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?
Application keys and secrets allow applications to authenticate with Huawei Cloud services. If an application secret is disclosed, an attacker will
be able to call Huawei Cloud resources with the same privileges as the application.
Below are some real-world scenarios that illustrate some impacts of an attacker exploiting the secret.
Phishing and spam
An attacker can use this application secret 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, such as pornographic material
- 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.
Financial loss
Cloud providers charge for their services based on their usage. This may be based on the number of API calls made, bandwidth, or how many server
instances are running.
An attacker can use a disclosed secret to send large numbers of requests to the cloud provider. This can lead to a large and unexpected increase in
cloud provider costs.
Denial of service
The cloud provider may monitor requests to identify unusual usage activity. If an attacker is able to send enough requests, the cloud provider may
flag your account and take action against it. This could lead to the suspension or termination of your account, thus causing significant inconvenience
and disruption for your customers or partners.
