COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATIONIncomplete

CWE-1230

Exposure of Sensitive Information Through Metadata

The product prevents direct access to a resource containing sensitive information, but it does not sufficiently limit access to metadata that is derived from the original, sensitive information.

Abstraction

Base

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

Medium

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

The product prevents direct access to a resource containing sensitive information, but it does not sufficiently limit access to metadata that is derived from the original, sensitive information.

Extended description

Developers might correctly prevent unauthorized access to a database or other resource containing sensitive information, but they might not consider that portions of the original information might also be recorded in metadata, search indices, statistical reports, or other resources. If these resources are not also restricted, then attackers might be able to extract some or all of the original information, or otherwise infer some details. For example, an attacker could specify search terms that are known to be unique to a particular person, or view metadata such as activity or creation dates in order to identify usage patterns.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Architecture and Design

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

Read Application Data

Affected security scopes: Confidentiality

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

  • Follow secure coding guidelines for input handling and boundary checking.
  • Enforce strict security reviews and automated static analysis (SAST) checks.