In most cases, trust boundaries are violated when a secret is exposed in a source code repository or an uncontrolled deployment environment.
Unintended people who don’t need to know the secret might get access to it. They might then be able to use it to gain unwanted access to associated
services or resources.
The trust issue can be more or less severe depending on the people’s role and entitlement.
What is the potential impact?
Below are some real-world scenarios that illustrate some impacts of an attacker exploiting the secret.
Phishing and spam
An attacker can use this API token to spam users or lure them into links to a malicious domain controlled by the attacker.
Spam can cause users to be exposed to the following:
- Unsolicited, inappropriate content
- Fraudulent attempts to trick users into sending information or money
- Abusive or hateful statements
- False advertising or fraudulent claims
Once a user has been phished on a legitimate-seeming third-party website, an attacker can collect the user’s credentials, bypass multi-factor
authentication (MFA), and take over the user’s account on the trusted website.
