Logging Failures

Security Logging and Monitoring Failures Security Check (A09:2025)

What this checks

Protects the ability to detect and respond to attacks. Missing security event logs leave breaches undetected; logging sensitive fields creates new data-exposure vulnerabilities; CRLF injection lets attackers forge log entries.

Vulnerable patterns

• Log statement that interpolates a credential, token, or other secret as a value
• Authentication failure, authorization denial, or privileged action that exits without producing a log record
• Log call that dumps a full request body, response, or other payload containing PII or tokens
• User-controlled string interpolated into a log line without CRLF/newline stripping, allowing forged log entries
• Unstructured string logs that a SIEM cannot reliably parse or alert on

Fix immediately

Flag the vulnerable code and explain the risk. Then suggest a fix that establishes these properties:

1. Every security-relevant decision point emits exactly one log record. Authentication outcomes, authorization outcomes, privileged actions — no branch silently exits. A successful login and a failed login should both produce a record; a missing failure log is as bad as no logging at all.
2. Credential-like fields never appear as values. Names like password, token, secret, authorization, api_key, session, credit_card, ssn are either omitted or redacted before the log call. Do this at the logger, not at every call site — a forgotten call site is a guaranteed leak.
3. Every user-controlled string passes through a CRLF/newline stripping step before reaching the log sink — including fields that "look safe" like usernames, and including any dedicated actor/subject/user-id parameter. A username containing an embedded newline followed by a forged event prefix smuggles fake log lines whether it arrives as a positional argument or a keyword argument.
4. Records are structured key/value data — not an interpolated message string. A SIEM should be able to read fields directly; a regex-parsed message string misses things attackers can exploit.
5. Each record carries an event-type identifier and an actor identifier. The actor is a non-null field naming who or what triggered the event — a user id, session id, an explicit anonymous marker, or a system marker for server-initiated jobs. Never silently omitted.

Translate each principle to the logging framework and structured-logger conventions of the audited file's language. Use the framework's documented structured-event API — do not hand-build log lines from string interpolation.

Verification

Confirm these properties hold (language-agnostic):

• Every security-relevant decision point (authentication outcome, authorization outcome, privileged action) emits exactly one log record — no branch silently exits without logging
• Credential-like field names (password, token, secret, authorization, api_key, session) never appear as values in any log record — they are omitted or redacted before the log call
• Every user-controlled string reaching a log sink passes through a CRLF/newline stripping step — including fields that look safe like usernames, and including dedicated actor/subject/user-id parameters
• Log records are emitted as structured key/value data — not as a single interpolated message string that a SIEM would have to regex-parse
• Each record carries an event-type identifier and a non-null actor identifier (user id, session id, anonymous marker, or system marker for server-initiated jobs)

References

• CWE-117 (Improper Output Neutralization for Logs)
• CWE-223 (Omission of Security-relevant Information)
• CWE-532 (Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File)
• OWASP A09:2025 – Security Logging and Monitoring Failures