Description

New cybersecurity research by Orca has unveiled a vulnerability dubbed LeakyCLI, affecting command-line interface (CLI) tools from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud. These CLI commands can inadvertently expose sensitive credentials in build logs, posing significant risks to organizations. Roi Nisimi, a security researcher, highlighted that certain commands in AWS CLI and Google Cloud CLI could reveal sensitive information in the form of environment variables, particularly when utilized in Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines like GitHub Actions. Microsoft has addressed the issue with a security update released in November 2023, assigning it the CVE identifier CVE-2023-36052 with a CVSS score of 8.6. However, Amazon and Google view this behavior as expected, urging organizations to refrain from storing secrets in environment variables. Instead, they recommend the use of dedicated secrets management services like AWS Secrets Manager or Google Cloud Secret Manager. Google also advises utilizing the "--no-user-output-enabled" option to prevent command output from being printed to standard output and standard error in the terminal. Orca discovered numerous GitHub projects inadvertently leaking access tokens and other sensitive data via GitHub Actions, CircleCI, TravisCI, and Cloud Build logs. Nisimi emphasized that if malicious actors obtain these environment variables, they could gain access to sensitive credentials, including passwords and keys, potentially compromising repository owners' resources. While CLI commands are generally assumed to run in secure environments, their integration with CI/CD pipelines amplifies the security risk, underscoring the need for proactive measures to mitigate such threats.