CWE-620: Unverified Password Change

Description

When setting a new password for a user, the product does not require knowledge of the original password, or using another form of authentication.

Submission Date :

May 7, 2007, midnight

Modification Date :

2023-06-29 00:00:00+00:00

Organization :

MITRE
Extended Description

This could be used by an attacker to change passwords for another user, thus gaining the privileges associated with that user.

Example Vulnerable Codes

Example - 1

This code changes a user's password.


SetUserPassword($user, $pass);$user = $_GET['user'];$pass = $_GET['pass'];$checkpass = $_GET['checkpass'];if ($pass == $checkpass) {}

While the code confirms that the requesting user typed the same new password twice, it does not confirm that the user requesting the password change is the same user whose password will be changed. An attacker can request a change of another user's password and gain control of the victim's account.

Related Weaknesses

This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined to give an overview of the different insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction.

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