CWE-497 Base Incompleto

Exposure of Sensitive System Information to an Unauthorized Control Sphere

This vulnerability occurs when an application unintentionally reveals sensitive details about its underlying system, such as file paths, software versions, or environment data, to users who should…

Definição

What is CWE-497?

This vulnerability occurs when an application unintentionally reveals sensitive details about its underlying system, such as file paths, software versions, or environment data, to users who should not have access to that information.

Applications, especially web apps, run on top of complex systems like operating servers. When they generate errors, debug logs, or even normal responses, they can leak technical details—stack traces, installed packages, directory structures, or server banners. Attackers actively seek out this information to map your system's architecture and identify specific software versions with known exploits, making their attacks far more precise and dangerous. Preventing these leaks requires scrutinizing all output channels, from error messages to API headers and log files, to ensure they are sanitized before reaching an end-user. While SAST tools can flag patterns of information disclosure, managing this at scale across a large codebase is challenging. An ASPM like Plexicus helps by continuously monitoring for these exposures in production and development, using AI to prioritize the risk and suggest specific code fixes to harden your system's responses.

Impacto no mundo real

Real-world CVEs caused by CWE-497

CVE-2021-32638

Code analysis product passes access tokens as a command-line parameter or through an environment variable, making them visible to other processes via the ps command.

Como os atacantes a exploram

Trajeto do atacante passo a passo

1
The following code prints the path environment variable to the standard error stream:
2
This code prints all of the running processes belonging to the current user.
3
If invoked by an unauthorized web user, it is providing a web page of potentially sensitive information on the underlying system, such as command-line arguments (CWE-497). This program is also potentially vulnerable to a PATH based attack (CWE-426), as an attacker may be able to create malicious versions of the ps or grep commands. While the program does not explicitly raise privileges to run the system commands, the PHP interpreter may by default be running with higher privileges than users.
4
The following code prints an exception to the standard error stream:
5
Depending upon the system configuration, this information can be dumped to a console, written to a log file, or exposed to a remote user. In some cases the error message tells the attacker precisely what sort of an attack the system will be vulnerable to. For example, a database error message can reveal that the application is vulnerable to a SQL injection attack. Other error messages can reveal more oblique clues about the system. In the example above, the search path could imply information about the type of operating system, the applications installed on the system, and the amount of care that the administrators have put into configuring the program.

Exemplo de código vulnerável

Vulnerable C

The following code prints the path environment variable to the standard error stream:

Vulnerável C

char* path = getenv("PATH");
  ...
  sprintf(stderr, "cannot find exe on path %s\n", path);

Exemplo de código seguro

Secure pseudo

Seguro pseudo

// Validate, sanitize, or use a safe API before reaching the sink.
function handleRequest(input) {
  const safe = validateAndEscape(input);
  return executeWithGuards(safe);
}

What changed: the unsafe sink is replaced (or the input is validated/escaped) so the same payload no longer triggers the weakness.

Lista de verificação de prevenção

How to prevent CWE-497

Architecture and Design / Implementation Production applications should never use methods that generate internal details such as stack traces and error messages unless that information is directly committed to a log that is not viewable by the end user. All error message text should be HTML entity encoded before being written to the log file to protect against potential cross-site scripting attacks against the viewer of the logs

Sinais de deteção

How to detect CWE-497

Automated Static Analysis High

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.)

Correção automática do Plexicus

O Plexicus deteta automaticamente o CWE-497 e abre um PR de correção em menos de 60 segundos.

O Codex Remedium analisa cada commit, identifica esta fraqueza exata e entrega um pull request pronto para revisão com o patch. Sem tickets. Sem transferências.

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Perguntas frequentes

Frequently asked questions

O que é o CWE-497?

Qual a gravidade do CWE-497?

A MITRE não publicou uma classificação de probabilidade de exploração para esta fraqueza. Trate-a como impacto médio até o seu modelo de ameaças provar o contrário.

Que linguagens ou plataformas são afetadas pelo CWE-497?

A MITRE não especificou as plataformas afetadas por este CWE — pode aplicar-se à maioria das stacks de aplicações.

Como posso prevenir o CWE-497?

Production applications should never use methods that generate internal details such as stack traces and error messages unless that information is directly committed to a log that is not viewable by the end user. All error message text should be HTML entity encoded before being written to the log file to protect against potential cross-site scripting attacks against the viewer of the logs

Como é que o Plexicus deteta e corrige o CWE-497?

O motor SAST do Plexicus correlaciona a assinatura de fluxo de dados do CWE-497 em cada commit. Quando é encontrada uma correspondência, o nosso agente Codex Remedium abre um PR de correção com o código corrigido, testes e um resumo de uma linha para o revisor.

Onde posso saber mais sobre o CWE-497?

A MITRE publica a definição canónica em https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/497.html. Pode também consultar a documentação da OWASP e do NIST para orientações adjacentes.

Fraquezas relacionadas

Weaknesses related to CWE-497

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Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

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Debug Messages Revealing Unnecessary Information

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Driving Intermediate Cryptographic State/Results to Hardware Module Outputs

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Insertion of Sensitive Information Into Sent Data

This vulnerability occurs when an application sends data to an external party, but accidentally includes sensitive information—like…

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Observable Discrepancy

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CWE-209 Irmão

Generation of Error Message Containing Sensitive Information

This vulnerability occurs when an application reveals sensitive details about its internal systems, user data, or environment within error…

CWE-213 Irmão

Exposure of Sensitive Information Due to Incompatible Policies

This vulnerability occurs when a system's data handling aligns with the developer's security rules but accidentally reveals information…

Recursos

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