Owasp Infrastructure

title: 'ISR09: Insecure Access to Resources and Management Components' description: OWASP Infrastructure Top 10 reference for insecure access to management components including unpatched interfaces and excessive administrative access

09 Insecure Access to Resources and Management Components

Identifier: ISR09:2024 Category: Access Control

Description

Lack of proper access controls and permissions allows unauthorized individuals or programs to access sensitive data, systems, or physical locations. This vulnerability manifests in misconfigured access policies, overly permissive settings, or improper authentication mechanisms. The compromise of management components can give attackers a foothold within the organization's infrastructure, enabling them to pivot and expand their access.

Risk

• Critical data, sensitive information, and proprietary resources are exposed to unauthorized access, resulting in data breaches, intellectual property theft, and confidential information compromise.

• Unauthorized manipulation of systems and configurations allows malicious employees or external attackers over compromised clients to disrupt essential services, manipulate network traffic, or inject malicious code, leading to system outages and loss of business continuity.

• Compromised management components enable attackers to pivot and expand access across the infrastructure.

• Reputational damage, regulatory compliance violations, and financial losses from incident response and legal consequences.

Vulnerability checklist

• Access control to file shares does not follow the need-to-know principle.

• Network device management interfaces (routers, switches, firewalls) lack strong authentication.

• Management traffic is not isolated from the general network.

• Access rights are not regularly reviewed, audited, or updated.

• Management components (hardware and software) are not updated with security patches.

Prevention controls

1. Implement robust access control mechanisms across the entire infrastructure, adhering to the principle of least privilege and granting only the minimum necessary permissions.

2. Regularly review, audit, and update access rights, ensuring access is granted on a need-to-know basis.

3. Employ strong authentication and authorization protocols, including multi-factor authentication, to protect against unauthorized access.

4. Provide security awareness training for employees to reduce unintentional access misconfigurations.

5. Keep all management components, including hardware and software, updated with security patches and secure configurations.

6. Employ network segmentation to isolate management traffic from the general network.

7. Implement monitoring and logging of network device and management component activities.

Example attack scenarios

Scenario A — File share access

An attacker exploits insecure access controls on a file share, gaining unauthorized access to sensitive documents. The access permission is not managed by the need-to-know principle. Organizations should configure access rights for file shares, enforce strict permissions, and update server management components with strong access controls and authentication measures.

Scenario B — Network device management

An internal attacker accesses a router management interface and modifies routing tables, intercepts network traffic, or launches denial-of-service attacks. Organizations should secure network device management interfaces with strong authentication and access controls, keep device firmware up to date, employ network segmentation to isolate management traffic, and implement regular monitoring and logging of network device activities.

Detection guidance

• Audit file share permissions for violations of the need-to-know principle.

• Scan network device management interfaces for weak or default authentication.

• Monitor management component access logs for unauthorized or anomalous activity.

• Verify that management traffic is isolated from general network traffic.

Remediation

• Enforce least-privilege access controls on all file shares and management interfaces.

• Deploy multi-factor authentication for all management component access.

• Segment management traffic into dedicated network zones.

• Patch and update all management hardware and software on a defined schedule.

• Establish recurring access rights reviews with documented approval workflows.

• Enable comprehensive logging and alerting on management component activities.