February 27th, 2008

If you ask for STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED, you may as well ask for the moon

One of the predefined security access masks is STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED. You see it used in defining the _ALL_ACCESS masks for various objects. Here are just a few examples:

#define PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS        (STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED | SYNCHRONIZE | \
                                   0xFFF)
#define EVENT_ALL_ACCESS (STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED|SYNCHRONIZE|0x3)
#define FILE_ALL_ACCESS (STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED | SYNCHRONIZE | 0x1FF)

The STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED mask is meant to be used when defining access masks for object types. I’m guessing it’s called STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED because it’s the set of access masks that all securable objects must support. Look at the documentation or just at the definition:

#define DELETE                           (0x00010000L)
#define READ_CONTROL                     (0x00020000L)
#define WRITE_DAC                        (0x00040000L)
#define WRITE_OWNER                      (0x00080000L)
#define STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED         (0x000F0000L)

Notice that STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED is just an abbreviation for the union of the four access bits DELETE | READ_CONTROL | WRITE_DAC | WRITE_OWNER.

Now that you see what it’s for, you can also see what it’s not for: You’re not expected to pass it as the mask of requested access bits when you attempt to open an object. In other words, the following is wrong:

// wrong!
HANDLE hProcess =
    OpenProcess(dwProcessId, FALSE,
                STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED | PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION);

The person writing this code probably thought, “Well, I just want to be able to query information, so I need to pass PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION. There’s this other thing here called STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED; since it’s required, I’ll pass that too.”

The “required”ness of STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED doesn’t apply to you, the program opening the object. It applies to the person who is designing the object.

Your attempt to be a “good security citizen” and ask only for the access you need (namely, PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION) has backfired due to the addition of STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED. If you ask for STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED, you are asking for everything.

Why is that? Notice that STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED includes WRITE_DAC. If you have WRITE_DAC permission, that means that you have permission to change the security descriptor on the object, at which point you totally 0wnz0r it. You want PROCESS_VM_WRITE access but the security descriptor doesn’t let you? No problem. Just set a new security descriptor that grants you PROCESS_ALL_ACCESS to the process object. Tada! You now have all the access in the world.

Moral of the story: Don’t ask for STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED, because only somebody with full control will be able to get it. Ask for what you actually want.

Topics
Code

Author

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

0 comments

Discussion are closed.

Feedback