CWE-669: Incorrect Resource Transfer Between Spheres
Learn about CWE-669 (Incorrect Resource Transfer Between Spheres), its security impact, exploitation methods, and prevention guidelines.
What is Incorrect Resource Transfer Between Spheres?
• Overview: Incorrect Resource Transfer Between Spheres occurs when a resource or behavior is transferred or imported between different zones of trust in a way that gives unintended control over that resource.
• Exploitation Methods:
- Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by manipulating the transfer process to gain unauthorized access or control over resources.
- Common attack patterns include exploiting improper API usage, insecure data handling, and flawed access control mechanisms between different components or systems.
• Security Impact:
- Direct consequences of successful exploitation include unauthorized access, data leakage, or resource manipulation.
- Potential cascading effects involve privilege escalation and unauthorized actions within the system.
- Business impact may include data breaches, loss of sensitive information, and damage to brand reputation.
• Prevention Guidelines:
- Specific code-level fixes involve validating and sanitizing all inputs and outputs during resource transfer processes.
- Security best practices include implementing proper access controls and auditing resource transfers between different trust zones.
- Recommended tools and frameworks are those that provide robust security features, such as secure coding libraries, automated security testing tools, and frameworks that enforce strict access control policies.
Technical Details
Likelihood of Exploit: Not specified
Affected Languages: Not specified
Affected Technologies: Not specified
A "control sphere" is a set of resources and behaviors that are accessible to a single actor, or a group of actors. A product's security model will typically define multiple spheres, possibly implicitly. For example, a server might define one sphere for "administrators" who can create new user accounts with subdirectories under /home/server/, and a second sphere might cover the set of users who can create or delete files within their own subdirectories. A third sphere might be "users who are authenticated to the operating system on which the product is installed." Each sphere has different sets of actors and allowable behaviors.