Description

The system's authorization functionality does not prevent one user from gaining access to another user's data or record by modifying the key value identifying the data.

Extended Description

Retrieval of a user record occurs in the system based on some key value that is under user control. The key would typically identify a user related record stored in the system and would be used to lookup that record for presentation to the user. It is likely that an attacker would have to be an authenticated user in the system. However, the authorization process would not properly check the data access operation to ensure that the authenticated user performing the operation has sufficient entitlements to perform the requested data access, hence bypassing any other authorization checks present in the system. One manifestation of this weakness would be if a system used sequential or otherwise easily guessable session ids that would allow one user to easily switch to another user's session and read/modify their data.

Enabling Factors for Exploitation
The key used internally in the system to identify the user record can be externally controlled. For example attackers can look at places where user specific data is retrieved (e.g. search screens) and determine whether the key for the item being looked up is controllable externally. The key may be a hidden field in the HTML form field, might be passed as a URL parameter or as an unencrypted cookie variable, then in each of these cases it will be possible to tamper with the key value.

Likelihood of Exploit: High

Applicable Platforms
Language Class: Language-independent

Time Of Introduction

• Architecture and Design

Common Consequences

Detection Methods
None

Potential Mitigations

Relationships

Demonstrative Examples
None

White Box Definitions
None

Black Box Definitions
None

Taxynomy Mappings
None

References:
None