CWE-269: CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management

CWE-269: CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management is a Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) entry maintained by MITRE. Description

Yes. CWE-269 ranked #22 in the CWE Top 25 for 2024, associated with 636 CVEs that year. The CWE Top 25 highlights the most common and impactful software weaknesses based on real-world vulnerability data.

If exploited, CWE-269 (CWE-269: Improper Privilege Management) it can compromise Gain Privileges or Assume Identity, leading to outcomes such as Scope: Access Control.

Recommended mitigations for CWE-269 include: Very carefully manage the setting, management, and handling of privileges. Explicitly manage trust zones in the software. Strategy: Separation of Privilege Follow the principle of least privilege when assigning access rights to entities in a software system. Strategy: Separation of Privilege Consider following the principle of separation of privilege. Require multiple conditions to be met before permitting access to a system resource.

CWE-269 commonly affects Languages. Note that weaknesses are often language-agnostic patterns, so secure coding practices apply broadly.

A CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) like CWE-269 describes a category of software weakness — the underlying flaw type. A CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) identifies a specific, real-world vulnerability in a particular product. In short, a CWE is the kind of mistake, and a CVE is an instance of that mistake being found in software.