CWE - CWE-540: Inclusion of Sensitive Information in Source Code (4.18)

Weakness ID: 540

Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities
Abstraction: Base Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.

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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.

Common Consequences

This table specifies different individual consequences associated with the weakness. The Scope identifies the application security area that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in exploiting this weakness. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a weakness will be exploited to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact.

Impact	Details
Read Application Data	Scope: Confidentiality

Potential Mitigations

Phase(s)	Mitigation
Architecture and Design; System Configuration	Recommendations include removing this script from the web server and moving it to a location not accessible from the Internet.

Relationships

This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined as ChildOf, ParentOf, MemberOf and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as PeerOf and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user may want to explore.

Relevant to the view "Research Concepts" (View-1000)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
ChildOf	Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.	538	Insertion of Sensitive Information into Externally-Accessible File or Directory
ParentOf	Variant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.	531	Inclusion of Sensitive Information in Test Code
ParentOf	Variant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.	541	Inclusion of Sensitive Information in an Include File
ParentOf	Variant - a weakness that is linked to a certain type of product, typically involving a specific language or technology. More specific than a Base weakness. Variant level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 3 to 5 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.	615	Inclusion of Sensitive Information in Source Code Comments

Modes Of Introduction

The different Modes of Introduction provide information about how and when this weakness may be introduced. The Phase identifies a point in the life cycle at which introduction may occur, while the Note provides a typical scenario related to introduction during the given phase.

Phase	Note
Implementation

Demonstrative Examples

Example 1

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

database.inc

(bad code)

Example Language: PHP

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

(bad code)

Example Language: PHP

<?php
include('database.inc');
$db = connectToDB($dbName, $dbPassword);
$db.authenticateUser($username, $password);
?>

If the server does not have an explicit handler set for .inc files it may send the contents of database.inc to an attacker without pre-processing, if the attacker requests the file directly. This will expose the database name and password.

Example 2

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

(bad code)

Example Language: JSP

Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-540: Inclusion of Sensitive Information in Source Code

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