CWE - CWE-359: Exposure of Private Personal Information to an Unauthorized Actor (4.18)

Home > CWE List > CWE-359: Exposure of Private Personal Information to an Unauthorized Actor (4.18)

CWE Glossary Definition

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

Weakness ID: 359

Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities
Abstraction: Base Base - a weakness that is still mostly independent of a resource or technology, but with sufficient details to provide specific methods for detection and prevention. Base level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 2 or 3 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, technology, language, and resource.

View customized information:

For users who are interested in more notional aspects of a weakness. Example: educators, technical writers, and project/program managers. For users who are concerned with the practical application and details about the nature of a weakness and how to prevent it from happening. Example: tool developers, security researchers, pen-testers, incident response analysts. For users who are mapping an issue to CWE/CAPEC IDs, i.e., finding the most appropriate CWE for a specific issue (e.g., a CVE record). Example: tool developers, security researchers. For users who wish to see all available information for the CWE/CAPEC entry. For users who want to customize what details are displayed.

Edit Custom Filter

Description

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. Diagram for CWE-359

Alternate Terms

Privacy violation

Privacy leak

Privacy leakage

Common Consequences

Section HelpThis table specifies different individual consequences associated with the weakness. The Scope identifies the application security area that is violated, while the Impact describes the negative technical impact that arises if an adversary succeeds in exploiting this weakness. The Likelihood provides information about how likely the specific consequence is expected to be seen relative to the other consequences in the list. For example, there may be high likelihood that a weakness will be exploited to achieve a certain impact, but a low likelihood that it will be exploited to achieve a different impact.

Impact	Details
Read Application Data	Scope: Confidentiality

Potential Mitigations

Phase(s)	Mitigation
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.

Phase(s)

Mitigation

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.

Relationships

Section Help This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined as ChildOf, ParentOf, MemberOf and give insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction. In addition, relationships such as PeerOf and CanAlsoBe are defined to show similar weaknesses that the user may want to explore.

Relevant to the view "Research Concepts" (View-1000)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
ChildOf	Class Class - a weakness that is described in a very abstract fashion, typically independent of any specific language or technology. More specific than a Pillar Weakness, but more general than a Base Weakness. Class level weaknesses typically describe issues in terms of 1 or 2 of the following dimensions: behavior, property, and resource.	200	Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

Relevant to the view "Software Development" (View-699)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
MemberOf	Category Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	199	Information Management Errors

Relevant to the view "Architectural Concepts" (View-1008)

Nature	Type	ID	Name
MemberOf	Category Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1011	Authorize Actors

Modes Of Introduction

Section HelpThe different Modes of Introduction provide information about how and when this weakness may be introduced. The Phase identifies a point in the life cycle at which introduction may occur, while the Note provides a typical scenario related to introduction during the given phase.

Phase	Note
Architecture and Design	OMISSION: This weakness is caused by missing a security tactic during the architecture and design phase.
Implementation
Operation

Applicable Platforms

Section HelpThis listing shows possible areas for which the given weakness could appear. These may be for specific named Languages, Operating Systems, Architectures, Paradigms, Technologies, or a class of such platforms. The platform is listed along with how frequently the given weakness appears for that instance.

Languages

Class: Not Language-Specific (Undetermined Prevalence)

Technologies

Class: Mobile (Undetermined Prevalence)

Demonstrative Examples

Example 1

The following code contains a logging statement that tracks the contents of records added to a database by storing them in a log file. Among other values that are stored, the getPassword() function returns the user-supplied plaintext password associated with the account.

(bad code)

Example Language: C#

pass = GetPassword();
...
dbmsLog.WriteLine(id + ":" + pass + ":" + type + ":" + tstamp);

The code in the example above logs a plaintext password to the filesystem. Although many developers trust the filesystem as a safe storage location for data, it should not be trusted implicitly, particularly when privacy is a concern.

Example 2

This code uses location to determine the user's current US State location.

First the application must declare that it requires the ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION permission in the application's manifest.xml:

(bad code)

Example Language: XML

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION"/>

During execution, a call to getLastLocation() will return a location based on the application's location permissions. In this case the application has permission for the most accurate location possible:

(bad code)

Example Language: Java

locationClient = new LocationClient(this, this, this);
locationClient.connect();
Location userCurrLocation;
userCurrLocation = locationClient.getLastLocation();
deriveStateFromCoords(userCurrLocation);

While the application needs this information, it does not need to use the ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION permission, as the ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION permission will be sufficient to identify which US state the user is in.

Example 3

In 2004, an employee at AOL sold approximately 92 million private customer e-mail addresses to a spammer marketing an offshore gambling web site [REF-338]. In response to such high-profile exploits, the collection and management of private data is becoming increasingly regulated.

Detection Methods

Method	Details
Architecture or Design Review	Private personal data can enter a program in a variety of ways: Directly from the user in the form of a password or personal information Accessed from a database or other data store by the application Indirectly from a partner or other third party If the data is written to an external location - such as the console, file system, or network - a privacy violation may occur. Effectiveness: High
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.) Effectiveness: High

Method

Details

Architecture or Design Review

Private personal data can enter a program in a variety of ways:

Directly from the user in the form of a password or personal information
Accessed from a database or other data store by the application
Indirectly from a partner or other third party

If the data is written to an external location - such as the console, file system, or network - a privacy violation may occur.

Effectiveness: High

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.)

Effectiveness: High

Memberships

Section HelpThis MemberOf Relationships table shows additional CWE Categories and Views that reference this weakness as a member. This information is often useful in understanding where a weakness fits within the context of external information sources.

Nature	Type	ID	Name
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	254	7PK - Security Features
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	857	The CERT Oracle Secure Coding Standard for Java (2011) Chapter 14 - Input Output (FIO)
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	975	SFP Secondary Cluster: Architecture
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1029	OWASP Top Ten 2017 Category A3 - Sensitive Data Exposure
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1147	SEI CERT Oracle Secure Coding Standard for Java - Guidelines 13. Input Output (FIO)
MemberOf	ViewView - a subset of CWE entries that provides a way of examining CWE content. The two main view structures are Slices (flat lists) and Graphs (containing relationships between entries).	1340	CISQ Data Protection Measures
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1345	OWASP Top Ten 2021 Category A01:2021 - Broken Access Control
MemberOf	CategoryCategory - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.	1417	Comprehensive Categorization: Sensitive Information Exposure

Vulnerability Mapping Notes

Usage ALLOWED

(this CWE ID may be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities)

Reason Acceptable-Use

Rationale

This CWE entry is at the Base level of abstraction, which is a preferred level of abstraction for mapping to the root causes of vulnerabilities.

Comments

Carefully read both the name and description to ensure that this mapping is an appropriate fit. Do not try to 'force' a mapping to a lower-level Base/Variant simply to comply with this preferred level of abstraction.

Notes

Other

There are many types of sensitive information that products must protect from attackers, including system data, communications, configuration, business secrets, intellectual property, and an individual's personal (private) information. Private personal information may include a password, phone number, geographic location, personal messages, credit card number, etc. Private information is important to consider whether the person is a user of the product, or part of a data set that is processed by the product. An exposure of private information does not necessarily prevent the product from working properly, and in fact the exposure might be intended by the developer, e.g. as part of data sharing with other organizations. However, the exposure of personal private information can still be undesirable or explicitly prohibited by law or regulation.

Some types of private information include:

Government identifiers, such as Social Security Numbers
Contact information, such as home addresses and telephone numbers
Geographic location - where the user is (or was)
Employment history
Financial data - such as credit card numbers, salary, bank accounts, and debts
Pictures, video, or audio
Behavioral patterns - such as web surfing history, when certain activities are performed, etc.
Relationships (and types of relationships) with others - family, friends, contacts, etc.
Communications - e-mail addresses, private messages, text messages, chat logs, etc.
Health - medical conditions, insurance status, prescription records
Account passwords and other credentials

Some of this information may be characterized as PII (Personally Identifiable Information), Protected Health Information (PHI), etc. Categories of private information may overlap or vary based on the intended usage or the policies and practices of a particular industry.

Sometimes data that is not labeled as private can have a privacy implication in a different context. For example, student identification numbers are usually not considered private because there is no explicit and publicly-available mapping to an individual student's personal information. However, if a school generates identification numbers based on student social security numbers, then the identification numbers should be considered private.

Maintenance

This entry overlaps many other entries that are not organized around the kind of sensitive information that is exposed. However, because privacy is treated with such importance due to regulations and other factors, and it may be useful for weakness-finding tools to highlight capabilities that detect personal private information instead of system information, it is not clear whether - and how - this entry should be deprecated.

Taxonomy Mappings

Mapped Taxonomy Name	Node ID	Fit	Mapped Node Name
7 Pernicious Kingdoms	Privacy Violation
The CERT Oracle Secure Coding Standard for Java (2011)	FIO13-J	Do not log sensitive information outside a trust boundary

Related Attack Patterns

CAPEC-ID	Attack Pattern Name
CAPEC-464	Evercookie
CAPEC-467	Cross Site Identification
CAPEC-498	Probe iOS Screenshots
CAPEC-508	Shoulder Surfing

References

[REF-6] Katrina Tsipenyuk, Brian Chess and Gary McGraw. "Seven Pernicious Kingdoms: A Taxonomy of Software Security Errors". NIST Workshop on Software Security Assurance Tools Techniques and Metrics. NIST. 2005年11月07日.
<https://samate.nist.gov/SSATTM_Content/papers/Seven%20Pernicious%20Kingdoms%20-%20Taxonomy%20of%20Sw%20Security%20Errors%20-%20Tsipenyuk%20-%20Chess%20-%20McGraw.pdf>.

[REF-338] J. Oates. "AOL man pleads guilty to selling 92m email addies". The Register. 2005.
<https://www.theregister.com/2005/02/07/aol_email_theft/>. (URL validated: 2023年04月07日)

[REF-339] NIST. "Guide to Protecting the Confidentiality of Personally Identifiable Information (SP 800-122)". 2010-04.
<https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/SP/nistspecialpublication800-122.pdf>. (URL validated: 2023年04月07日)

[REF-340] U.S. Department of Commerce. "Safe Harbor Privacy Framework".
<https://web.archive.org/web/20010223203241/http://www.export.gov/safeharbor/>. (URL validated: 2023年04月07日)

[REF-341] Federal Trade Commission. "Financial Privacy: The Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA)".
<https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/privacy-security/gramm-leach-bliley-act>. (URL validated: 2023年04月07日)

[REF-342] U.S. Department of Human Services. "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)".
<https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/index.html>. (URL validated: 2023年04月07日)

[REF-343] Government of the State of California. "California SB-1386". 2002年02月12日.
<http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/01-02/bill/sen/sb_1351-1400/sb_1386_bill_20020926_chaptered.html>. (URL validated: 2025年07月24日)

[REF-267] Information Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology. "FIPS PUB 140-2: SECURITY REQUIREMENTS FOR CRYPTOGRAPHIC MODULES". 2001年05月25日.
<https://csrc.nist.gov/files/pubs/fips/140-2/upd2/final/docs/fips1402.pdf>. (URL validated: 2025年05月21日)

[REF-172] Chris Wysopal. "Mobile App Top 10 List". 2010年12月13日.
<https://www.veracode.com/blog/2010/12/mobile-app-top-10-list>. (URL validated: 2023年04月07日)

[REF-1047] Wikipedia. "General Data Protection Regulation".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation>.

[REF-1048] State of California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General. "California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)".
<https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa>.

Content History

Submissions
Submission Date	Submitter	Organization
2006年07月19日 (CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日)	7 Pernicious Kingdoms
2006年07月19日 (CWE Draft 3, 2006年07月19日)
Modifications
Modification Date	Modifier	Organization
2025年09月09日 (CWE 4.18, 2025年09月09日)	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2025年09月09日 (CWE 4.18, 2025年09月09日)	updated References
2024年11月19日 (CWE 4.16, 2024年11月19日)	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2024年11月19日 (CWE 4.16, 2024年11月19日)	updated Description, Diagram, Other_Notes
2023年06月29日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023年06月29日	updated Mapping_Notes
2023年04月27日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023年04月27日	updated Detection_Factors, References, Relationships
2023年01月31日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2023年01月31日	updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2021年10月28日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2021年10月28日	updated Relationships
2021年03月15日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2021年03月15日	updated References
2020年12月10日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2020年12月10日	updated Relationships
2020年08月20日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2020年08月20日	updated Related_Attack_Patterns
2020年02月24日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2020年02月24日	updated Alternate_Terms, Applicable_Platforms, Demonstrative_Examples, Description, Detection_Factors, Maintenance_Notes, Name, Potential_Mitigations, References, Relationships, Type
2019年01月03日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2019年01月03日	updated Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2018年03月27日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2018年03月27日	updated Relationships
2017年11月08日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2017年11月08日	updated Modes_of_Introduction, References, Relationships
2014年07月30日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2014年07月30日	updated Relationships
2014年02月18日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2014年02月18日	updated Alternate_Terms, Demonstrative_Examples, Description, Name, Other_Notes, References
2013年02月21日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2013年02月21日	updated Applicable_Platforms, References
2012年05月11日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2012年05月11日	updated Related_Attack_Patterns, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2011年09月13日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2011年09月13日	updated Other_Notes, References
2011年06月01日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2011年06月01日	updated Common_Consequences, Relationships, Taxonomy_Mappings
2011年03月29日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2011年03月29日	updated Other_Notes
2010年02月16日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2010年02月16日	updated Other_Notes, References
2009年12月28日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2009年12月28日	updated Other_Notes, References
2009年07月27日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2009年07月27日	updated Demonstrative_Examples
2009年03月10日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2009年03月10日	updated Other_Notes
2008年09月08日	CWE Content Team	MITRE
2008年09月08日	updated Relationships, Other_Notes, Taxonomy_Mappings
2008年07月01日	Eric Dalci	Cigital
2008年07月01日	updated Time_of_Introduction
Previous Entry Names
Change Date	Previous Entry Name
2014年02月18日	Privacy Violation
2020年02月24日	Exposure of Private Information ('Privacy Violation')

More information is available — Please edit the custom filter or select a different filter.

Page Last Updated: September 09, 2025

MITRE

Use of the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE™) and the associated references from this website are subject to the Terms of Use. CWE is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and managed by the Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute (HSSEDI) which is operated by The MITRE Corporation (MITRE). Copyright © 2006–2025, The MITRE Corporation. CWE, CWSS, CWRAF, and the CWE logo are trademarks of The MITRE Corporation.

HSSEDI