Weakness (CWE)
CWE-526: Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in an Environment Variable
The product uses an environment variable to store unencrypted sensitive information.
How to prevent it (2 mitigations)
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Architecture and Design
Encrypt information stored in the environment variable to protect it from being exposed to an unauthorized user. If encryption is not feasible or is considered too expensive for the business use of the application, then consider using a properly protected configuration file instead of an environment variable. It should be understood that unencrypted information in a config file is also not guaranteed to be protected, but it is still a better choice, because it reduces attack surface related to weaknesses such as CWE-214. In some settings, vaults might be a feasible option for safer data transfer. Users should be notified of the business choice made to not protect the sensitive information through encryption.
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Implementation
If the environment variable is not necessary for the desired behavior, then remove it entirely, or clear it to an empty value.
Source: MITRE CWE-526
8 results · Clear filters · Feed
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High 8.8
OpenHuman: Bearer token leak via process environment variable on macOS (same-UID local RCE primitive)
OpenHuman is an open-source agent harness available as a desktop application and Rust library. From 0.53.15 before 0.57.5 on macOS, core_process.rs in the Tauri desktop process publishes the per-launch OPENHUMAN_CORE_TOKEN bearer credential in its process env…
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High 7.5
CodeWhale before 0.8.64 Environment Variable Leak via js_execution
CodeWhale versions before 0.8.64 contain an environment variable exposure vulnerability in the js_execution tool that fails to scrub parent process environment variables before spawning Node.js. Attackers can craft malicious JavaScript code executed by the to…
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High 7.3
NousResearch hermes-agent Environment Variable code_execution_tool.py execute_code sandbox
A vulnerability was identified in NousResearch hermes-agent up to 2026.4.16. This impacts the function execute_code of the file tools/code_execution_tool.py of the component Environment Variable Handler. Such manipulation leads to sandbox issue. It is possibl…
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High 7.7
python-utcp: Full Process Environment Exposed to CLI Subprocess - Secrets Leakage via Command Injection
python-utcp is the python implementation of UTCP. Prior to 1.1.3, _prepare_environment() in cli_communication_protocol.py passes a full copy of os.environ to every CLI subprocess. When combined with CVE-2026-45369, an attacker can exfiltrate all process-level…
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High 7.4
PraisonAIAgents Affected by Environment Variable Secret Exfiltration via os.path.expandvars() Bypassing shell=False in Shell Tool
PraisonAIAgents is a multi-agent teams system. Prior to 1.5.128, the execute_command function in shell_tools.py calls os.path.expandvars() on every command argument at line 64, manually re-implementing shell-level environment variable expansion despite using …
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High 7.5
A credential leak in OpenC3 COSMOS before v6.0.2 allows attackers to access service credentials as environment variable…
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High 7.0
Quarkus-core: leak of local configuration properties into quarkus applications
A vulnerability was found in the quarkus-core component. Quarkus captures local environment variables from the Quarkus namespace during the application's build, therefore, running the resulting application inherits the values captured at build time. Some loca…
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High 7.7
Quarkus: build env information disclosure via gradle plugin
A flaw was found in Quarkus, where it does not properly sanitize artifacts created using the Gradle plugin, allowing certain build system information to remain. This flaw allows an attacker to access potentially sensitive information from the build system wit…