CWE-779—Logging of Excessive Data

Weakness Name

Logging of Excessive Data

Description

The product logs too much information, making log files hard to process and possibly hindering recovery efforts or forensic analysis after an attack.

While logging is a good practice in general, and very high levels of logging are appropriate for debugging stages of development, too much logging in a production environment might hinder a system administrator's ability to detect anomalous conditions. This can provide cover for an attacker while attempting to penetrate a system, clutter the audit trail for forensic analysis, or make it more difficult to debug problems in a production environment.

Common Consequences

Scope:

Availability

Impact:

DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU), DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)

Notes:

Log files can become so large that they consume excessive resources, such as disk and CPU, which can hinder the performance of the system.

Scope:

Non-Repudiation

Impact:

Hide Activities

Notes:

Logging too much information can make the log files of less use to forensics analysts and developers when trying to diagnose a problem or recover from an attack.

Scope:

Non-Repudiation

Impact:

Hide Activities

Notes:

If system administrators are unable to effectively process log files, attempted attacks may go undetected, possibly leading to eventual system compromise.

Related Weaknesses

• CWE-400Uncontrolled Resource ConsumptionHigh