CWE-921: Storage of Sensitive Data in a Mechanism without Access Control

Description

The product stores sensitive information in a file system or device that does not have built-in access control.

Submission Date :

June 22, 2013, midnight

Modification Date :

2023-06-29 00:00:00+00:00

Organization :

MITRE
Extended Description

While many modern file systems or devices utilize some form of access control in order to restrict access to data, not all storage mechanisms have this capability. For example, memory cards, floppy disks, CDs, and USB devices are typically made accessible to any user within the system. This can become a problem when sensitive data is stored in these mechanisms in a multi-user environment, because anybody on the system can read or write this data.

On Android devices, external storage is typically globally readable and writable by other applications on the device. External storage may also be easily accessible through the mobile device's USB connection or physically accessible through the device's memory card port.

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.

Visit http://cwe.mitre.org/ for more details.