CWE-266: Incorrect Privilege Assignment

What is CWE-266?

CWE-266 is Incorrect Privilege Assignment. The flaw arises when a product incorrectly assigns a privilege to a particular actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.

OWASP TOP 10:2025 RANK6 — A06:2025 — Insecure Design
Related CVES (365 days)-
AbstractionBase
Likelihood of exploit-

No data

No vulnerability data for CWE-266

No data

No vulnerability data in CISA KEV for CWE-266

Official definition

ByMitre CWE

A product incorrectly assigns a privilege to a particular actor, creating an unintended sphere of control for that actor.

Characteristics

Modes of introduction

  • Implementation: REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.

Common consequences

ImpactScopeExplanation
Gain Privileges or Assume IdentityAccess ControlA user can access restricted functionality and/or sensitive information that may include administrative functionality and user accounts.

Risk mitigations

  1. Architecture and Design, OperationVery carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
  2. Environment Hardening · Architecture and Design, OperationRun your code using the lowest privileges that are required to accomplish the necessary tasks [REF-76]. If possible, create isolated accounts with limited privileges that are only used for a single task. That way, a successful attack will not immediately give the attacker access to the rest of the software or its environment. For example, database applications rarely need to run as the database administrator, especially in day-to-day operations.

Representative vulnerabilities

Below are representative vulnerabilities related to this CWE, prioritized by severity.

Sources (2)
MITRE CWE
CWE Terms of Use

Supporting documents

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