Insertion of Sensitive Information into Externally-Accessible File or Directory

The product places sensitive information into files or directories that are accessible to actors who are allowed to have access to the files, but not to the sensitive information.

Abstraction

Base

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

Medium

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

The product places sensitive information into files or directories that are accessible to actors who are allowed to have access to the files, but not to the sensitive information.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Implementation

OMISSION: This weakness is caused by missing a security tactic during the architecture and design phase.

Lifecycle phase

Operation

OMISSION: This weakness is caused by missing a security tactic during the architecture and design phase.

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

Read Files or Directories

Affected security scopes: Confidentiality

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

Architecture and Design · Operation · System Configuration

Defence to apply across several lifecycle phases

Detail

Do not expose file and directory information to the user.

Verification

How is it detected?

Automated Static Analysis

High

Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.)