mitre / mitre/secure-coding-case-studies

Proposal on Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data vulnerabilities

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Description

The case study that I would like to create relates to the CWE-311: Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data, which is a vulnerability that occurs when an application does not encrypt sensitive data, such as passwords, pin, API keys, or personal information, while it is being transmitted or stored, leaving it open to theft. Despite being documented, CWE-311 lacks a descriptive case study that offers real-world examples and suggestions for mitigating it. For instance, in 2017, Google Drive backups for WhatsApp were not end-to-end encrypted, leaving private media and messages vulnerable in the event that the cloud account was compromised. By looking at this and related cases, the study will show how important it is to have encryption and how developers can avoid this problem by encrypting data both in transit and at rest, managing keys securely, and following best practices. In order to give developers a practical guide on how to avoid this security issue in their own projects, I intend to submit the essay as a pull request in Markdown format, adhering to MITRE's Secure Coding Case Studies style guide.

References:
1.https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/311.html
2.https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-45768

Contributor guide

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reading the CWE-311 reference and the NVD case cited in the issue, then review MITRE's Secure Coding Case Studies style guide. The finished work should be a Markdown case study with real-world examples, discussion of risks, and practical mitigation guidance for encryption in transit and at rest and secure key management.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
documentation, security
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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