CWE-273Improper Check for Dropped Privileges

Description

The product attempts to drop privileges but does not check or incorrectly checks to see if the drop succeeded.

If the drop fails, the product will continue to run with the raised privileges, which might provide additional access to unprivileged users.

Common consequences

• Access Control→Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
  If privileges are not dropped, neither are access rights of the user. Often these rights can be prevented from being dropped.
• Access Control,Non-Repudiation→Gain Privileges or Assume Identity,Hide Activities
  If privileges are not dropped, in some cases the system may record actions as the user which is being impersonated rather than the impersonator.

Potential mitigations

• Architecture and Design
  [object Object]
• Implementation
  Check the results of all functions that return a value and verify that the value is expected.
• Implementation
  In Windows, make sure that the process token has the SeImpersonatePrivilege(Microsoft Server 2003). Code that relies on impersonation for security must ensure that the impersonation succeeded, i.e., that a proper privilege demotion happened.

Related CWEs

Recent CVEs classified under this CWE