CWE - CWE-282: Improper Ownership Management (4.20)
Home > CWE List > CWE-282: Improper Ownership Management (4.20)  
ID
  • Home
  • Who We Are User Stories History Documents Videos
  • Basics
    Root Cause Mapping   ►
    Guidance Quick Tips Examples
    How to Contribute Weakness Content FAQs Glossary
  • Top-N Lists   ►
    Top 25 Software Top Hardware Top 10 KEV Weaknesses
    CWE List   ►
    Current Version Reports Visualizations Releases Archive
    Downloads REST API
  • News   ►
    Current News Blog Podcast News Archive
    CWE Board Working Groups & Special Interest Groups Email Lists
  • Search CWE List Search Website

    CWE-282: Improper Ownership Management

    Weakness ID: 282
    Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID could be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities in limited situations requiring careful review (with careful review of mapping notes)
    Abstraction: Class Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource.
    View customized information:
    For users who are interested in more notional aspects of a weakness. Example: educators, technical writers, and project/program managers. For users who are concerned with the practical application and details about the nature of a weakness and how to prevent it from happening. Example: tool developers, security researchers, pen-testers, incident response analysts. For users who are mapping an issue to CWE/CAPEC IDs, i.e., finding the most appropriate CWE for a specific issue (e.g., a CVE record). Example: tool developers, security researchers. For users who wish to see all available information for the CWE/CAPEC entry. For users who want to customize what details are displayed.
    ×

    Edit Custom Filter


    + Description
    The product assigns the wrong ownership, or does not properly verify the ownership, of an object or resource.
    + Common Consequences
    Section HelpThis table specifies different individual consequences associated with the weakness. The Scope identifies the application security area that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in exploiting this weakness. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a weakness will be exploited to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact.
    Impact Details

    Gain Privileges or Assume Identity

    		Scope: Access Control

    + Potential Mitigations
    Phase(s) Mitigation

    Architecture and Design; Operation
    Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software.
    + Relationships
    Section Help This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined as ChildOf, ParentOf, MemberOf and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as PeerOf and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user may want to explore.
    + Relevant to the view "Research Concepts" (View-1000)
    Nature Type ID Name
    ChildOf Pillar Pillar - a weakness that is the most abstract type of weakness and represents a theme for all class/base/variant weaknesses related to it. A Pillar is different from a Category as a Pillar is still technically a type of weakness that describes a mistake, while a Category represents a common characteristic used to group related things. 284 Improper Access Control
    ParentOf Base Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 283 Unverified Ownership
    ParentOf Base Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource. 708 Incorrect Ownership Assignment
    + Relevant to the view "Architectural Concepts" (View-1008)
    Nature Type ID Name
    MemberOf Category Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1011 Authorize Actors
    + Modes Of Introduction
    Section HelpThe different Modes of Introduction provide information about how and when this weakness may be introduced. The Phase identifies a point in the life cycle at which introduction may occur, while the Note provides a typical scenario related to introduction during the given phase.
    Phase Note
    Architecture and Design REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.
    + Applicable Platforms
    Section HelpThis listing shows possible areas for which the given weakness could appear. These may be for specific named Languages, Operating Systems, Architectures, Paradigms, Technologies, or a class of such platforms. The platform is listed along with how frequently the given weakness appears for that instance.
    Languages

    Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

    + Demonstrative Examples

    Example 1


    This function is part of a privileged program that takes input from users with potentially lower privileges.

    (bad code)
    Example Language: Python 
    def killProcess(processID):
    os.kill(processID, signal.SIGKILL)

    This code does not confirm that the process to be killed is owned by the requesting user, thus allowing an attacker to kill arbitrary processes.

    This function remedies the problem by checking the owner of the process before killing it:

    (good code)
    Example Language: Python 
    def killProcess(processID):
    user = getCurrentUser()

    #Check process owner against requesting user
    if getProcessOwner(processID) == user:
    os.kill(processID, signal.SIGKILL)
    return

    else:
    print("You cannot kill a process you don't own")
    return


    + Selected Observed Examples

    Note: this is a curated list of examples for users to understand the variety of ways in which this weakness can be introduced. It is not a complete list of all CVEs that are related to this CWE entry.

    Reference Description
    Program runs setuid root but relies on a configuration file owned by a non-root user.
    + Weakness Ordinalities
    Ordinality Description
    Primary
    (where the weakness exists independent of other weaknesses)
    + Detection Methods
    Method Details

    Automated Static Analysis
    Automated 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.)

    Effectiveness: High
    + Affected Resources
    • File or Directory
    + Memberships
    Section HelpThis MemberOf Relationships table shows additional CWE Categories and Views that reference this weakness as a member. This information is often useful in understanding where a weakness fits within the context of external information sources.
    Nature Type ID Name
    MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 944 SFP Secondary Cluster: Access Management
    MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1396 Comprehensive Categorization: Access Control
    MemberOf CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. 1436 OWASP Top Ten 2025 Category A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
    + Vulnerability Mapping Notes
    Usage ALLOWED-WITH-REVIEW
    (this CWE ID could be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities in limited situations requiring careful review)
    Reason Abstraction

    Rationale

    		This CWE entry is a Class and might have Base-level children that would be more appropriate

    Comments

    		Examine children of this entry to see if there is a better fit
    + Notes

    Maintenance

    The relationships between privileges, permissions, and actors (e.g. users and groups) need further refinement within the Research view. One complication is that these concepts apply to two different pillars, related to control of resources (CWE-664) and protection mechanism failures (CWE-693).
    + Taxonomy Mappings
    Mapped Taxonomy Name Node ID Fit Mapped Node Name
    PLOVER Ownership errors
    + Content History
    + Submissions
    Submission Date Submitter Organization
    2006-07-19
    (CWE Draft 3, 2006-07-19)     		PLOVER
    + Modifications
    Modification Date Modifier Organization
    2025-12-11
    (CWE 4.19, 2025-12-11)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Relationships, Weakness_Ordinalities
    2023-10-26
    (CWE 4.13, 2023-10-26)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Demonstrative_Examples
    2023-06-29
    (CWE 4.12, 2023-06-29)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Mapping_Notes
    2023-04-27
    (CWE 4.11, 2023-04-27)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Detection_Factors, Relationships
    2023-01-31
    (CWE 4.10, 2023-01-31)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Description
    2020-02-24
    (CWE 4.0, 2020-02-24)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Relationships
    2019-09-19
    (CWE 3.4, 2019-09-19)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Maintenance_Notes
    2017-11-08
    (CWE 3.0, 2017-11-08)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Affected_Resources, Applicable_Platforms, Modes_of_Introduction, Relationships
    2014-07-30
    (CWE 2.8, 2014-07-31)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Relationships
    2012-05-11
    (CWE 2.2, 2012-05-15)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Relationships
    2011-06-01
    (CWE 1.13, 2011-06-01)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Common_Consequences
    2011-03-29
    (CWE 1.12, 2011-03-30)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Relationships
    2010-06-21
    (CWE 1.9, 2010-06-21)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Potential_Mitigations
    2009-12-28
    (CWE 1.7, 2009-12-28)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Potential_Mitigations
    2008-09-08
    (CWE 1.0, 2008-09-09)     		CWE Content Team MITRE
    updated Maintenance_Notes, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
    2008-07-01
    (CWE 1.0, 2008-09-09)     		Eric Dalci Cigital
    updated Time_of_Introduction
    + Previous Entry Names
    Change Date Previous Entry Name
    2008-04-11 Ownership Issues
    Page Last Updated: April 30, 2026