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.
Breach of trust in non-repudiation and disruption of the audit trail
When such a secret is compromised, malicious actors might have the possibility to send malicious event objects, causing discrepancies in the audit
trail. This can make it difficult to trace and verify the sequence of events, impacting the ability to investigate and identify unauthorized or
fraudulent activity.
All in all, this can lead to problems in proving the validity of transactions or actions performed, potentially leading to disputes and legal
complications.
Financial loss
Since this secret is used to process transaction-related operations, financial loss may also occur if transaction-related objects are corrupted or
the account is tampered with.
This can range from indirect losses to direct unauthorized transfers of funds that can lead to bankruptcy or
impoverishment of individuals.
