Insecure Storage
Insecure storage is storing sensitive data (passwords, keys, PII) in plaintext or with weak encryption, directly readable once leaked.
Purpose
To understand the risks of protecting data at rest and their defenses; a data security baseline.
Mechanism
Flaws include plaintext passwords, weak password hashes (MD5), keys committed to repositories, and PII stored in database plaintext. Defenses: bcrypt/Argon2 for passwords, KMS for key management, field-level encryption, TDE.
Use cases
- Password storage security
- Key management audit
- Data-at-rest encryption