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CWE-379Creation of Temporary File in Directory with Insecure Permissions

Category: authz

Description

The product creates a temporary file in a directory whose permissions allow unintended actors to determine the file's existence or otherwise access that file. On some operating systems, the fact that the temporary file exists may be apparent to any user with sufficient privileges to access that directory. Since the file is visible, the application that is using the temporary file could be known. If one has access to list the processes on the system, the attacker has gained information about what the user is doing at that time. By correlating this with the applications the user is running, an attacker could potentially discover what a user's actions are. From this, higher levels of security could be breached.

Common consequences· 1

  • Confidentiality — Read Application Data
    Since the file is visible and the application which is using the temp file could be known, the attacker has gained information about what the user is doing at that time.

Potential mitigations· 3

  • [Requirements]Many contemporary languages have functions which properly handle this condition. Older C temp file functions are especially susceptible.
  • [Implementation]Try to store sensitive tempfiles in a directory which is not world readable -- i.e., per-user directories.
  • [Implementation]Avoid using vulnerable temp file functions.

References

  1. https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/379.html

(incoming)2

TypeTargetConfidenceTier
VulnerabilityCVE-2025-27148cve-2025-271480%live
VulnerabilityCVE-2025-32438cve-2025-324380%live

Related by meaning· 6

Nearest entities by semantic similarity across the cs-graph corpus.

CWE
Creation of Temporary File With Insecure Permissions
CWE
Insertion of Sensitive Information into Externally-Accessible File or Directory
CWE
Files or Directories Accessible to External Parties
CWE
Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in Executable
CWE
Insecure Operation on Windows Junction / Mount Point
CWE
Path Traversal: '\dir\..\filename'
Sourced from MITRE CWE 4.20. Curated for EU compliance use cases by Adam Lundqvist, Founder at SQUR.