Cyber Resilience

CWE · MITRE source

CWE-273Improper Check for Dropped Privileges

Abstraction: Base · CVEs in our corpus: 43

The product attempts to drop privileges but does not check or incorrectly checks to see if the drop succeeded.

If the drop fails, the product will continue to run with the raised privileges, which might provide additional access to unprivileged users.

Last updated: 20 August 2026 20:22 UTC

Control responseHuman-reviewed

Answering this weakness across the control lifecycle, from our framework cross-walks.

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53 / CSF Protect)
  • PR.PS-06
  • PR.AA-05
  • AC-6 Least Privilege
Detect
Catch it (CSF Detect / Respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

NIST 800-53 r5 controls that address this weakness (0)AI-assisted

Control Title Family Why it addresses this CWE
No NIST controls proposed yet.

Top CVEs of this weakness type, ranked by Risk Priority

CVE Risk CVSS EPSS Published
CVE-2011-2921 9.99.80.82832019-11-19
CVE-2017-6972 8.49.80.14602017-03-22
CVE-2024-38813 KEV 8.37.50.17362024-09-17
CVE-2020-24361 7.79.80.02032020-08-16
CVE-2021-36372 7.79.80.02442021-11-19
CVE-2012-1187 7.69.80.01652019-10-29
CVE-2011-3350 7.69.80.01692019-11-19
CVE-2023-34844 7.59.80.00952023-06-29
CVE-2024-8382 6.68.80.00602024-09-03
CVE-2025-27396 6.58.80.00422025-03-11
CVE-2018-16466 6.38.10.00962018-10-30
CVE-2019-18276 6.37.80.02612019-11-28
CVE-2015-0278 6.10.00.03242015-05-18
CVE-2018-8599 6.17.80.01002018-12-12
CVE-2020-14298 6.18.80.00322020-07-13
CVE-2020-14300 6.18.80.00382020-07-13
CVE-2026-21882 6.18.40.00182026-03-02
CVE-2019-20044 5.97.80.00502020-02-24
CVE-2021-47129 5.97.80.00442024-03-15
CVE-2026-32107 5.98.80.00162026-04-17
CVE-2006-2916 5.87.80.00392006-06-15
CVE-2022-0358 5.87.80.00322022-08-29
CVE-2023-34322 5.77.80.00232024-01-05
CVE-2023-52433 5.77.80.00252024-02-20
CVE-2024-25420 5.77.20.01432024-03-26