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Database

Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

Need

Prevent unauthorized access to information and operations

Context

• Usage of Elixir (1.10 and above) for building scalable and fault-tolerant applications

• Usage of plain maps for role management

Description

1. Non compliant code

defmodule User do
  defstruct [:id, :role, :data]
end

user = %User{id: 1, role: :admin, data: 'secret'}

def execute_action(user, action) do
    IO.puts 'Admin action executed!'...

This code represents a user system with different roles. An Elixir struct User is defined which holds an id, role, and data. However, due to the lack of a proper access control mechanism, a malicious user can easily manipulate their role in the User struct and escalate their privileges. For example, a user can change their role to 'admin' and gain access to sensitive data or actions they are not supposed to.

2. Steps

• Implement proper access control: Ensure the role cannot be easily manipulated by a user.

• Roles should be controlled with users tokens or the exposure of user ID should be avoided.

• Encrypt sensitive data and ensure it cannot be accessed without proper authorization.

3. Secure code example

defmodule User do
  defstruct [:id, :token, :data]
end

admins = [1, 2, 3]

user = %User{id: 1, token: :crypto.strong_rand_bytes(16), data: 'secret'}
def execute_action(user, action) do...

This revised code introduces a secure token system for role management. It removes the 'role' field from the User struct and instead uses a list of admin user IDs. Also, the user struct now includes a token generated using :crypto.strong_rand_bytes. The token is used for identifying the user instead of the id, thus making it harder to manipulate. The function 'execute_action' checks if the user's id is in the list of admins before allowing an admin action.

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