Best Practices for Securely Handling Arrays of Sensitive Data in JavaScript
I'm collaborating on a project where I've been banging my head against this for hours. I'm relatively new to this, so bear with me. In our application, we manage sensitive user data that is stored in arrays. While reviewing the existing code, I realized there are potential security risks involved in how we're currently handling these arrays. For instance, in one function, we are iterating through user data arrays to extract email addresses and then logging those to the console. Here’s the relevant snippet: ```javascript const userEmails = users.map(user => user.email); console.log(userEmails); ``` Upon further inspection, I noticed that if the `users` array contains sensitive information, logging the emails could lead to data leakage in production. We aim to follow security best practices, so I’m considering whether there are safer ways to handle this data. One approach I thought about was utilizing a function that only accesses the data when necessary, using getters to encapsulate the sensitive information. However, I’m not sure if that adds unnecessary complexity or if it’s a viable solution. Additionally, I’ve read about using environment-specific logging levels to suppress sensitive information in production. For example: ```javascript if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development') { console.log(userEmails); } ``` Could this approach be sufficient, or would it be better to avoid logging sensitive data altogether? I’m interested in hearing about strategies others have implemented to ensure arrays containing sensitive information are handled securely, especially with regard to accidental exposure in logs or error messages. Any insights on how to implement this while maintaining the usability of the code would be greatly appreciated! For context: I'm using Javascript on Ubuntu. I'm working on a CLI tool that needs to handle this. How would you solve this? I'm coming from a different tech stack and learning Javascript. Any feedback is welcome!