COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATIONDraft

CWE-317

Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in GUI

The product stores sensitive information in cleartext within the GUI.

Abstraction

Variant

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

Medium

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

The product stores sensitive information in cleartext within the GUI.

Extended description

An attacker can often obtain data from a GUI, even if hidden, by using an API to directly access GUI objects such as windows and menus. 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.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Architecture and Design

OMISSION: This weakness is caused by missing a security tactic during the architecture and design phase.

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

Read MemoryRead Application Data

Affected security scopes: Confidentiality

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

  • Follow secure coding guidelines for input handling and boundary checking.
  • Enforce strict security reviews and automated static analysis (SAST) checks.