OWASP Periodic Table of Vulnerabilities - Application Misconfiguration

Return to Periodic Table Working View

Application Misconfiguration

Root Cause Summary

Software applications are very complex, to ease installation and configuration of the application many software packages come preconfigured with vulnerabilities right out of the box. Application misconfigurations are not coding issues but are options and/or features in the application that can be easily exploited such as:

• Special access mechanisms, • Default usernames and passwords, • Default configuration file settings, and • Security settings at the lowest possible level

This ease of use configurations and settings must be corrected to prevent exploitation of the application and system through these “defaults”.

Browser / Standards Solution

None

Perimeter Solution

Understand the application and interfacing systems in such a manner that all application permissions, configurable components and files are modified and given least privilege for the specific platform and technology stack to harden the system.

Generic Framework Solution

None

Custom Framework Solution

None

Custom Code Solution

None

Discussion / Controversy

Application misconfiguration is not a coding issue and can be difficult secure due to the complexities of applications and networks and is a perfect example of the “Security, Functionality, and Ease of Use Triangle”. The easier the application is to use the less secure it may be.

References

Application Misconfiguration WASC TC

CAREC-348 WASC Threat Classification 2.0 – WASC – 15 Application Misconfiguration