Privilege Chaining

Demonstrations

The following examples help to illustrate the nature of this weakness and describe methods or techniques which can be used to mitigate the risk.

Note that the examples here are by no means exhaustive and any given weakness may have many subtle varieties, each of which may require different detection methods or runtime controls.

Example One

This code allows someone with the role of "ADMIN" or "OPERATOR" to reset a user's password. The role of "OPERATOR" is intended to have less privileges than an "ADMIN", but still be able to help users with small issues such as forgotten passwords.

public enum Roles {
  ADMIN,OPERATOR,USER,GUEST
}

public void resetPassword(User requestingUser, User user, String password ){

  if(isAuthenticated(requestingUser)){

    switch(requestingUser.role){

      case GUEST:
        System.out.println("You are not authorized to perform this command");
        break;

      case USER:
        System.out.println("You are not authorized to perform this command");
        break;

      default:
        setPassword(user,password);
        break;
      }

    }


  else{
    System.out.println("You must be logged in to perform this command");
  }

}

This code does not check the role of the user whose password is being reset. It is possible for an Operator to gain Admin privileges by resetting the password of an Admin account and taking control of that account.

See Also