk_informix plugin — Checkmk	7.8^AI	High ^AI	2024-08-20
CVE-2024-27165	Local Privilege Escalation — Toshiba Tec e-Studio multi-function peripheral (MFP)	7.8	High	2024-06-14
CVE-2024-28824	Privilege escalation in mk_informix plugin — Checkmk	8.8	High	2024-03-22
CVE-2024-0638	Privilege escalation in mk_oracle plugins — Checkmk	8.2	High	2024-03-22
CVE-2024-0798	Privilege Escalation in mintplex-labs/anything-llm — mintplex-labs/anything-llm	4.9	-	2024-02-25
CVE-2023-32451	Dell Display Manager 安全漏洞 — Dell Display Manager	7.3	High	2024-02-06
CVE-2023-28047	Dell Display Manager 安全漏洞 — Dell Display Manager	7.3	High	2023-04-20
CVE-2023-28046	Dell Display Manager 安全漏洞 — Dell Display Manager	6.6	Medium	2023-04-06

Vulnerabilities classified as CWE-272 (最小特权原则违背) represent 38 CVEs. The CWE taxonomy describes the weakness; review individual CVEs for product-specific impact.