T05 · Unauthorized Access and Privilege Escalation
Error
- Location
- references/stride-assessment-crisis-channel.md:80
- Finding
- Crisis Workflow Permits Mandatory CISO Approval and Separation-of-Duties Bypass## Vulnerability Details **File Location**: `references/stride-assessment-crisis-channel.md:80-91` **Vulnerability Type**: Authorization bypass and privilege escalation **Risk Level**: High ### Vulnerable Documentation Segment The following is a faithful English translation of the relevant source segment: ```markdown | D-002 | CISO approval SLA timeout (>5 minutes) | High | Medium | 3.5 | Automatic escalation to direct CEO ruling + backup CISO + timeout alert | Low | D-001 additional mitigations: - Deploy the crisis direct channel on an independent high-availability cluster. - Use the CISO manual confirmation channel as a physical backup. - Degraded mode: the CISO may directly execute allowlisted operations from a terminal. ``` ### Technical Analysis The crisis protocol elsewhere requires the approval sequence `CEO → CISO approval → EXEC execution` and explicitly states that CISO approval must never be bypassed. However, the threat-assessment document defines two conflicting fallback mechanisms: 1. A CISO approval timeout can automatically escalate to a direct CEO ruling. 2. In degraded mode, the CISO can directly execute allowlisted operations from a terminal. The direct CEO ruling creates an authorization path that may omit the mandatory CISO approval. An attacker who can delay or disrupt the CISO approval channel could intentionally cause the five-minute timeout and force the workflow onto this weaker path. The terminal fallback also combines approval and execution authority in the CISO role. This defeats separation of duties between the CISO approver and the EXEC execution layer. If the CISO account or terminal is compromised, the attacker may both authorize and perform crisis operations without an independent execution control. This is a governance specification rather than executable implementation code, but an implementation following this specification would contain a security-significant fail-open authorization path. ### Attack Path 1. A ...[truncated 1546 chars]
- Remediation
- ## Remediation Suggestions 1. Replace automatic escalation to direct CEO ruling with a fail-closed outcome. A timeout must not constitute approval. 2. Permit emergency authorization only through a separately authenticated backup CISO or an equivalent independent security approver. 3. Require cryptographically signed approval from both the initiating authority and the independent security approver before issuing an execution token. 4. Preserve separation of duties: the CISO may approve an operation but must not directly execute it. Execution should remain assigned to a distinct EXEC identity or service. 5. Enforce the crisis allowlist in a policy engine outside the agent prompt or documentation layer. 6. Bind each authorization token to the exact operation, target, parameters, requester, approver, expiration time, and incident identifier. 7. Use short-lived, single-use execution tokens and reject replayed, expired, modified, or incompletely signed requests. 8. Ensure the backup channel provides equivalent multifactor authentication, integrity protection, logging, and approval requirements rather than weaker degraded-mode controls. 9. Add automated tests confirming that CISO unavailability, denial-of-service conditions, and timeout events cannot produce an executable authorization. 10. Reconcile this threat-assessment document with the mandatory no-bypass requirements in `SKILL.md` so that all specifications define one fail-closed approval model.