CVE-2026-118798 in Wingesfar
Summary
by MITRE • 11/09/2026
Multiple sensitive authentication data, including credentials, OAuth-related secrets, session information, and authentication artifacts, are exposed through application logs and persistent client-side storage, enabling unauthorized access and session compromise.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 11/09/2026
The vulnerability described represents a critical failure in the handling of sensitive authentication data within modern web applications and mobile clients. This issue stems from improper logging practices on the server side combined with insecure persistence mechanisms on the client side, creating multiple vectors for attackers to harvest credentials and session tokens. The exposure encompasses a broad spectrum of high-value assets including plaintext passwords, OAuth secrets such as refresh or access tokens, unique session identifiers, and other authentication artifacts that are essential for maintaining user identity and authorization states. When these elements are written to application logs without adequate sanitization or encryption, they become accessible to anyone with read permissions on the log files, which often includes system administrators, DevOps personnel, or potentially lower-privileged services if access controls are misconfigured. Simultaneously, storing such sensitive data in persistent client-side storage mechanisms like local storage, session storage, or cookies without proper security flags exposes these assets to cross-site scripting attacks and other client-side exploits where malicious scripts can read the stored values directly from memory or disk.
From a technical perspective, this flaw aligns with CWE-532, which covers information exposure through log files, and CWE-614, concerning sensitive cookies in session management when combined with insecure storage practices. The core issue lies in the lack of input validation and output encoding specifically tailored for security-sensitive fields before they are serialized into logs or persisted to disk. Developers often inadvertently include entire request objects or response bodies in debug logs without filtering out authentication headers, body parameters containing credentials, or JWT tokens embedded in authorization headers. On the client side, the use of localStorage or sessionStorage allows JavaScript code running on the page full access to stored data, bypassing many browser security restrictions that apply to cookies unless specific attributes like HttpOnly and Secure are strictly enforced and even then, XSS can still exfiltrate non-HttpOnly tokens. This dual exposure creates a comprehensive attack surface where an attacker does not need to exploit complex logic flaws in the application itself but rather relies on simpler vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or reflected cross-site scripting to extract data that has already been carelessly logged or stored.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe, leading directly to unauthorized access and complete session compromise. If an attacker gains read access to server logs through log4j-style attacks, directory traversal, or simply by exploiting a separate low-privilege vulnerability on the web server, they can extract valid OAuth tokens and session IDs. These artifacts allow the attacker to impersonate legitimate users without needing their passwords, effectively bypassing multi-factor authentication if the stolen token is sufficient for API access. In client-side scenarios, an XSS payload can silently send harvested credentials or tokens to a remote command-and-control server, enabling account takeover attacks that are difficult to detect because they appear as normal user activity from the victim's perspective. This leads to data breaches of sensitive personal information, financial fraud if payment details are associated with accounts, and significant reputational damage for the organization due to non-compliance with privacy regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA which mandate strict protection of authentication credentials.
Mitigation strategies must address both server-side logging hygiene and client-side storage security rigorously. On the server side, organizations should implement a centralized log management solution that includes automatic redaction rules for known sensitive patterns like passwords, tokens, and credit card numbers using regular expressions or structured data filtering libraries before logs are written to disk or forwarded to external services. Debug mode must be strictly disabled in production environments, and access to log files must be restricted via file system permissions so that only essential security personnel can view them, preferably with audit trails enabled. On the client side, developers should avoid storing sensitive authentication tokens in localStorage or sessionStorage entirely; instead, they should utilize HttpOnly cookies which are inaccessible to JavaScript, thereby mitigating XSS-based exfiltration risks. If persistent storage is unavoidable for specific use cases, data must be encrypted at rest using strong algorithms and keys managed securely outside the application context. Additionally, implementing Content Security Policy headers can help mitigate the impact of any potential cross-site scripting vulnerabilities by restricting script execution sources. Regular security code reviews focused on data flow analysis are essential to ensure that no sensitive authentication material is inadvertently passed through logging frameworks or persisted in insecure locations during development and deployment cycles.