OWASP Periodic Table of Vulnerabilities - Fingerprinting

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Fingerprinting

Root Cause Summary

One or several components of the underlying software and framework leak version information. This could help an attacker to identify which components are vulnerable. This issue is mitigated by removing all version information.

Browser / Standards Solution

None

Perimeter Solution

Infrastructure should not leak information which can be used to identify the specific version of platform or infrastructure technology. Perimeter technologies should strip all such version information from outgoing responses.

Generic Framework Solution

• URL structure should not reveal the underlying technology. Default content should be removed when possible.
• Make sure that only generic error pages are shown without showing any information of the underlying system.
• Remove all development and debugging tools.

Custom Framework Solution

None

Custom Code Solution

None

Discussion / Controversy

None

References

Information Exposure Through Sent Data (CWE-201, MITRE)
File and Directory Information Exposure (CWE-538, MITRE)