CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2002-1696

Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information

Published: Dec 31, 2002 | Modified: Feb 13, 2024
CVSS 3.x
5.5
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CVSS 2.x
2.1 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:N
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
Ubuntu

Microsoft Outlook plug-in PGP version 7.0, 7.0.3, and 7.0.4 silently saves a decrypted copy of a message to hard disk when Automatically decrypt/verify when opening messages option is checked, Always use Secure Viewer when decrypting option is not checked, and the user replies to an encrypted message.

Weakness

The product stores sensitive information in cleartext within a resource that might be accessible to another control sphere.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Personal_privacy Pgp 7.0 (including) 7.0 (including)
Personal_privacy Pgp 7.0.3 (including) 7.0.3 (including)
Personal_privacy Pgp 7.0.4 (including) 7.0.4 (including)

Extended Description

Because the information is stored in cleartext (i.e., unencrypted), attackers could potentially read it. Even if the information is encoded in a way that is not human-readable, certain techniques could determine which encoding is being used, then decode the information. When organizations adopt cloud services, it can be easier for attackers to access the data from anywhere on the Internet. In some systems/environments such as cloud, the use of “double encryption” (at both the software and hardware layer) might be required, and the developer might be solely responsible for both layers, instead of shared responsibility with the administrator of the broader system/environment.

Potential Mitigations

References