# V5305. OWASP. Storing credentials inside source code can lead to security issues.

The analyzer detected a block of code that contains what seems to be sensitive data, such as passwords.

Storing such data in the source code can lead to broken access control and providing users with privileges not intended for public use. Having the program's bytecode, anyone can extract all the string literals used in it. With open-source projects, disclosing such information becomes even easier since an attacker can study the source code directly.

Thus, all sensitive data may become publicly available. Vulnerabilities resulting from insufficient protection of sensitive data make a separate category on OWASP Top 10 Application Security Risks 2017: A2:2017-Broken Authentication.

Consider the following example:

    public static void main(String[] arg)
    {
      ....
      JSch jsch = new JSch();
      Session session = jsch.getSession(user, host, 22);
      session.setPassword("123fj");
      ....
    }

In this code snippet, the password is stored in the code. Therefore, an attacker can easily obtain data.

Instead of storing sensitive data in the code, it is better to use, for example, storages which store data in encrypted form. Regular users don't have direct access to it.

In such a case, the code may look as follows:

    public static void main(String[] arg)
    {
      ....
      JSch jsch = new JSch();
      Session session = jsch.getSession(user, host, 22);
      session.setPassword(dataStorage.getPassword);
      ....
    }

This diagnostic is classified as:

CWE-259 CWE-798 OWASP-2.10.4