CWE-829: Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere
Learn about CWE-829 (Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere), its security impact, exploitation methods, and prevention guidelines.
What is Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere?
• Overview: Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere refers to the practice of integrating code, libraries, or other executable elements from sources that are not fully trusted or controlled. This can introduce security risks as the included functionality may be malicious or compromised.
• Exploitation Methods:
- Attackers can exploit this vulnerability by injecting malicious code or libraries into the application, which are then executed with the application's privileges.
- Common attack patterns include supplying compromised third-party libraries, altering legitimate resources in transit, and using social engineering to introduce malicious components.
• Security Impact:
- Direct consequences include execution of malicious code, data breaches, and unauthorized access to sensitive information.
- Potential cascading effects involve further exploitation of the system such as privilege escalation, data corruption, or service disruption.
- Business impact includes loss of customer trust, potential legal liability, and financial losses due to data breaches and system downtime.
• Prevention Guidelines:
- Specific code-level fixes include validating and authenticating all third-party components before integration, and using checksums or digital signatures to ensure the integrity of the code.
- Security best practices involve maintaining a strict policy for third-party code inclusion, auditing and monitoring third-party components regularly, and keeping them up-to-date.
- Recommended tools and frameworks include using dependency management tools that verify the authenticity of libraries, implementing web application firewalls, and employing runtime application self-protection (RASP) solutions to detect and block malicious behavior.
Technical Details
Likelihood of Exploit: Not specified
Affected Languages: Not specified
Affected Technologies: Not specified