CAPEC-149 Metadata
Likelihood of Attack
Medium
Typical Severity
Medium
Overview
Summary
An attacker explores a target to identify the names and locations of predictable temporary files for the purpose of launching further attacks against the target. This involves analyzing naming conventions and storage locations of the temporary files created by a target application. If an attacker can predict the names of temporary files they can use this information to mount other attacks, such as information gathering and symlink attacks.
Prerequisites
The targeted application must create names for temporary files using a predictable procedure, e.g. using sequentially increasing numbers. The attacker must be able to see the names of the files the target is creating.
Potential Solutions / Mitigations
No specific solutions listed.
Related Weaknesses (CWE)
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-377 | Insecure Temporary File |
Related CAPECs
| CAPEC ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CAPEC-155 | An adversary exploits the temporary, insecure storage of information by monitoring the content of files used to store temp data during an application's routine execution flow. Many applications use temporary files to accelerate processing or to provide records of state across multiple executions of the application. Sometimes, however, these temporary files may end up storing sensitive information. By screening an application's temporary files, an adversary might be able to discover such sensitive information. For example, web browsers often cache content to accelerate subsequent lookups. If the content contains sensitive information then the adversary could recover this from the web cache. |
| CAPEC-497 | An adversary engages in probing and exploration activities to determine if common key files exists. Such files often contain configuration and security parameters of the targeted application, system or network. Using this knowledge may often pave the way for more damaging attacks. |
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