CWE-532: Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File

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Description

The product writes sensitive information to a log file.

Extended Description

N/A


ThreatScore

Threat Mapped score: 3.0

Industry: Finiancial

Threat priority: P2 - Serious (High)


Observed Examples (CVEs)

Related Attack Patterns (CAPEC)


Attack TTPs

N/A

Modes of Introduction

Phase Note
Architecture and Design COMMISSION: This weakness refers to an incorrect design related to an architectural security tactic.
Implementation N/A
Operation N/A

Common Consequences

Potential Mitigations

Applicable Platforms


Demonstrative Examples

Intro: In the following code snippet, a user's full name and credit card number are written to a log file.

logger.info("Username: " + usernme + ", CCN: " + ccn);

Intro: This code stores location information about the current user:

Body: When the application encounters an exception it will write the user object to the log. Because the user object contains location information, the user's location is also written to the log.

locationClient = new LocationClient(this, this, this); locationClient.connect(); currentUser.setLocation(locationClient.getLastLocation()); ... catch (Exception e) { AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this); builder.setMessage("Sorry, this application has experienced an error."); AlertDialog alert = builder.create(); alert.show(); Log.e("ExampleActivity", "Caught exception: " + e + " While on User:" + User.toString()); }

Intro: In the example below, the method getUserBankAccount retrieves a bank account object from a database using the supplied username and account number to query the database. If an SQLException is raised when querying the database, an error message is created and output to a log file.

Body: The error message that is created includes information about the database query that may contain sensitive information about the database or query logic. In this case, the error message will expose the table name and column names used in the database. This data could be used to simplify other attacks, such as SQL injection (CWE-89) to directly access the database.

public BankAccount getUserBankAccount(String username, String accountNumber) { BankAccount userAccount = null; String query = null; try { if (isAuthorizedUser(username)) { query = "SELECT * FROM accounts WHERE owner = " + username + " AND accountID = " + accountNumber; DatabaseManager dbManager = new DatabaseManager(); Connection conn = dbManager.getConnection(); Statement stmt = conn.createStatement(); ResultSet queryResult = stmt.executeQuery(query); userAccount = (BankAccount)queryResult.getObject(accountNumber); } } catch (SQLException ex) { String logMessage = "Unable to retrieve account information from database,\nquery: " + query; Logger.getLogger(BankManager.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, logMessage, ex); } return userAccount; }

Notes

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