Memory

Memory

Checking Memory for Sensitive Data

Analyzing memory can help developers identify the root causes of several problems, such as application crashes. However, it can also be used to access sensitive data. This section describes how to check for data disclosure via process memory.

First identify sensitive information that is stored in memory. Sensitive assets have likely been loaded into memory at some point. The objective is to verify that this information is exposed as briefly as possible.

To investigate an application's memory, you must first create a memory dump. You can also analyze the memory in real-time, e.g., via a debugger. Regardless of your approach, memory dumping is a very error-prone process in terms of verification because each dump contains the output of executed functions. You may miss executing critical scenarios. In addition, overlooking data during analysis is probable unless you know the data's footprint (either the exact value or the data format). For example, if the app encrypts with a randomly generated symmetric key, you likely won't be able to spot it in memory unless you can recognize the key's value in another context.