Base weakness

Incomplete

CWE-359: Exposure of Private Personal Information to an Unauthorized Actor

Also known as: Privacy violation, Privacy leak / Privacy leakage, PPI, PII, PHI

The product does not properly prevent a person's private, personal information from being accessed by actors who either (1) are not explicitly authorized to access the information or (2) do not have the implicit consent of the person about whom the information is collected.

166

Recorded CVEs

With this primary weakness

KEVs

In the CISA KEV catalog

Not rated

Likelihood of exploit

Per MITRE

Base

Abstraction

MITRE classification

Overview

CWE-359 (Exposure of Private Personal Information to an Unauthorized Actor) is a base-level software weakness catalogued by MITRE in the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE). It describes a recurring type of mistake that can lead to exploitable security vulnerabilities.

How to prevent it

Practical mitigations for CWE-359, grouped by where in the lifecycle they apply.

Requirements

Identify and consult all relevant regulations for personal privacy. An organization may be required to comply with certain federal and state regulations, depending on its location, the type of business it conducts, and the nature of any private data it handles. Regulations may include Safe Harbor Privacy Framework [REF-340], Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) [REF-341], Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) [REF-342], General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) [REF-1047], California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) [REF-1048], and others.

Architecture and Design

Carefully evaluate how secure design may interfere with privacy, and vice versa. Security and privacy concerns often seem to compete with each other. From a security perspective, all important operations should be recorded so that any anomalous activity can later be identified. However, when private data is involved, this practice can in fact create risk. Although there are many ways in which private data can be handled unsafely, a common risk stems from misplaced trust. Programmers often trust the operating environment in which a program runs, and therefore believe that it is acceptable store private information on the file system, in the registry, or in other locally-controlled resources. However, even if access to certain resources is restricted, this does not guarantee that the individuals who do have access can be trusted.

Implementation

Operation

Attack Surface Reduction

Some 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].

CWE-359: Exposure of Private Personal Information to an Unauthorized Actor

Overview

Real-world CVEs

Common consequences

How it happens

When it is introduced

Applies to

How to prevent it

How to detect it

Architecture or Design Review

Automated Static Analysis

Automated Static Analysis

Code examples

Illustrative examples

Terminology & mappings

Alternate terms

Mapped taxonomies

Attack patterns

Frequently asked questions

What is CWE-359?

What CVEs are caused by CWE-359?

How do you prevent CWE-359?

How is CWE-359 detected?

What are the consequences of CWE-359?

Is CWE-359 actively exploited?

References

Stay ahead of CWE-359

Overview

Real-world CVEs

Common consequences

How it happens

When it is introduced

Applies to

How to prevent it

How to detect it

Architecture or Design Review

Automated Static Analysis

Automated Static Analysis

Code examples

Illustrative examples

Related weaknesses

Parent

Terminology & mappings

Alternate terms

Mapped taxonomies

Attack patterns

Frequently asked questions

What is CWE-359?

What CVEs are caused by CWE-359?

How do you prevent CWE-359?

How is CWE-359 detected?

What are the consequences of CWE-359?

Is CWE-359 actively exploited?

References

Stay ahead of CWE-359