Title

The mobile application must remove temporary files when it terminates. (Cat III impact)

Discussion

Temporary files left on the system after an application has terminated may contain sensitive information. Such sensitive information includes authentication credentials or session identifiers that would enable an adversary to gain unauthorized access to other resources. Removing such files when an application terminates greatly mitigates the risk of this attack that would exploit these files and use them to re-launch the application, enjoy user privileges or to breach the confidentiality or integrity of the data stored on the device.

Check Content

Perform a dynamic program analysis by launching the application and checking to see if it stores any temporary files. Close the application. If any of these temporary files remain in persistent memory, this is a finding. If memory is not released and the application is not using garbage collection process for memory (e.g., Java Applications), this is a finding. Re-launch the application to perform selected actions that will knowingly generate temporary files. Exit the application, and then search for temporary files that are not being deleted by the application. If files generated during the application’s session were not deleted, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Modify code to remove all temporary files whenever the application is terminated.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-47034r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-35747

Group Title:

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.