CWE-540: Inclusion of Sensitive Information in Source Code

Description

Source code on a web server or repository often contains sensitive information and should generally not be accessible to users.

Extended Description

There are situations where it is critical to remove source code from an area or server. For example, obtaining Perl source code on a system allows an attacker to understand the logic of the script and extract extremely useful information such as code bugs or logins and passwords.

ThreatScore

Threat Mapped score: 3.25

Industry: Finiancial

Threat priority: P2 - Serious (High)

Observed Examples (CVEs)

CVE: CVE-2022-25512

Server for Team Awareness Kit (TAK) application includes sensitive tokens in the JavaScript source code.
CVE: CVE-2022-24867

The LDAP password might be visible in the html code of a rendered page in an IT Asset Management tool.
CVE: CVE-2007-6197

Version numbers and internal hostnames leaked in HTML comments.

Related Attack Patterns (CAPEC)

N/A

Attack TTPs

N/A

Modes of Introduction

Phase	Note
Implementation	N/A

Common Consequences

Impact: Read Application Data — Notes:

Potential Mitigations

Architecture and Design: Recommendations include removing this script from the web server and moving it to a location not accessible from the Internet. (N/A)

Applicable Platforms

None listed.

Demonstrative Examples

Intro: The following code uses an include file to store database credentials:

Body: database.inc

<?php $dbName = 'usersDB'; $dbPassword = 'skjdh#67nkjd3$3$'; ?>

Intro: The following comment, embedded in a JSP, will be displayed in the resulting HTML output.

<!-- FIXME: calling this with more than 30 args kills the JDBC server -->

Notes

No notes available.

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