testing-for-sensitive-data-exposure

name	testing-for-sensitive-data-exposure
description	Identifying sensitive data exposure vulnerabilities including API key leakage, PII in responses, insecure storage, and unprotected data transmission during security assessments. Use when working with testing for sensitive data exposure.
domain	cybersecurity
tags	["penetration-testing","data-exposure","pii","owasp","web-security","api-keys","secrets"]
subdomain	web-application-security
version	1.0
author	oyi77
license	Apache-2.0
nist_ai_rmf	["MEASURE-2.7","MAP-5.1","MANAGE-2.4"]
atlas_techniques	["AML.T0070","AML.T0066","AML.T0082"]
nist_csf	["PR.PS-01","ID.RA-01","PR.DS-10","DE.CM-01"]

Testing For Sensitive Data Exposure

Overview

Cybersecurity skill for testing for sensitive data exposure. Follows industry best practices and security standards.

When to Use

Trigger phrases:

• "testing for sensitive data exposure"

• "Identifying sensitive data exposure vulnerabilities including API key leakage, P"

• During authorized penetration tests when assessing data protection controls

• When evaluating applications for GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA, or other data protection compliance

• For identifying leaked API keys, credentials, tokens, and secrets in application responses

• When testing whether sensitive data is properly encrypted in transit and at rest

• During security assessments of APIs that handle PII, financial data, or health records

When NOT to Use

• When you lack proper authorization for testing
• For production systems without change management
• When the task requires legal or compliance expertise beyond technical scope

Prerequisites

• Authorization: Written penetration testing agreement with data handling scope
• Burp Suite Professional: For intercepting and analyzing responses for sensitive data
• trufflehog: Secret scanning tool (pip install trufflehog)
• gitleaks: Git repository secret scanner (go install github.com/gitleaks/gitleaks/v8@latest)
• curl/httpie: For manual endpoint testing
• Browser DevTools: For examining local storage, session storage, and cached data
• testssl.sh: TLS configuration testing tool

Workflow

# Example: IOC detection
import re

IOC_PATTERNS = {
    "ip": r"\b(?:\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}\b",
    "domain": r"\b[a-z0-9-]+\.[a-z]{2,}\b",
    "hash_md5": r"\b[a-f0-9]{32}\b",
    "hash_sha256": r"\b[a-f0-9]{64}\b",
}

def () -> :
     {k: re.findall(v, text)  k, v  IOC_PATTERNS.items()}