# Cleartext Storage of Sensitive Information in an Environment Variable (CWE-526)

The product uses environment variables to store sensitive information, but the environment is accessible to other processes or users.

- Prevalence: Moyenne 1 langages couverts
- Impact: Élevé 1 règles de sévérité élevée
- Prevention: Documentée 1 exemples de correctifs

**OWASP:** Security Misconfiguration (A05:2021-Security Misconfiguration) - #5

## Description

Environment variables are often visible to child processes and may be logged or exposed through error messages. Storing sensitive information like credentials in environment variables can lead to information disclosure.

## Prevention

### Go

Never log or expose environment variables containing secrets

## Consequences

- Lecture des données de l'application
- Obtenir des privilèges

## Mitigations

- Utilisez des systèmes dédiés de gestion des secrets
- Chiffrez les valeurs sensibles avant de les stocker dans des variables d'environnement
- Limitez l'accès à l'environnement du processus

## Detection

- Total rules: 1
- Languages: go

## Rules by Language

### Go (1 rules)

- **Environment Variable Exposure** [HIGH]: Environment variables logged or included in HTTP responses.
  - Remediation: Use environment variables for configuration only, never log or expose them.

```go
dbURL := os.Getenv("DATABASE_URL")
// Use dbURL for connection only
// Never log it: log.Printf("DB: %s", dbURL) // Wrong!
```

Learn more: https://shoulder.dev/learn/go/cwe-526/env-var-exposure