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Home/CWEs/CWE-497
Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE-497: Exposure of Sensitive System Information to an Unauthorized Control Sphere

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The product does not properly prevent sensitive system-level information from being accessed by unauthorized actors who do not have the same level of access to the underlying system as the product does.

Abstraction
Base
Related CVEs
0

▪References & documentation

https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/497.htmlNVD CWE listing

▪ How attackers exploit CWE-497

MITRE ATT&CK techniques associated with this weakness class (mapped via MITRE CAPEC). A vulnerability of this type could let an adversary carry out:

T1217Browser Information DiscoverydiscoveryT1592Gather Victim Host InformationreconnaissanceT1595Active ScanningreconnaissanceT1614System Location Discoverydiscovery

Step-by-step: how CWE-497 gets exploited

A stage-by-stage walkthrough of the attack, mapped to the real MITRE ATT&CK tactics for this weakness — what the attacker is trying to do, what's at risk (what can be stolen or damaged), and how you defend. Understanding the playbook is how you shut it down.

  1. 1
    Reconnaissancereconnaissance

    Study the target to find the weakness before touching it.

    At risk / what's stolen

    Exposed version info, error messages, and endpoints that reveal the vulnerable component.

    How you defend

▪ Related CVEs

No CVEs in the Gold index currently reference CWE-497. New matches appear here as the crawler indexes them.

Minimise information disclosure; hide version banners and verbose errors.

  • 2
    Discoverydiscovery

    Map what else is reachable — hosts, services, data stores, and accounts.

    At risk / what's stolen

    Internal topology, service inventory, and data locations the attacker enumerates.

    How you defend

    Network segmentation and detection of unusual internal scanning.

  • This is a defensive, conceptual walkthrough for education — stages reflect MITRE ATT&CK tactics associated with this weakness class, not a working exploit. Not every attack uses every stage.