CWE-202 — Exposure of Sensitive Information Through Data Queries
CWE-202: Exposure of Sensitive Information Through Data Queries
MITRE CWE weakness
| Kind | Weakness |
| Abstraction | Base |
| Status | Draft |
| Likelihood of exploit | Medium |
Description
When trying to keep information confidential, an attacker can often infer some of the information by using statistics.
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.
Common consequences
- Confidentiality: Read Files or Directories, Read Application Data
Mitigations
Architecture and Design — This is a complex topic. See the [REF-1492] for a good discussion of best practices.
References
- CWE page: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/202.html
- CWE list: https://cwe.mitre.org/data/index.html