CWE-287: Improper Authentication (authentification) | RadicalNotion.AI

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CWE-287: Improper Authentication (authentification) | RadicalNotion.AI

How to detect it

Automated Static Analysis

Automated static analysis is useful for detecting certain types of authentication. A tool may be able to analyze related configuration files, such as .htaccess in Apache web servers, or detect the usage of commonly-used authentication libraries.

Generally, automated static analysis tools have difficulty detecting custom authentication schemes. In addition, the software's design may include some functionality that is accessible to any user and does not require an established identity; an automated technique that detects the absence of authentication may report false positives.

Effectiveness: Limited

Manual Static Analysis

This weakness can be detected using tools and techniques that require manual (human) analysis, such as penetration testing, threat modeling, and interactive tools that allow the tester to record and modify an active session.

Manual static analysis is useful for evaluating the correctness of custom authentication mechanisms.

Effectiveness: High

Manual Static Analysis - Binary or Bytecode

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Effectiveness: SOAR Partial

Dynamic Analysis with Automated Results Interpretation

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Effectiveness: SOAR Partial

Dynamic Analysis with Manual Results Interpretation

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Effectiveness: SOAR Partial

Manual Static Analysis - Source Code

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Effectiveness: SOAR Partial

Automated Static Analysis - Source Code

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Effectiveness: SOAR Partial

Automated Static Analysis

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Effectiveness: SOAR Partial

Architecture or Design Review

According to SOAR [REF-1479], the following detection techniques may be useful:

Effectiveness: High

Code examples

Illustrative examples from MITRE showing how the weakness appears in code.

The following code intends to ensure that the user is already logged in. If not, the code performs authentication with the user-provided username and password. If successful, it sets the loggedin and user cookies to "remember" that the user has already logged in. Finally, the code performs administrator tasks if the logged-in user has the "Administrator" username, as recorded in the user cookie.

Vulnerable example

perl

my $q = new CGI;

Attack input

plaintext

GET /cgi-bin/vulnerable.cgi HTTP/1.1

In January 2009, an attacker was able to gain administrator access to a Twitter server because the server did not restrict the number of login attempts [REF-236]. The attacker targeted a member of Twitter's support team and was able to successfully guess the member's password using a brute force attack by guessing a large number of common words. After gaining access as the member of the support staff, the attacker used the administrator panel to gain access to 33 accounts that belonged to celebrities and politicians. Ultimately, fake Twitter messages were sent that appeared to come from the compromised accounts.

In 2022, the OT:ICEFALL study examined products by 10 different Operational Technology (OT) vendors. The researchers reported 56 vulnerabilities and said that the products were "insecure by design" [REF-1283]. If exploited, these vulnerabilities often allowed adversaries to change how the products operated, ranging from denial of service to changing the code that the products executed. Since these products were often used in industries such as power, electrical, water, and others, there could even be safety implications.

Multiple vendors did not use any authentication or used client-side authentication for critical functionality in their OT products.

Illustrative examples

Real CVEs that MITRE cites as examples of this weakness.

CVE-2024-11680
CISA KEV
— File-sharing PHP product does not check if user is logged in during requests for PHP library files under an includes/ directory, allowing configuration changes, code execution, and other impacts.
CVE-2021-21972
CISA KEV
— Chain: Cloud computing virtualization platform does not require authentication for upload of a tar format file (CWE-306), then uses .. path traversal sequences (CWE-23) in the file to access unexpected files, as exploited in the wild per CISA KEV.
CVE-2021-37415
CISA KEV
— IT management product does not perform authentication for some REST API requests, as exploited in the wild per CISA KEV.
CVE-2020-13927
CISA KEV
— Default setting in workflow management product allows all API requests without authentication, as exploited in the wild per CISA KEV.
CVE-2021-35395
CISA KEV
— Stack-based buffer overflows in SFK for wifi chipset used for IoT/embedded devices, as exploited in the wild per CISA KEV.
CVE-2021-34523
CISA KEV
— Mail server does not properly check an access token before executing a Powershell command, as exploited in the wild per CISA KEV.
CVE-2020-12812
CISA KEV
— Chain: user is not prompted for a second authentication factor (CWE-287) when changing the case of their username (CWE-178), as exploited in the wild per CISA KEV.
CVE-2020-10148
CISA KEV
— Authentication bypass by appending specific parameters and values to a URI, as exploited in the wild per CISA KEV.
CVE-2020-0688
CISA KEV
— Mail server does not generate a unique key during installation, as exploited in the wild per CISA KEV.
CVE-2022-35248 — Chat application skips validation when Central Authentication Service (CAS) is enabled, effectively removing the second factor from two-factor authentication
CVE-2022-36436 — Python-based authentication proxy does not enforce password authentication during the initial handshake, allowing the client to bypass authentication by specifying a 'None' authentication type.
CVE-2022-30034 — Chain: Web UI for a Python RPC framework does not use regex anchors to validate user login emails (CWE-777), potentially allowing bypass of OAuth (CWE-1390).
CVE-2022-29951 — TCP-based protocol in Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) has no authentication.
CVE-2022-29952 — Condition Monitor uses a protocol that does not require authentication.
CVE-2022-30313 — Safety Instrumented System uses proprietary TCP protocols with no authentication.
CVE-2022-30317 — Distributed Control System (DCS) uses a protocol that has no authentication.
CVE-2022-33139 — SCADA system only uses client-side authentication, allowing adversaries to impersonate other users.
CVE-2021-3116 — Chain: Python-based HTTP Proxy server uses the wrong boolean operators (CWE-480) causing an incorrect comparison (CWE-697) that identifies an authN failure if all three conditions are met instead of only one, allowing bypass of the proxy authentication (CWE-1390)
CVE-2021-35033 — Firmware for a WiFi router uses a hard-coded password for a BusyBox shell, allowing bypass of authentication through the UART port
CVE-2020-10263 — Bluetooth speaker does not require authentication for the debug functionality on the UART port, allowing root shell access
CVE-2017-14623 — LDAP Go package allows authentication bypass using an empty password, causing an unauthenticated LDAP bind
CVE-2009-3421 — login script for guestbook allows bypassing authentication by setting a "login_ok" parameter to 1.
CVE-2009-2382 — admin script allows authentication bypass by setting a cookie value to "LOGGEDIN".
CVE-2009-1048 — VOIP product allows authentication bypass using 127.0.0.1 in the Host header.
CVE-2009-2213 — product uses default "Allow" action, instead of default deny, leading to authentication bypass.
CVE-2009-2168 — chain: redirect without exit (CWE-698) leads to resultant authentication bypass.
CVE-2009-3107 — product does not restrict access to a listening port for a critical service, allowing authentication to be bypassed.
CVE-2009-1596 — product does not properly implement a security-related configuration setting, allowing authentication bypass.
CVE-2009-2422 — authentication routine returns "nil" instead of "false" in some situations, allowing authentication bypass using an invalid username.
CVE-2009-3232 — authentication update script does not properly handle when admin does not select any authentication modules, allowing authentication bypass.
CVE-2009-3231 — use of LDAP authentication with anonymous binds causes empty password to result in successful authentication
CVE-2005-3435 — product authentication succeeds if user-provided MD5 hash matches the hash in its database; this can be subjected to replay attacks.
CVE-2005-0408 — chain: product generates predictable MD5 hashes using a constant value combined with username, allowing authentication bypass.