RedHunt Labs, a cybersecurity company, has discovered a serious online vulnerability that would have seriously jeopardized Mercedes-Benz’s security as well as the security of other large corporations.
The problem was the disclosure of a particular code, or authentication token, connected to a Mercedes-Benz worker. Surprisingly, this code was discovered on the publicly available website GitHub, making it vulnerable to abuse by unauthorized users.
The security vulnerability had been there since September of the previous year, but it was discovered during RedHunt Labs’ standard investigation in January.
If the authentication token was mishandled, it might have allowed unauthorized access to Mercedes-Benz’s dedicated server.
Secret designs, blueprints, and other sensitive data that was essential to the business’s operations were kept on this server. It also contained unique passwords and keys that, if used improperly, may have seriously disrupted Mercedes-Benz’s computer networks.
The vulnerability of the code not only exposed the internal workings of Mercedes-Benz software but also gave rise to access to keys linked to servers owned by Microsoft and Amazon, adding to the already dire circumstances. Despite the fact that the compromised server did not contain any customer information, the consequences of this kind of breach were extensive.
The problem was quickly discovered by RedHunt Labs and reported to a tech news website, which notified Mercedes-Benz. The carmaker moved quickly to fix the issue, removing the exposed code from the public GitHub source as soon as possible.
Mercedes-Benz said that one of its staff made a mistake that resulted in the incident, and it has opened an investigation to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
To strengthen its systems and guarantee the security of sensitive data, the organization is putting in place extra security measures. It’s still unknown as of right now if any malevolent actors compromised Mercedes-Benz‘s operations by taking use of the exposed code. The business is currently going over its documentation to find any odd activity that might have happened while the vulnerability was in place.
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