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 credentials 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.
Exceeding rate limits
Using a leaked secret, an attacker may be able to make hundreds or thousands of authenticated calls to an online service. It is common for online
services to enforce a rate limit to prevent their servers from being overwhelmed.
If an attacker is able to exceed a user-based rate limit, they may be able to cause a denial of service for the user. If this continues over a long
period of time, the user may also be subject to additional fees or may have their account terminated.
Account termination
Unauthorized access to mailing service API keys can also result in resource abuse. Attackers can exploit the API keys to send a large volume of
spam emails or perform other resource-intensive operations, causing a significant strain on the mailing service provider’s infrastructure.
The service provider, being vigilant about such activities, may flag your account and take action against it. This could lead to the suspension or
termination of the compromised account, thus causing significant inconvenience and potential loss of communication with your customers or
partners.
