Weakness ID: 922
Vulnerability Mapping: ALLOWED This CWE ID could be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities in limited situations requiring careful review (with careful review of mapping notes)Abstraction: 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.
Description
The product stores sensitive information without properly limiting read or write access by unauthorized actors.
Extended Description
If read access is not properly restricted, then attackers can steal the sensitive information. If write access is not properly restricted, then attackers can modify and possibly delete the data, causing incorrect results and possibly a denial of service.
Common Consequences
This 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; Read Files or Directories |
Scope: Confidentiality
Attackers can read sensitive information by accessing the unrestricted storage mechanism. |
|
Modify Application Data; Modify Files or Directories |
Scope: Integrity
Attackers can overwrite sensitive information by accessing the unrestricted storage mechanism. |
Relationships
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 |
Pillar - a weakness that is the most abstract type of weakness and represents a theme for all class/base/variant weaknesses related to it. A Pillar is different from a Category as a Pillar is still technically a type of weakness that describes a mistake, while a Category represents a common characteristic used to group related things.
|
664 | Improper Control of a Resource Through its Lifetime |
| ParentOf |
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.
|
312 | Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information |
| ParentOf |
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.
|
921 | Storage of Sensitive Data in a Mechanism without Access Control |
Relevant to the view "Weaknesses for Simplified Mapping of Published Vulnerabilities" (View-1003)
| Nature | Type | ID | Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| MemberOf |
View - 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).
|
1003 | Weaknesses for Simplified Mapping of Published Vulnerabilities |
Relevant to the view "Architectural Concepts" (View-1008)
| Nature | Type | ID | Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| MemberOf |
Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic.
|
1013 | Encrypt Data |
Modes
Of Introduction
The 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 | |
| System Configuration |
Applicable Platforms
This 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) |
Demonstrative Examples
Example 1
In 2022, the OT:ICEFALL study examined products by 10 different Operational Technology (OT) vendors. The researchers reported 56 vulnerabilities and said that the products were "insecure by design" [REF-1283]. If exploited, these vulnerabilities often allowed adversaries to change how the products operated, ranging from denial of service to changing the code that the products executed. Since these products were often used in industries such as power, electrical, water, and others, there could even be safety implications.
At least one OT product stored a password in plaintext.
Selected Observed
Examples
Note: this is a curated list of examples for users to understand the variety of ways in which this weakness can be introduced. It is not a complete list of all CVEs that are related to this CWE entry.
| Reference | Description |
|---|---|
|
password and username stored in cleartext in a cookie |
Weakness Ordinalities
| Ordinality | Description |
|---|---|
|
Primary |
(where the weakness exists independent of other weaknesses) |
Detection
Methods
| Method | Details |
|---|---|
|
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
This 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 | Category - 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 | Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. |
1416 | Comprehensive Categorization: Resource Lifecycle Management |
| MemberOf | Category - a CWE entry that contains a set of other entries that share a common characteristic. |
1436 | OWASP Top Ten 2025 Category A01:2025 - Broken Access Control |
Vulnerability Mapping Notes
| Usage |
ALLOWED-WITH-REVIEW
(this CWE ID could be used to map to real-world vulnerabilities in limited situations requiring careful review) |
| Reason | Abstraction |
|
Rationale |
This CWE entry is a Class and might have Base-level children that would be more appropriate |
|
Comments |
Examine children of this entry to see if there is a better fit |
Notes
Relationship
There is an overlapping relationship between insecure storage of sensitive information (CWE-922) and missing encryption of sensitive information (CWE-311). Encryption is often used to prevent an attacker from reading the sensitive data. However, encryption does not prevent the attacker from erasing or overwriting the data. While data tampering would be visible upon inspection, the integrity and availability of the data is compromised prior to the audit.
Maintenance
This is a high-level entry that includes children from various parts of the CWE research view (CWE-1000). Currently, most of the information is in these child entries. This entry will be made more comprehensive in later CWE versions.
References
Content
History
| Submissions |
||
|---|---|---|
| Submission Date | Submitter | Organization |
|
2013-06-23
(CWE 2.5, 2013-07-17) |
CWE Content Team | MITRE |
| Contributions |
||
| Contribution Date | Contributor | Organization |
| 2022-07-08 | Mathias Millet | GitGuardian |
| Suggested changes to Common Consequences and Relationship Notes. | ||
 Modifications |
||
| Modification Date | Modifier | Organization |
|
2025-12-11
(CWE 4.19, 2025-12-11) |
CWE Content Team | MITRE |
| updated Demonstrative_Examples, References, Relationships, Weakness_Ordinalities | ||
|
2023-10-26
(CWE 4.13, 2023-10-26) |
CWE Content Team | MITRE |
| updated Observed_Examples | ||
|
2023-06-29
(CWE 4.12, 2023-06-29) |
CWE Content Team | MITRE |
| updated Mapping_Notes | ||
|
2023-04-27
(CWE 4.11, 2023-04-27) |
CWE Content Team | MITRE |
| updated Detection_Factors, Relationships | ||
|
2023-01-31
(CWE 4.10, 2023-01-31) |
CWE Content Team | MITRE |
| updated Description | ||
|
2022-10-13
(CWE 4.9, 2022-10-13) |
CWE Content Team | MITRE |
| updated Common_Consequences, Relationship_Notes | ||
|
2021-10-28
(CWE 4.6, 2021-10-28) |
CWE Content Team | MITRE |
| updated Relationships | ||
|
2021-03-15
(CWE 4.4, 2021-03-15) |
CWE Content Team | MITRE |
| updated Maintenance_Notes | ||
|
2020-02-24
(CWE 4.0, 2020-02-24) |
CWE Content Team | MITRE |
| updated Relationships | ||
|
2019-06-20
(CWE 3.3, 2019-06-20) |
CWE Content Team | MITRE |
| updated Relationships | ||
|
2017-11-08
(CWE 3.0, 2017-11-08) |
CWE Content Team | MITRE |
| updated Modes_of_Introduction, Relationships | ||