Delegation amplification prevention

Stop a child from gaining rights through union, reissue or credential substitution.

01 / Attack path

How the boundary is crossed

A child with read access asks another agent to issue a new write grant for the same task.

Attack path and interception point
  1. 01Lower-trust input
  2. 02Attempted instruction
  3. 03Protected action
  4. 04Enforced decision

02 / Containment

Where bounded authority limits the effect

Validate effective rights against the original accountable source and every applicable parent, regardless of reissue route.

03 / Failure and evidence

The attacker’s opportunity and the defender’s record

Exploit condition

Two narrow grants are unioned into a broader right never approved by the originator.

Evidence to retain

Original scope, reissue request, intersection calculation, denial and downstream attempt.

04 / Canonical scope

Why this reference stands alone

Monotonic narrowing checks each edge; this threat page covers cross-path privilege amplification.

Technical artifact

Do not union permissions from unrelated branches

Conceptual trace
origin O permits read invoice I42
branch A permits prepare invoice I42
branch B permits release invoice I42 but lacks O ancestry
combined request release(I42) → DENY
no valid single origin chain grants release

Run the denial test

Give a child one read grant and one write grant from different origins. A union algorithm will create a permission neither origin approved; require an authorized intersection or explicit new grant.

Primary references

Read the underlying material

Architecture discussion

Choose one consequential action and make its boundary explicit.

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