CWE-280: Improper Handling of Insufficient Permissions or Privileges

What is CWE-280?

CWE-280 is Improper Handling of Insufficient Permissions or Privileges. The flaw arises when the product does not handle or incorrectly handles when it has insufficient privileges to access resources or functionality as specified by their permissions. The database currently holds 36 vulnerabilities mapped to CWE-280 and none of them are in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

Analyzing data...

OWASP TOP 10:2025 RANK10 — A10:2025 — Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions
Related CVES (365 days)36
AbstractionBase
Likelihood of exploit-

Vulnerabilities mapped to CWE-280

36 vulnerabilities227% increase year over year

No data

No vulnerability data in CISA KEV for CWE-280

Official definition

ByMitre CWE

The product does not handle or incorrectly handles when it has insufficient privileges to access resources or functionality as specified by their permissions. This may cause it to follow unexpected code paths that may leave the product in an invalid state.

Characteristics

Modes of introduction

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

Common consequences

ImpactScopeExplanation
Other, Alter Execution LogicOther-

Risk mitigations

  1. Separation of Privilege · Architecture and DesignCompartmentalize the system to have "safe" areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area. Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.
  2. ImplementationAlways check to see if you have successfully accessed a resource or system functionality, and use proper error handling if it is unsuccessful. Do this even when you are operating in a highly privileged mode, because errors or environmental conditions might still cause a failure. For example, environments with highly granular permissions/privilege models, such as Windows or Linux capabilities, can cause unexpected failures.

Detection methods

MethodApproachEffectiveness
Automated Static AnalysisAutomated 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.)-

Representative vulnerabilities

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

Sources (2)
MITRE CWE
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