COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATIONIncomplete

CWE-214

Invocation of Process Using Visible Sensitive Information

A process is invoked with sensitive command-line arguments, environment variables, or other elements that can be seen by other processes on the operating system.

Abstraction

Base

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

Medium

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

A process is invoked with sensitive command-line arguments, environment variables, or other elements that can be seen by other processes on the operating system.

Extended description

Many operating systems allow a user to list information about processes that are owned by other users. Other users could see information such as command line arguments or environment variable settings. When this data contains sensitive information such as credentials, it might allow other users to launch an attack against the product or related resources.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Architecture and Design

Lifecycle phase

Implementation

REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.

Lifecycle phase

Operation

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.