Allowing external control of system settings can disrupt service or cause an application to behave in unexpected ways.
Setting manipulation vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can control values that govern the behavior of the system, manage specific resources, or in some way affect the functionality of the application.
Because setting manipulation covers a diverse set of functions, any attempt at illustrating it will inevitably be incomplete. Rather than searching for a tight-knit relationship between the functions addressed in the setting manipulation category, take a step back and consider the sorts of system values that an attacker should not be allowed to control.
Example 1: The following C code accepts a number as one of its command line parameters and sets it as the host ID of the current machine.
...
sethostid(argv[1]);
...
sethostid()
, unprivileged users may be able to invoke the program. The code in this example allows user input to directly control the value of a system setting. If an attacker provides a malicious value for host ID, the attacker can misidentify the affected machine on the network or cause other unintended behavior. [1] Standards Mapping - OWASP Top 10 2004 - (OWASP 2004) A1 Unvalidated Input
[2] Standards Mapping - Security Technical Implementation Guide Version 3 - (STIG 3) APP3510 CAT I
[3] Standards Mapping - Common Weakness Enumeration - (CWE) CWE ID 15
[4] Standards Mapping - Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Version 1.2 - (PCI 1.2) Requirement 6.3.1.1
[5] Standards Mapping - Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Version 1.1 - (PCI 1.1) Requirement 6.5.1