CWE-261 is Weak Encoding for Password. The flaw arises when obscuring a password with a trivial encoding does not protect the password. The database currently holds 5 vulnerabilities mapped to CWE-261 and none of them are in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
Analyzing data...
No vulnerability data in CISA KEV for CWE-261
Obscuring a password with a trivial encoding does not protect the password.
Password management issues occur when a password is stored in plaintext in an application's properties or configuration file. A programmer can attempt to remedy the password management problem by obscuring the password with an encoding function, such as base 64 encoding, but this effort does not adequately protect the password.
| Impact | Scope | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Gain Privileges or Assume Identity | Access Control | - |
| Method | Approach | Effectiveness |
|---|---|---|
| Automated Static Analysis | Automated static analysis, commonly referred to as Static Application Security Testing (SAST), can find some instances of this weakness by analyzing source code (or binary/compiled code) without having to execute it. Typically, this is done by building a model of data flow and control flow, then searching for potentially-vulnerable patterns that connect "sources" (origins of input) with "sinks" (destinations where the data interacts with external components, a lower layer such as the OS, etc.) | High |
Below are representative vulnerabilities related to this CWE, prioritized by severity.
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