CWE-673: External Influence of Sphere Definition
Description
The product does not prevent the definition of control spheres from external actors.
Submission Date :
April 11, 2008, midnight
Modification Date :
2023-10-26 00:00:00+00:00
Organization :
MITRE
Extended Description
Typically, a product defines its control sphere within the code itself, or through configuration by the product's administrator. In some cases, an external party can change the definition of the control sphere. This is typically a resultant weakness.
Example - 1
Consider a blog publishing tool, which might have three explicit control spheres: the creation of articles, only accessible to a "publisher;" commenting on articles, only accessible to a "commenter" who is a registered user; and reading articles, only accessible to an anonymous reader. Suppose that the application is deployed on a web server that is shared with untrusted parties. If a local user can modify the data files that define who a publisher is, then this user has modified the control sphere. In this case, the issue would be resultant from another weakness such as insufficient permissions.
Example - 2
In Untrusted Search Path (CWE-426), a user might be able to define the PATH environment variable to cause the product to search in the wrong directory for a library to load. The product's intended sphere of control would include "resources that are only modifiable by the person who installed the product." The PATH effectively changes the definition of this sphere so that it overlaps the attacker's sphere of control.
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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