T05 · Unauthorized Access and Privilege Escalation
Error
- Location
- references/dev.md:16
- Finding
- Unrestricted Environment Variable Collection During Debugging<![CDATA[ ## Vulnerability Details **File Location**: `references/dev.md`, lines 16-20 **Vulnerability Type**: Excessive access to environment variables and secrets **Risk Level**: High ### Vulnerable Code Snippet ```markdown ## 3. Systematic Debugging (4-Phase) 1. **Root Cause**: Use `exec` to gather logs, environment variables, and trace data flow. 2. **Pattern**: Find working vs. broken code comparisons. 3. **Hypothesis**: Formulate "If I change X, then Y should happen." 4. **Fix & Verify**: Apply the fix and run the full test suite. ``` ### Technical Analysis The debugging workflow instructs the agent to use command execution to gather environment variables without limiting access to specific variables relevant to the fault under investigation. Process environments commonly contain API tokens, database connection strings, cloud credentials, webhook secrets, signing keys, and other authentication material. Reading the entire environment violates least-privilege principles because most debugging tasks require only a small, explicitly identified subset of configuration. Once collected, secret values may be exposed in command output, model context, session logs, generated debugging artifacts, or subagent context. The risk is amplified by other workflows in the Skill that support persistent memory and external report delivery. ### Attack Path 1. A debugging request causes the development reference to be loaded. 2. The agent follows the root-cause workflow and invokes `exec` to enumerate environment variables. 3. Credentials and other secrets become part of the tool output and agent context. 4. The values may subsequently be copied into diagnostics, logs, persistent memory, subagent prompts, or externally delivered reports. 5. Any party able to access those outputs could use the exposed credentials within the permissions granted to them. ### Impact Assessment This behavior may disclose every credential available to the agent process. The resulting acce ...[truncated 363 chars]
- Remediation
- <![CDATA[ ## Remediation Suggestions - Replace broad environment enumeration with an allowlist of explicitly named, task-relevant variables. - Never print the values of variables whose names indicate credentials, including names containing `TOKEN`, `SECRET`, `KEY`, `PASSWORD`, `COOKIE`, or `AUTH`. - Report only whether sensitive variables are present and, where necessary, their type or redacted metadata. - Require explicit user approval before inspecting potentially sensitive configuration. - Apply automatic secret redaction to command output, generated diagnostics, session logs, and subagent prompts. - Prevent environment-variable output from being written to persistent memory or transmitted through external channels. - Run diagnostic commands in a restricted environment containing only the minimum variables required by the target application. ]]>