The product assigns an owner to a resource, but the owner is outside of the intended control sphere.
View on MITREThis may allow the resource to be manipulated by actors outside of the intended control sphere.
An attacker could read and modify data for which they do not have permissions to access directly.
Periodically review the privileges and their owners.
Use automated tools to check for privilege settings.
No detection method information available for this CWE.
Manager does not properly restore ownership of a reusable resource when a user logs out, allowing privilege escalation.
View DetailsProduct changes the ownership of files that a symlink points to, instead of the symlink itself.
View DetailsComponent assigns ownership of sensitive directory tree to a user account, which can be leveraged to perform privileged operations.
View DetailsCWE-708: Incorrect Ownership Assignment is a Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) entry maintained by MITRE. The product assigns an owner to a resource, but the owner is outside of the intended control sphere. This may allow the resource to be manipulated by actors outside of the intended control sphere.
If exploited, CWE-708 (Incorrect Ownership Assignment) it can compromise Confidentiality and Integrity, leading to outcomes such as Read Application Data and Modify Application Data.
Recommended mitigations for CWE-708 include: Periodically review the privileges and their owners. Use automated tools to check for privilege settings.
CWE-708 commonly affects Not Language-Specific. Note that weaknesses are often language-agnostic patterns, so secure coding practices apply broadly.
MITRE documents real CVEs mapped to CWE-708, including CVE-2007-5101, CVE-2007-4238, CVE-2007-1716, CVE-2005-3148 and CVE-2005-1064. You can look up the full details of each CVE, including CVSS scores and remediation guidance, on our CVE Lookup tool.
A CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) like CWE-708 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.