CWE-211

Base Abstraction Level
Pillar — Highest-level weakness category
Class — Abstract, language-independent
Base — Specific enough to detect
Variant — Tied to specific technology
Compound — Requires multiple weaknesses Incomplete MITRE CWE Status
Stable — Fully reviewed and complete
Draft — Under development, may change
Incomplete — Partially defined by MITRE
Deprecated — No longer recommended
Obsolete — Replaced by another CWE
Externally-Generated Error Message Containing Sensitive Information

Description

The product performs an operation that triggers an external diagnostic or error message that is not directly generated or controlled by the product, such as an error generated by the programming language interpreter that a software application uses. The error can contain sensitive system information.

Consequences

Confidentiality — Read Application Data

Mitigations

Phase: System Configuration

Configure the application's environment in a way that prevents errors from being generated. For example, in PHP, disable display_errors.

Phase: Implementation, Build and Compilation

Debugging information should not make its way into a production release.

Phase: Implementation, Build and Compilation

Debugging information should not make its way into a production release.

Phase: Implementation

Handle exceptions internally and do not display errors containing potentially sensitive information to a user. Create default error pages if necessary.

Phase: Implementation

The best way to prevent this weakness during implementation is to avoid any bugs that could trigger the external error message. This typically happens when the program encounters fatal errors, such as a divide-by-zero. You will not always be able to control the use of error pages, and you might not be using a language that handles exceptions.