Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in GUI

Opis

The product stores sensitive information in cleartext within the GUI.

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.

Skutki

• Confidentiality

  Read Memory; Read Application Data

Przykłady podatności

• CVE-2002-1848 Unencrypted passwords stored in GUI dialog may allow local users to access the passwords.

Słabość nadrzędna

• CWE-312 Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information

Kiedy powstaje

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

Dotyczy

Not Language-Specific, Windows

Uwagi

Different people use "cleartext" and "plaintext" to mean the same thing: the lack of encryption. However, within cryptography, these have more precise meanings. Plaintext is the information just before it is fed into a cryptographic algorithm, including already-encrypted text. Cleartext is any information that is unencrypted, although it might be in an encoded form that is not easily human-readable (such as base64 encoding).