CWE-313: Cleartext Storage in a File or on Disk
Description
The product stores sensitive information in cleartext in a file, or on disk.
Submission Date :
July 19, 2006, midnight
Modification Date :
2023-06-29 00:00:00+00:00
Organization :
MITRE
Extended Description
The sensitive information could be read by attackers with access to the file, or with physical or administrator access to the raw disk. Even if the information is encoded in a way that is not human-readable, certain techniques could determine which encoding is being used, then decode the information.
Example - 1
The following examples show a portion of properties and configuration files for Java and ASP.NET applications. The files include username and password information but they are stored in cleartext. This Java example shows a properties file with a cleartext username / password pair. The following example shows a portion of a configuration file for an ASP.Net application. This configuration file includes username and password information for a connection to a database but the pair is stored in cleartext. Username and password information should not be included in a configuration file or a properties file in cleartext as this will allow anyone who can read the file access to the resource. If possible, encrypt this information.
// # Java Web App ResourceBundle properties file//
...webapp.ldap.username=secretUsernamewebapp.ldap.password=secretPassword...
<add name="ud_DEV" connectionString="connectDB=uDB; uid=db2admin; pwd=password; dbalias=uDB;" providerName="System.Data.Odbc" />
...<connectionStrings></connectionStrings>...
Related Weaknesses
This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined to give an overview of the different insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction.
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