Weakness · Medium
CWE-922: Insecure Storage of Sensitive Information
What it is
The product stores sensitive information without properly limiting read or write access by unauthorized actors.
- Severity (our rating)
- Medium
- Likelihood of exploit
- Not rated by MITRE
- Introduced during
- Architecture and Design, Implementation, System Configuration
- Exploited in the wild
- No CVE in CISA's catalog
In more detail
If read access is not properly restricted, then attackers can steal the sensitive information. If write access is not properly restricted, then attackers can modify and possibly delete the data, causing incorrect results and possibly a denial of service.
What an attacker can do
- Read Application Data (Confidentiality)
- Read Files or Directories (Confidentiality)
- Modify Application Data (Integrity)
- Modify Files or Directories (Integrity)
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.
How to find it
- Automated Static Analysis. 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.)
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Start freeSource: MITRE Common Weakness Enumeration, CWE version 4.19.1. CWE is a trademark of The MITRE Corporation.