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.
Compromise of sensitive personal data
This kind of service is often used to exchange information that could include personal information, chat logs, and other private data that users
have shared on the platform. This is called Personally Identifiable Information.
The leaked app key could provide a gateway for unauthorized individuals to access and misuse this data, compromising the privacy and safety of the
application users.
In many industries and locations, there are legal and compliance requirements to protect sensitive data. If this kind of sensitive personal data
gets leaked, companies face legal consequences, penalties, or violations of privacy laws.
Financial loss
Financial losses can occur when a secret is used to access a paid third-party-provided service and is disclosed as part of the source code of
client applications. Having the secret, each user of the application will be able to use it without limit to use the third party service to their own
need, including in a way that was not expected.
This additional use of the secret will lead to added costs with the service provider.
Moreover, when rate or volume limiting is set up on the provider side, this additional use can prevent the regular operation of the affected
application. This might result in a partial denial of service for all the application’s users.
