CWE-615

Variant 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
Inclusion of Sensitive Information in Source Code Comments

Description

While adding general comments is very useful, some programmers tend to leave important data, such as: filenames related to the web application, old links or links which were not meant to be browsed by users, old code fragments, etc.

An attacker who finds these comments can map the application's structure and files, expose hidden parts of the site, and study the fragments of code to reverse engineer the application, which may help develop further attacks against the site.

Consequences

Confidentiality — Read Application Data

Mitigations

Phase: Distribution

Remove comments which have sensitive information about the design/implementation of the application. Some of the comments may be exposed to the user and affect the security posture of the application.

Detection

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.)