CWE-512: Spyware
Official CWE-512 CWE context with Glexia analysis, remediation guidance, related CVEs, and ATT&CK context.
Glexia's Take
CWE-512: Spyware
Spyware represents a recurring weakness pattern that can create exploitable paths when design, validation, or implementation controls are missing.
Executive Impact
- Confidentiality: Read Application Data
Developer Pattern
CWE-512 is the kind of defect developers can usually prevent with explicit validation, safer framework defaults, and tests that exercise hostile input or unsafe state transitions.
Confidence
high confidence from CWE-512, 4.20.
Official CWE Definition
CWE-512: Spyware
The product collects personally identifiable information about a human user or the user's activities, but the product accesses this information using other resources besides itself, and it does not require that user's explicit approval or direct input into the product.
"Spyware" is a commonly used term with many definitions and interpretations. In general, it is meant to refer to products that collect information or install functionality that human users might not allow if they were fully aware of the actions being taken by the software. For example, a user might expect that tax software would collect a social security number and include it when filing a tax return, but that same user would not expect gaming software to obtain the social security number from that tax software's data.
Developer And Remediation Guidance
How teams prevent and detect this weakness
Causes
- Missing validation
- Unsafe defaults
- Insufficient authorization or memory-safety invariant
Remediation
- Operation: Use spyware detection and removal software.
- Installation: Always verify the integrity of the product that is being installed.
Detection
- Code review
- SAST
- DAST
- Focused regression tests
Mappings
Related CVEs, CWEs, and ATT&CK context
Related CWEs
ATT&CK Relevance
ATT&CK relevance is shown only when reviewed or responsibly inferred.