Extreme Flaw in Google Cloud’s Cloud SQL Service Uncovered Confidential Knowledge

Could 26, 2023Ravie LakshmananKnowledge Security / Cloud Safety

A brand new safety flaw has been disclosed within the Google Cloud Platform’s (GCP) Cloud SQL service that might be probably exploited to acquire entry to confidential information.

“The vulnerability might have enabled a malicious actor to escalate from a primary Cloud SQL consumer to a full-fledged sysadmin on a container, having access to inside GCP information like secrets and techniques, delicate information, passwords, along with buyer information,” Israeli cloud safety agency Dig said.

Cloud SQL is a fully-managed answer to construct MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server databases for cloud-based functions.

The multi-stage assault chain recognized by Dig, in a nutshell, leveraged a niche within the cloud platform’s safety layer related to SQL Server to escalate the privileges of a consumer to that of an administrator position.

The elevated permissions subsequently made it doable to abuse one other vital misconfiguration to acquire system administrator rights and take full management of the database server.

From there, a menace actor might entry all information hosted on the underlying working system, enumerate information, and extract passwords, which might then act as a launchpad for additional assaults.

“Having access to inside information like secrets and techniques, URLs, and passwords can result in publicity of cloud suppliers’ information and prospects’ delicate information which is a serious safety incident,” Dig researchers Ofir Balassiano and Ofir Shaty mentioned.

Following accountable disclosure in February 2023, the difficulty was addressed by Google in April 2023.

The disclosure comes as Google announced the supply of its Automated Certificates Administration Setting (ACME) API for all Google Cloud customers to robotically purchase and renew TLS certificates at no cost.