Weakness · Medium

CWE-317: Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in GUI

What it is

The product stores sensitive information in cleartext within the GUI.

MITRE CWE 4.19.1

Severity (our rating)
Medium
Likelihood of exploit
Not rated by MITRE
Introduced during
Architecture and Design
Exploited in the wild
No CVE in CISA's catalog

In more detail

An attacker can often obtain data from a GUI, even if hidden, by using an API to directly access GUI objects such as windows and menus. Even if the information is encoded in a way that is not human-readable, certain techniques could determine which encoding is being used, then decode the information.

What an attacker can do

  • Read Memory (Confidentiality)
  • Read Application Data (Confidentiality)

How to prevent it

MITRE lists no specific mitigation for this weakness. Treat it like its parent weaknesses below: validate input, keep the design simple and review the code where it could appear.

CWE-317 on MITRE's CWE site

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Source: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.