Official definition

The product stores, transfers, or shares a resource that contains sensitive information, but it does not properly remove that information before the product makes the resource available to unauthorized actors.

Resources that may contain sensitive data include documents, packets, messages, databases, etc. While this data may be useful to an individual user or small set of users who share the resource, it may need to be removed before the resource can be shared outside of the trusted group. The process of removal is sometimes called cleansing or scrubbing.

For example, a product for editing documents might not remove sensitive data such as reviewer comments or the local pathname where the document is stored. Or, a proxy might not remove an internal IP address from headers before making an outgoing request to an Internet site.

Characteristics

Modes of introduction

Architecture and Design
Implementation: REALIZATION: This weakness is caused during implementation of an architectural security tactic.
Operation

Common consequences

Impact	Scope	Explanation
Read Files or Directories, Read Application Data	Confidentiality	Sensitive data may be exposed to an unauthorized actor in another control sphere. This may have a wide range of secondary consequences that will depend on what data is exposed. One possibility is the exposure of system data - such as file locations, software versions, or device data - that allow an attacker to craft a specific, more effective attack. Alternately, insufficient redaction of Private Personal Information (PPI), Personally Identifiable Information (PII), or other types of information might not harm the secure operation of the product itself, but could be violations of expectations by the product's users.

Risk mitigations

RequirementsClearly specify which information should be regarded as private or sensitive, and require that the product offers functionality that allows the user to cleanse the sensitive information from the resource before it is published or exported to other parties.
Separation of Privilege · Architecture and DesignCompartmentalize the system to have "safe" areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area. Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.
Attack Surface Reduction · Implementation, OperationSome tools can automatically analyze documents to redact, strip, or "sanitize" private information, although some human review might be necessary. Tools may vary in terms of which document formats can be processed. When calling an external program to automatically generate or convert documents, invoke the program with any available options that avoid generating sensitive metadata. Some formats have well-defined fields that could contain private data, such as Exchangeable image file format (Exif), which can contain potentially sensitive metadata such as geolocation, date, and time [REF-1515] [REF-1516].
Attack Surface Reduction · Implementation · Effectiveness: Defense in DepthUse naming conventions and strong types to make it easier to spot when sensitive data is being used. When creating structures, objects, or other complex entities, separate the sensitive and non-sensitive data as much as possible.This makes it easier to spot places in the code where data is being used that is unencrypted.
ImplementationAvoid errors related to improper resource shutdown or release (CWE-404), which may leave the sensitive data within the resource if it is in an incomplete state.

Detection methods

Method	Approach	Effectiveness
Automated Static Analysis	Tools are available to analyze documents (such as PDF, Word, etc.) to look for private information such as names, addresses, etc.	-

Representative vulnerabilities

Below are representative vulnerabilities related to this CWE, prioritized by severity.

Sources (2)

MITRE CWE

CWE Terms of Use

CWE-212: Improper Removal of Sensitive Information Before Storage or Transfer

What is CWE-212?

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Vulnerabilities mapped to CWE-212

No data

Official definition

Characteristics

Modes of introduction

Common consequences

Risk mitigations

Detection methods

Representative vulnerabilities

Supporting documents

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