Information Leakage / Enumeration of Objects

Description

Enumeration of objects is an information leakage vulnerability that occurs when an attacker attempts to gain access to sensitive information by listing or enumerating the names of objects or files. This type of attack may be done by exploiting the way a web application or API lists and organizes objects or files. In this way, the attacker can gain information about the application and its environment, as well as access to confidential information that may be stored in the application. For example an application could lists all objects of a certain kind on a specific endpoint, or it could be possible to enumerate these objects by guessing and brute-forcing the identifiers of the objects.

Risk

This type of attack can be used to gain access to sensitive information including but not limited to PII. This can lead to a serious data breach where the malicious actor is able to exfiltrate large parts of a database, which might result in a severe data protection issue and affects the confidentiality of the system.

Solution

Enumeration of objects can be prevented by implementing security measures such as fine-grained access control or limiting the number of objects or files that can be listed in a single query. Additionally, it is important to ensure that any sensitive information stored in the application is properly encrypted, and that the encryption keys are securely stored and regularly changed.