Information Disclosure
Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security.
How It Works
Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security. This happens through multiple channels: verbose error messages that display stack traces revealing internal paths and frameworks, improperly secured debug endpoints left active in production, and misconfigured servers that expose directory listings or version control artifacts like .git folders. APIs often leak excessive data in responses—returning full user objects when only a name is needed, or revealing system internals through metadata fields.
Attackers exploit these exposures systematically. They probe for common sensitive files (.env, config.php, backup archives), trigger error conditions to extract framework details, and analyze response timing or content differences to enumerate valid usernames or resources. Even subtle variations—like "invalid password" versus "user not found"—enable account enumeration. Exposed configuration files frequently contain database credentials, API keys, or internal service URLs that unlock further attack vectors.
The attack flow typically starts with passive reconnaissance: examining HTTP headers, JavaScript bundles, and public endpoints for version information and architecture clues. Active probing follows—testing predictable paths, manipulating parameters to trigger exceptions, and comparing responses across similar requests to identify information leakage patterns.
Impact
- Credential compromise: Exposed configuration files, hardcoded secrets in source code, or API keys enable direct authentication bypass
- Attack surface mapping: Stack traces, framework versions, and internal paths help attackers craft targeted exploits for known vulnerabilities
- Data breach: Direct exposure of user data, payment information, or proprietary business logic through oversharing APIs or accessible backups
- Privilege escalation pathway: Internal URLs, service discovery information, and architecture details facilitate lateral movement and SSRF attacks
- Compliance violations: GDPR, PCI-DSS, and HIPAA penalties for exposing regulated data through preventable disclosures
Real-World Examples
A major Git repository exposure affected thousands of websites when .git folders remained accessible on production servers, allowing attackers to reconstruct entire source code histories including deleted commits containing credentials. Tools like GitDumper automated mass exploitation of this misconfiguration.
Cloud storage misconfigurations have repeatedly exposed sensitive data when companies left S3 buckets or Azure Blob containers publicly readable. One incident exposed 150 million voter records because verbose API error messages revealed the storage URL structure, and no authentication was required.
Framework debug modes left enabled in production have caused numerous breaches. Django's DEBUG=True setting exposed complete stack traces with database queries and environment variables, while Laravel's debug pages revealed encryption keys through the APP_KEY variable in environment dumps.
Mitigation
- Generic error pages: Return uniform error messages to users; log detailed exceptions server-side only
- Disable debug modes: Enforce production configurations that suppress stack traces, verbose logging, and debug endpoints through deployment automation
- Access control audits: Restrict or remove development artifacts (
.git, backup files,phpinfo()) and internal endpoints before deployment - Response minimization: API responses should return only necessary fields; implement allowlists rather than blocklists for data exposure
- Security headers: Deploy
X-Content-Type-Options, remove server version banners, and disable directory indexing - Timing consistency: Ensure authentication and validation responses take uniform time regardless of input validity
Recent CVEs (13738)
Improper Control of Interaction Frequency vulnerability in Drupal Open Social allows Functionality Misuse.0.0 before 12.3.8, from 12.4.0 before 12.4.5. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Insufficient Granularity of Access Control vulnerability in Drupal Paragraphs table allows Content Spoofing.0.0 before 1.23.0, from 2.0.0 before 2.0.2. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Insertion of Sensitive Information Into Sent Data vulnerability in Drupal Advanced Varnish allows Forceful Browsing.0.0 before 4.0.11. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Strawberry GraphQL is a library for creating GraphQL APIs. Rated low severity (CVSS 3.7), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required. No vendor patch available.
An Out-of-bounds Read vulnerability in Juniper Networks Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved's routing protocol daemon (rpd) allows an unauthenticated, network-based attacker to send malformed BGP packets. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.2), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Insertion of Sensitive Information Into Sent Data vulnerability in Drupal Image Sizes allows Forceful Browsing.0.0 before 3.0.2. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Insufficient Granularity of Access Control vulnerability in Drupal Email Contact allows Forceful Browsing.0.0 before 2.0.4. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Exposure of Sensitive Information Through Data Queries vulnerability in Drupal RESTful Web Services allows Forceful Browsing.X-2.0 before 7.X-2.10. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Insertion of Sensitive Information Into Sent Data vulnerability in Drupal REST Views allows Forceful Browsing.0.0 before 3.0.1. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Improper Ownership Management vulnerability in Drupal Node Access Rebuild Progressive allows Target Influence via Framing.X-1.0 before 7.X-1.2. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.4), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Incorrect Privilege Assignment vulnerability in Drupal Private content allows Target Influence via Framing.0.0 before 2.1.0. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Improper Ownership Management vulnerability in Drupal Node Access Rebuild Progressive allows Target Influence via Framing.0.0 before 2.0.2. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Exposed Dangerous Method or Function vulnerability in Drupal Swift Mailer allows Resource Location Spoofing.*. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Weak Authentication vulnerability in Drupal Two-factor Authentication (TFA) allows Authentication Abuse.0.0 before 1.5.0. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
JWK Set (JSON Web Key Set) is a JWK and JWK Set Go implementation. Rated low severity (CVSS 2.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
An Out-of-Bounds Read vulnerability in the routing protocol daemon (rpd) of Juniper Networks Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved allows an unauthenticated, logically adjacent BGP peer sending a. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.1), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
An Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor vulnerability in the command-line interface (CLI) of Juniper Networks Junos OS on SRX Series devices allows a local, low-privileged user. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Improper Control of Filename for Include/Require Statement in PHP Program ('PHP Remote File Inclusion') vulnerability in Roninwp FAT Event Lite allows PHP Local File Inclusion.1. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required. No vendor patch available.
IBM OpenPages 9.0 could allow an authenticated user to obtain sensitive information such as configurations that should only be available to privileged users. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.4), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
The WP Database Backup - Unlimited Database & Files Backup by Backup for WP plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Sensitive Information Exposure in all versions up to, and including, 7.3 via publicly. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
The Post Grid Master - Custom Post Types, Taxonomies & Ajax Filter Everything with Infinite Scroll, Load More, Pagination & Shortcode Builder plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Local File. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
The CGI script <redacted>.sh can be used to download any file on the filesystem. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Patch traversal, External Control of File Name or Path vulnerability in Iocharger Home allows deletion of arbitrary files Likelihood: High, but requires authentication Impact: Critical - The. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.2), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Mattermost versions 10.x <= 10.2 fail to accurately reflect missing settings, which allows confusion for admins regarding a Calls security-sensitive configuration via incorrect UI reporting. Rated low severity (CVSS 3.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Mattermost versions 10.2.0, 9.11.x <= 9.11.5, 10.0.x <= 10.0.3, 10.1.x <= 10.1.3 fail to properly validate post types, which allows attackers to deny service to users with the sysconsole_read_plugins. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
An issue was discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions starting from 16.4 prior to 17.5.5, starting from 17.6 prior to 17.6.3, and starting from 17.7 prior to 17.7.1. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.2), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
An issue was discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions starting from 15.7 prior to 17.5.5, starting from 17.6 prior to 17.6.3, and starting from 17.7 prior to 17.7.1. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in YunzMall up to 2.4.2.php of the component HTTP POST Request Handler. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.9), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability was found in Ruby. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.4), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability was found in SingMR HouseRent 1.0. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in REVE Antivirus 1.0.0.0 on Linux. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in wander-chu SpringBoot-Blog 1.0. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.9), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
A vulnerability classified as problematic has been found in langhsu Mblog Blog System 3.5.0. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Rejected reason: loading template... No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability in the firewall component of HPE Aruba Networking CX 10000 Series Switches exists. Rated low severity (CVSS 3.4), this vulnerability is no authentication required. No vendor patch available.
Certain Teradata account-handling code through 2024-11-04, used with SUSE Enterprise Linux Server, mismanages groups. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.0), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability classified as critical was found in ZeroWdd myblog 1.0. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
An issue was discovered in GitLab CE/EE affecting all versions starting from 17.4 prior to 17.5.5, starting from 17.6 prior to 17.6.3, and starting from 17.7 prior to 17.7.1. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Rejected reason: reserved but not needed. No vendor patch available.
Rejected reason: reserved but not needed. No vendor patch available.
Rejected reason: reserved but not needed. No vendor patch available.
Rejected reason: reserved but not needed. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability classified as critical has been found in ZeroWdd myblog 1.0. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.9), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
SourceCodester Computer Laboratory Management System 1.0 is vulnerable to Incorrect Access Control. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability was found in MicroWorld eScan Antivirus 7.0.32 on Linux. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. Public exploit code available and no vendor patch available.
Dell VxRail, versions 8.0.000 through 8.0.311, contain(s) a Plaintext Storage of a Password vulnerability. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5). No vendor patch available.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: soc: imx8m: Probe the SoC driver as platform driver With driver_async_probe=* on kernel command line, the following trace is. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity.
Rejected reason: This CVE ID has been rejected or withdrawn by its CVE Numbering Authority. No vendor patch available.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: MIPS: Loongson64: DTS: Really fix PCIe port nodes for ls7a Fix the dtc warnings:. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfilter: nft_socket: remove WARN_ON_ONCE on maximum cgroup level cgroup maximum depth is INT_MAX by default, there is a cgroup. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity.
Rejected reason: This CVE ID has been rejected or withdrawn by its CVE Numbering Authority. No vendor patch available.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: quota: flush quota_release_work upon quota writeback One of the paths quota writeback is called from is: freeze_super(). Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nfsd: fix nfs4_openowner leak when concurrent nfsd4_open occur The action force umount(umount -f) will attempt to kill all rpc_task. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Memory Leak vulnerability could allow attackers to exhaust available memory leading to denial of service.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/sti: avoid potential dereference of error pointers in sti_hqvdp_atomic_check The return value of drm_atomic_get_crtc_state(). Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/sti: avoid potential dereference of error pointers in sti_gdp_atomic_check The return value of drm_atomic_get_crtc_state(). Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/sti: avoid potential dereference of error pointers The return value of drm_atomic_get_crtc_state() needs to be checked. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/amd/display: Fix handling of plane refcount [Why] The mechanism to backup and restore plane states doesn't maintain refcount,. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Memory Leak vulnerability could allow attackers to exhaust available memory leading to denial of service.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: kunit: string-stream: Fix a UAF bug in kunit_init_suite() In kunit_debugfs_create_suite(), if alloc_string_stream() fails in the. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. This Use After Free vulnerability could allow attackers to access freed memory to execute arbitrary code or crash the application.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mtd: spinand: winbond: Fix 512GW, 01GW, 01JW and 02JW ECC information These four chips: * W25N512GW * W25N01GW * W25N01JW *. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: netem: account for backlog updates from child qdisc In general, 'qlen' of any classful qdisc should keep track of the. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity.
An issue in keras 3.7.0 allows attackers to write arbitrary files to the user's machine via downloading a crafted tar file through the get_file function. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability was found in Kingsoft WPS Office 6.14.0 on macOS. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Pingvin Share is a self-hosted file sharing platform and an alternative for WeTransfer. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability in certification validation routines of Cisco ThousandEyes Endpoint Agent for macOS and RoomOS could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to intercept or manipulate metrics. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required. No vendor patch available.
RedisBloom adds a set of probabilistic data structures to Redis. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. Epss exploitation probability 13.1% and no vendor patch available.
Dell VxRail, versions 7.0.000 through 7.0.532, contain(s) a Plaintext Storage of a Password vulnerability. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5). No vendor patch available.
Insufficient Session Expiration vulnerability in Apache Airflow Fab Provider.5.2. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Rejected reason: ** REJECT ** DO NOT USE THIS CANDIDATE NUMBER. No vendor patch available.
The 140+ Widgets | Xpro Addons For Elementor - FREE plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Sensitive Information Exposure in all versions up to, and including, 1.4.6.2 via the 'duplicate' function. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. This Exposure of Sensitive Information vulnerability could allow attackers to access sensitive data that should not be disclosed.
cpdf through 2.8 allows stack consumption via a crafted PDF document. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.0), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Startup control vulnerability in the ability module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may cause features to perform abnormally. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.2), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
The SureForms - Drag and Drop Form Builder for WordPress plugin for WordPress is vulnerable to Information Exposure in all versions up to, and including, 1.2.2 via the handle_export_form() function. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.3), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. This Missing Authorization vulnerability could allow attackers to access resources or perform actions without proper authorization checks.
Vulnerability of variables not being initialized in the notification module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.0), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Cross-process screen stack vulnerability in the UIExtension module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect service confidentiality. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.2), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Vulnerability of native APIs not being implemented in the NFC service module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may cause features to perform abnormally. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Race condition vulnerability in the Bastet module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect service confidentiality. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.1). No vendor patch available.
Access control vulnerability in the identity authentication module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect service confidentiality. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5). No vendor patch available.
Vulnerability of input parameters not being verified in the widget framework module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may affect availability. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.7), this vulnerability is no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Race condition vulnerability in the distributed notification module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may cause features to perform abnormally. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.1). No vendor patch available.
UAF vulnerability in the device node access module Impact: Successful exploitation of this vulnerability may cause service exceptions of the device. Rated medium severity (CVSS 4.4). No vendor patch available.
Rejected reason: DO NOT USE THIS CANDIDATE NUMBER. No vendor patch available.
Rejected reason: DO NOT USE THIS CANDIDATE NUMBER. No vendor patch available.
IBM Db2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows (includes Db2 Connect Server) 11.5 is vulnerable to an information disclosure vulnerability as sensitive information may be included in a log file under specific. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
Rejected reason: ** REJECT ** DO NOT USE THIS CANDIDATE NUMBER. No vendor patch available.
When batch jobs are executed by pgAgent, a script is created in a temporary directory and then executed. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.5), this vulnerability is low attack complexity.
Bangkok Medical Software HOSxP XE v4.64.11.3 was discovered to contain a hardcoded IDEA Key-IV pair in the HOSxPXE4.exe and HOS-WIN32.INI components. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
An XML External Entity (XXE) injection vulnerability in Intersec Geosafe-ea 2022.12, 2022.13, and 2022.14 allows attackers to perform arbitrary file reading under the privileges of the running. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability exits in driver SmSerl64.sys in Motorola SM56 Modem WDM Driver v6.12.23.0, which allows low-privileged users to mapping physical memory via specially crafted IOCTL requests . Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.8), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required, low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability exits in driver snxppamd.sys in SUNIX Parallel Driver x64 - 10.1.0.0, which allows low-privileged users to read and write arbitary i/o port via specially crafted IOCTL requests . Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.
A vulnerability exits in driver snxpsamd.sys in SUNIX Serial Driver x64 - 10.1.0.0, which allows low-privileged users to read and write arbitary i/o port via specially crafted IOCTL requests . Rated high severity (CVSS 7.8), this vulnerability is low attack complexity. No vendor patch available.