Delivering code in production with debug features activated is security-sensitive. It has led in the past to the following vulnerabilities:

An application’s debug features enable developers to find bugs more easily and thus facilitate also the work of attackers. It often gives access to detailed information on both the system running the application and users.

Ask Yourself Whether

There is a risk if you answered yes to any of those questions.

Recommended Secure Coding Practices

Do not enable debug features on production servers or applications distributed to end users.

Sensitive Code Example

Throwable.printStackTrace(...) prints a Throwable and its stack trace to System.Err (by default) which is not easily parseable and can expose sensitive information:

try {
  /* ... */
} catch(Exception e) {
  e.printStackTrace(); // Sensitive
}

EnableWebSecurity annotation for SpringFramework with debug to true enables debugging support:

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.configuration.EnableWebSecurity;

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity(debug = true) // Sensitive
public class WebSecurityConfig extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
  // ...
}

WebView.setWebContentsDebuggingEnabled(true) for Android enables debugging support:

import android.webkit.WebView;

WebView.setWebContentsDebuggingEnabled(true); // Sensitive
WebView.getFactory().getStatics().setWebContentsDebuggingEnabled(true); // Sensitive

Compliant Solution

Loggers should be used (instead of printStackTrace) to print throwables:

try {
  /* ... */
} catch(Exception e) {
  LOGGER.log("context", e);
}

EnableWebSecurity annotation for SpringFramework with debug to false disables debugging support:

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.security.config.annotation.web.configuration.EnableWebSecurity;

@Configuration
@EnableWebSecurity(debug = false)
public class WebSecurityConfig extends WebSecurityConfigurerAdapter {
  // ...
}

WebView.setWebContentsDebuggingEnabled(false) for Android disables debugging support:

import android.webkit.WebView;

WebView.setWebContentsDebuggingEnabled(false);
WebView.getFactory().getStatics().setWebContentsDebuggingEnabled(false);

See