Session cookies

Name: Session cookies
Creator: TestPattern Community
License: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

Identifies session cookies patterns in security and access control contexts. Detects potential exposure of sensitive security information in Australian systems.

Type: regex
Engine: boost_regex
Confidence: medium
Confidence justification: structural regex with domain-specific anchors and constrained context replaces phrase-only marker.
Detection quality: Mixed
Jurisdictions: global
Regulations: Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), NDB Scheme (Cth), SOCI Act 2018 (Cth), TIA Act 1979 (Cth)
Frameworks: CIS Controls, DISP, ISO 27001, NIST CSF, PCI-DSS, SOC 2
Data categories: credentials, security
Scope: wide
Platform compatibility: Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Degraded, Netskope: Unsupported

Pattern

(?is)\b(?:session\s+cookies|session\s+token|session\s+id|secure\s+cookie|authentication\s+cookie)\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

session cookies, session, cookies, credentials, keys, secrets

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

session cookies — Primary topic phrase match
session token — Case-insensitive topic phrase match
session id — Alternative topic phrase match
secure cookie — Additional topic phrase match

Should not match

unrelated generic text without domain phrases — No relevant topic phrases present
placeholder value 12345 — Random text should not match topic-specific regex
jwt httponly — Generic word pair from old broad template should not match

Known false positives

Authentication-related terminology in software documentation, security training materials, or system architecture descriptions without actual credentials. Mitigation: Require proximity to credential-specific patterns (API keys, connection strings, tokens) rather than general security terminology.
Code snippets and configuration examples containing credential-related keywords or placeholder values in developer documentation. Mitigation: Check for common placeholder patterns (example.com, localhost, 0000) and documentation file types to reduce false positives from technical writing.

References

https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/essential-cyber-security/ism
https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/essential-cyber-security/essential-eight
https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/australian-privacy-principles-guidelines/chapter-11-app-11-security-of-personal-information