Review Old Backup and Unreferenced Files

Review Old Backup and Unreferenced Files

It is easy to forget such files and this may pose a serious security threat to the application. That happens because backup copies may be generated with file extensions differing from those of the original files. A .tar, .zip or .gz archive that we generate (and forget…) has obviously a different extension, and the same happens with automatic copies created by many editors (for example, emacs generates a backup copy named file~ when editing file). Making a copy by hand may produce the same effect (think of copying file to file.old). The underlying file system the application is on could be making snapshots of your application at different points in time without your knowledge, which may also be accessible via the web, posing a similar but different backup file style threat to your application.