Element Android is an Android Matrix Client. A third-party malicious application installed on the same phone can force Element Android, version 0.91.0 through 1.6.12, to share files stored under the files directory in the applications private data directory to an arbitrary room. The impact of the attack is reduced by the fact that the databases stored in this folder are encrypted. However, it contains some other potentially sensitive information, such as the FCM token. Forks of Element Android which have set android:exported=false in the AndroidManifest.xml file for the IncomingShareActivity activity are not impacted. This issue is fixed in Element Android 1.6.12. There is no known workaround to mitigate the issue.
The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.
There are many different kinds of mistakes that introduce information exposures. The severity of the error can range widely, depending on the context in which the product operates, the type of sensitive information that is revealed, and the benefits it may provide to an attacker. Some kinds of sensitive information include:
Information might be sensitive to different parties, each of which may have their own expectations for whether the information should be protected. These parties include:
Information exposures can occur in different ways:
It is common practice to describe any loss of confidentiality as an “information exposure,” but this can lead to overuse of CWE-200 in CWE mapping. From the CWE perspective, loss of confidentiality is a technical impact that can arise from dozens of different weaknesses, such as insecure file permissions or out-of-bounds read. CWE-200 and its lower-level descendants are intended to cover the mistakes that occur in behaviors that explicitly manage, store, transfer, or cleanse sensitive information.