Vercel data sharing & exposure security checks
External sharing, public links, guest access, retention and data-protection settings that quietly push company data outside the tenant.
On Vercel, Black Cat runs 6 checks in this area on every scan. Each one below lists its severity, how to fix it, and the compliance controls it satisfies where a control applies. See what access the Vercel connector needs.
Checks (6)
severity: medium Sensitive Env Var Policy Disabled fix difficulty: easy #
Enable the sensitive environment variable policy to prevent secret exposure
- Navigate to https://vercel.com/<team>/settings/security
- Locate the "Sensitive Environment Variables" section
- Toggle the sensitive environment variable policy to "On"
- Save the configuration
- Review existing plain-text environment variables and convert sensitive ones to the "Sensitive" type
Satisfies: ISO 27001:2022 A.8.12 SOC 2 Type II CC6.7 CIS Controls v8 CIS-03.1 NIST CSF 2.0 PR.DS-01 GDPR (SaaS Security) GDPR-5.1f.iii HIPAA (SaaS Security) HIPAA-308.a4 NIS2 Directive NIS2-21.a.3 DORA (SaaS Security) DORA-9.11
severity: low IP Visibility Enabled fix difficulty: easy #
Enable IP address hiding to prevent visitor IPs from appearing in logs
- Navigate to https://vercel.com/<team>/settings/security
- Locate the "IP Address Visibility" or "Privacy" section
- Enable the "Hide IP Addresses" toggle
- Save the configuration
Satisfies: ISO 27001:2022 A.8.12 SOC 2 Type II CC6.7 CIS Controls v8 CIS-03.1 NIST CSF 2.0 PR.DS-01 GDPR (SaaS Security) GDPR-5.1f.iii HIPAA (SaaS Security) HIPAA-308.a4 NIS2 Directive NIS2-21.a.3 DORA (SaaS Security) DORA-9.11
severity: high Public Source fix difficulty: easy #
Disable public source visibility to prevent source code from being publicly accessible
- Navigate to https://vercel.com/<team>/<project>/settings
- Locate the "Source" or "Public Source" section under General settings
- Disable the "Public Source" toggle
- Save the settings
- Verify the project source is no longer accessible without authentication
Satisfies: ISO 27001:2022 A.8.12 SOC 2 Type II CC6.7 CIS Controls v8 CIS-03.1 NIST CSF 2.0 PR.DS-01 GDPR (SaaS Security) GDPR-44.1 HIPAA (SaaS Security) HIPAA-308.a4 NIS2 Directive NIS2-21.a.3 DORA (SaaS Security) DORA-9.11
severity: medium Directory Listing Enabled fix difficulty: easy #
Disable directory listing to prevent public browsing of directory contents
- Navigate to https://vercel.com/<team>/<project>/settings
- Locate the "Directory Listing" section under General settings
- Disable the "Directory Listing" toggle
- Save the settings and redeploy the project if required
- Verify that accessing a directory path without an index file returns a 404 instead of a listing
Satisfies: ISO 27001:2022 A.8.12 SOC 2 Type II CC6.7 CIS Controls v8 CIS-03.1 NIST CSF 2.0 PR.DS-01 GDPR (SaaS Security) GDPR-5.1f.iii HIPAA (SaaS Security) HIPAA-308.a4 NIS2 Directive NIS2-21.a.3 DORA (SaaS Security) DORA-9.11
severity: high Plain Text Secret fix difficulty: easy #
Convert sensitive environment variables to the encrypted secret type
- Navigate to https://vercel.com/<team>/<project>/settings/environment-variables
- Identify environment variables storing secrets that are set as "Plain Text"
- Delete the plain-text variable
- Re-create the variable, selecting the "Sensitive" or "Secret" type
- Enter the value and save; the value will be encrypted at rest and masked in logs
- Redeploy the project to apply the updated variable type
Satisfies: ISO 27001:2022 A.8.12 SOC 2 Type II CC6.7 CIS Controls v8 CIS-03.1 NIST CSF 2.0 PR.DS-01 GDPR (SaaS Security) GDPR-5.1f.iii HIPAA (SaaS Security) HIPAA-308.a4 NIS2 Directive NIS2-21.a.3 DORA (SaaS Security) DORA-9.11
severity: medium Exposed to Preview fix difficulty: easy #
Remove preview environment target from sensitive environment variables
- Navigate to https://vercel.com/<team>/<project>/settings/environment-variables
- Locate the sensitive or secret environment variable that targets the "Preview" environment
- Edit the variable and deselect "Preview" from the target environments
- If preview deployments genuinely need a value, create a separate non-sensitive variable with a safe placeholder value
- Save the changes and redeploy to apply the updated targets
Satisfies: ISO 27001:2022 A.8.12 SOC 2 Type II CC6.7 CIS Controls v8 CIS-03.1 NIST CSF 2.0 PR.DS-01 GDPR (SaaS Security) GDPR-5.1f.iii HIPAA (SaaS Security) HIPAA-308.a4 NIS2 Directive NIS2-21.a.3 DORA (SaaS Security) DORA-9.11