When trying to keep information confidential, an attacker can often infer some of the information by using statistics.
Extended Description
In situations where data should not be tied to individual users, but a large number of users should be able to make queries that "scrub" the identity of users, it may be possible to get information about a user -- e.g., by specifying search terms that are known to be unique to that user.
Wiki product allows an adversary to discover filenames via a series of queries starting with one letter and then iteratively extending the match.
Related Attack Patterns (CAPEC)
N/A
Attack TTPs
N/A
Modes of Introduction
Phase
Note
Architecture and Design
N/A
Implementation
N/A
Common Consequences
Impact: Read Files or Directories, Read Application Data — Notes: Sensitive information may possibly be leaked through data queries accidentally.
Potential Mitigations
Architecture and Design: This is a complex topic. See the book Translucent Databases for a good discussion of best practices. (N/A)
Applicable Platforms
None (Not Language-Specific, Undetermined)
Demonstrative Examples
Intro: See the book Translucent Databases for examples.
Notes
Maintenance: The relationship between CWE-202 and CWE-612 needs to be investigated more closely, as they may be different descriptions of the same kind of problem. CWE-202 is also being considered for deprecation, as it is not clearly described and may have been misunderstood by CWE users. It could be argued that this issue is better covered by CAPEC; an attacker can utilize their data-query privileges to perform this kind of operation, and if the attacker should not be allowed to perform the operation - or if the sensitive data should not have been made accessible at all - then that is more appropriately classified as a separate CWE related to authorization (see the parent, CWE-1230).