CWE-257: Storing Passwords in a Recoverable Format
BaseLikelihood of exploit: High
The storage of passwords in a recoverable format makes them subject to password reuse attacks by malicious users. In fact, it should be noted that recoverable encrypted passwords provide no significant benefit over plaintext passwords since they are subject not only to reuse by malicious attackers but also by malicious insiders. If a system administrator can recover a password directly, or use a brute force search on the available information, the administrator can use the password on other accounts.
Consequences
- Confidentiality, Access Control: Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
- Access Control: Gain Privileges or Assume Identity
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design: Use strong, non-reversible encryption to protect stored passwords.
Recent advisories
- CVE-2026-20128 — A vulnerability in the Data Collection Agent (DCA) feature of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to gain DCA user…
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