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• uses objects to store sensitive data whose contents are not cleared or garbage collected after use
• has memory pages that can be swapped out to disk as required by the operating system (to perform memory management tasks and support hibernation)
• uses a buffer to hold sensitive data (such as BufferedReader) that retains copies of the data in the OS cache or in memory.
• bases its control flow on Reflection that allows circumventing any countermeasures to limit the lifetime of sensitive variables
• reveals sensitive data in debugging messages, log files, environment variables or through thread and core dumps

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private void readIntoDirectBuffer() throws IOException {
  ByteBuffer buffer = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(16 * 1024);
  FileChannel rdr = (new FileInputStream("file")).getChannel();
  while(rdr.read(buffer) > 0) {
    // Do something with the buffer
    buffer.clear();
  }
  rdr.close();
}

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Failure to limit the lifetime of sensitive data can lead to sensitive information leaks.

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