CAPECattack pattern

CAPEC-212 Functionality Misuse

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Abstraction
Meta
Status
Stable
Likelihood of attack
Medium
Typical severity
Medium
CAPEC version
3.9

Description

An adversary leverages a legitimate capability of an application in such a way as to achieve a negative technical impact. The system functionality is not altered or modified but used in a way that was not intended. This is often accomplished through the overuse of a specific functionality or by leveraging functionality with design flaws that enables the adversary to gain access to unauthorized, sensitive data.

Prerequisites

• The adversary has the capability to interact with the application directly.The target system does not adequately implement safeguards to prevent misuse of authorized actions/processes.

Skills required

• [Low] General computer knowledge about how applications are launched, how they interact with input/output, and how they are configured.

Consequences

• Confidentiality: Gain Privileges • Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability: Other

Mitigations

• Perform comprehensive threat modeling, a process of identifying, evaluating, and mitigating potential threats to the application. This effort can help reveal potentially obscure application functionality that can be manipulated for malicious purposes. • When implementing security features, consider how they can be misused and compromised.

Related

Weakness · CWE (3)

  • CWE-1242 Inclusion of Undocumented Features or Chicken Bits weakness
  • CWE-1246 Improper Write Handling in Limited-write Non-Volatile Memories weakness
  • CWE-1281 Sequence of Processor Instructions Leads to Unexpected Behavior weakness

Referenced by CAPEC · child of (6)

  • CAPEC-111 JSON Hijacking (aka JavaScript Hijacking) attack pattern
  • CAPEC-2 Inducing Account Lockout attack pattern
  • CAPEC-48 Passing Local Filenames to Functions That Expect a URL attack pattern
  • CAPEC-50 Password Recovery Exploitation attack pattern
  • CAPEC-620 Drop Encryption Level attack pattern
  • CAPEC-682 Exploitation of Firmware or ROM Code with Unpatchable Vulnerabilities attack pattern

Referenced by CAPEC · peer of (1)

  • CAPEC-663 Exploitation of Transient Instruction Execution attack pattern

Referenced by CWE · attack pattern (3)

  • CWE-1242 Inclusion of Undocumented Features or Chicken Bits weakness
  • CWE-1246 Improper Write Handling in Limited-write Non-Volatile Memories weakness
  • CWE-1281 Sequence of Processor Instructions Leads to Unexpected Behavior weakness