CAPEC-203: Manipulate Registry Information

Overview

CAPEC-203 (Manipulate Registry Information) is a standard-level attack pattern catalogued by MITRE in the Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC). It describes a recurring method attackers use to exploit software weaknesses.

What the attacker needs

Prerequisites

The targeted application must rely on values stored in a registry.
The adversary must have a means of elevating permissions in order to access and modify registry content through either administrator privileges (e.g., credentialed access), or a remote access tool capable of editing a registry through an API.

Skills required

High skill: The adversary requires privileged credentials or the development/acquiring of a tailored remote access tool.

Resources required

None: No specialized resources are required to execute this type of attack.

How to mitigate it

Defenses that reduce the risk of CAPEC-203.

Ensure proper permissions are set for Registry hives to prevent users from modifying keys.
Employ a robust and layered defensive posture in order to prevent unauthorized users on your system.
Employ robust identification and audit/blocking using an allowlist of applications on your system. Unnecessary applications, utilities, and configurations will have a presence in the system registry that can be leveraged by an adversary through this attack pattern.

Examples

Manipulating registration information can be undertaken in advance of a path traversal attack (inserting relative path modifiers) or buffer overflow attack (enlarging a registry value beyond an application's ability to store it).

The CWE weaknesses that CAPEC-203 exploits.

CWE-15: External Control of System or Configuration Setting

How this attack relates to others in the CAPEC hierarchy.

Parent

CAPEC-176: Configuration/Environment Manipulation

Child

Terminology & mappings

Mapped taxonomies

ATTACK: Modify Registry (1112)
ATTACK: Plist Modification (1647)

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about CAPEC-203.

What is CAPEC-203?

An adversary exploits a weakness in authorization in order to modify content within a registry (e.g., Windows Registry, Mac plist, application registry). Editing registry information can permit the adversary to hide configuration information or remove indicators of compromise to cover up activity. Many applications utilize registries to store configuration and service information. As such, modification of registry information can affect individual services (affecting billing, authorization, or even allowing for identity spoofing) or the overall configuration of a targeted application. For example, both Java RMI and SOAP use registries to track available services. Changing registry values is sometimes a preliminary step towards completing another attack pattern, but given the long term usage of many registry values, manipulation of registry information could be its own end.

How do you prevent CAPEC-203?

Ensure proper permissions are set for Registry hives to prevent users from modifying keys.

What weaknesses does CAPEC-203 target?

CAPEC-203 exploits 1 CWE weakness, including CWE-15 (External Control of System or Configuration Setting).

How severe is CAPEC-203?

MITRE rates CAPEC-203 as Medium severity.

References

MITRE CAPEC definition (CAPEC-203) (opens in a new tab)

Attack-pattern data is sourced from the MITRE CAPEC catalog (v3.9). Weakness associations link to the corresponding CWE entries on RadicalNotion.AI.