CWE - CWE-282: Improper Ownership Management (4.18)

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CWE Glossary Definition

CWE-282: Improper Ownership Management

Weakness ID: 282

Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID could be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities in limited situations requiring careful review (with careful review of mapping notes)
Abstraction: Class Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource.

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Description

The product assigns the wrong ownership, or does not properly verify the ownership, of an object or resource.

Common Consequences

Section HelpThis table specifies different individual consequences associated with the weakness. The Scope identifies the application security area that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in exploiting this weakness. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a weakness will be exploited to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact.

Impact	Details
Gain Privileges or Assume Identity	Scope: Access Control

Potential Mitigations

Phase(s)	Mitigation
Architecture and Design; Operation	Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.

Relationships

Section Help This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined as ChildOf, ParentOf, MemberOf and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as PeerOf and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user may want to explore.

Relevant to the view "Research Concepts" (View-1000)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
ChildOf	Pillar Pillar - a weakness that is the most abstract type of weakness and represents a theme for all class/base/variant weaknesses related to it. A Pillar is different from a Category as a Pillar is still technically a type of weakness that describes a mistake, while a Category represents a common characteristic used to group related things.	284	Improper Access Control
ParentOf	Base Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.	283	Unverified Ownership
ParentOf	Base Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.	708	Incorrect Ownership Assignment

Relevant to the view "Architectural Concepts" (View-1008)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
MemberOf	Category Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1011	Authorize Actors

Modes Of Introduction

Section HelpThe different Modes of Introduction provide information about how and when this weakness may be introduced. The Phase identifies a point in the life cycle at which introduction may occur, while the Note provides a typical scenario related to introduction during the given phase.

Phase	Note
Architecture and Design	REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.

Applicable Platforms

Section HelpThis listing shows possible areas for which the given weakness could appear. These may be for specific named Languages, Operating Systems, Architectures, Paradigms, Technologies, or a class of such platforms. The platform is listed along with how frequently the given weakness appears for that instance.

Languages

Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

Demonstrative Examples

Example 1

This function is part of a privileged program that takes input from users with potentially lower privileges.

(bad code)

Example Language: Python

def killProcess(processID):

os.kill(processID, signal.SIGKILL)

This code does not confirm that the process to be killed is owned by the requesting user, thus allowing an attacker to kill arbitrary processes.

This function remedies the problem by checking the owner of the process before killing it:

(good code)

Example Language: Python

def killProcess(processID):

user = getCurrentUser()

#Check process owner against requesting user
if getProcessOwner(processID) == user:

os.kill(processID, signal.SIGKILL)
return

else:

print("You cannot kill a process you don't own")
return

Selected Observed Examples

Note: this is a curated list of examples for users to understand the variety of ways in which this weakness can be introduced. It is not a complete list of all CVEs that are related to this CWE entry.

Reference	Description
CVE-1999-1125	Program runs setuid root but relies on a configuration file owned by a non-root user.

Detection Methods

Method	Details
Automated Static Analysis	Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.) Effectiveness: High

Method

Details

Automated Static Analysis

Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)

Effectiveness: High

Affected Resources

File or Directory

Memberships

Section HelpThis MemberOf Relationships table shows additional CWE Categories and Views that reference this weakness as a member. This information is often useful in understanding where a weakness fits within the context of external information sources.

Nature	Type	ID	Name
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	944	SFP Secondary Cluster: Access Management
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1396	Comprehensive Categorization: Access Control

Vulnerability Mapping Notes

Usage ALLOWED-WITH-REVIEW

(this CWE ID could be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities in limited situations requiring careful review)

Reason Abstraction

Rationale

This CWE entry is a Class and might have Base-level children that would be more appropriate

Comments

Examine children of this entry to see if there is a better fit

Notes

Maintenance

The relationships between privileges, permissions, and actors (e.g. users and groups) need further refinement within the Research view. One complication is that these concepts apply to two different pillars, related to control of resources (CWE-664) and protection mechanism failures (CWE-693).

Taxonomy Mappings

Mapped Taxonomy Name	Node ID	Fit	Mapped Node Name
PLOVER	Ownership errors

Related Attack Patterns

CAPEC-ID	Attack Pattern Name
CAPEC-17	Using Malicious Files
CAPEC-35	Leverage Executable Code in Non-Executable Files

Content History

Submissions
Submission Date	Submitter	Organization
2006年07月19日 (CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日)	PLOVER
2006年07月19日 (CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日)
Modifications
Modification Date	Modifier	Organization
2023年10月26日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023年10月26日	updated Demonstrative_Examples
2023年06月29日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023年06月29日	updated Mapping_Notes
2023年04月27日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023年04月27日	updated Detection_Factors, Relationships
2023年01月31日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023年01月31日	updated Description
2020年02月24日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2020年02月24日	updated Relationships
2019年09月19日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2019年09月19日	updated Maintenance_Notes
2017年11月08日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2017年11月08日	updated Affected_Resources, Applicable_Platforms, Modes_of_Introduction, Relationships
2014年07月30日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2014年07月30日	updated Relationships
2012年05月11日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2012年05月11日	updated Relationships
2011年06月01日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2011年06月01日	updated Common_Consequences
2011年03月29日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2011年03月29日	updated Relationships
2010年06月21日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2010年06月21日	updated Potential_Mitigations
2009年12月28日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2009年12月28日	updated Potential_Mitigations
2008年09月08日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2008年09月08日	updated Maintenance_Notes, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2008年07月01日	Eric Dalci	Cigital
2008年07月01日	updated Time_of_Introduction
Previous Entry Names
Change Date	Previous Entry Name
2008年04月11日	Ownership Issues

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Page Last Updated: September 09, 2025

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