CloudSEK’s BeVigil platform has uncovered a critical security vulnerability affecting an aviation giant, where an exposed JavaScript file containing an unauthenticated API endpoint led to unauthorized access to Microsoft Graph tokens with elevated privileges.
This security lapse resulted in the exposure of sensitive data belonging to more than 50,000 Azure Active Directory users, highlighting significant risks to user privacy, organizational security, and regulatory compliance.
Critical Vulnerability Discovery
The security vulnerability was identified through BeVigil’s API Scanner, which detected a JavaScript bundle containing a hardcoded endpoint accessible without any authentication mechanisms.
This endpoint was configured to issue Microsoft Graph API tokens with excessive and dangerous permissions, specifically User.Read.All and AccessReview.Read.All scopes.
These particular permissions are considered highly sensitive within Microsoft’s identity ecosystem, as they grant comprehensive access to user profile information and critical identity governance data that should typically be restricted to authorized administrative personnel only.
The technical implications of this exposure are severe, as the User.Read.All permission allows complete visibility into all user profiles within the Azure AD tenant, while AccessReview.Read.All provides access to sensitive governance configurations and access review data.
An attacker leveraging this misconfigured endpoint could systematically query Microsoft Graph endpoints to extract detailed employee information including full names, job titles, contact details, organizational reporting structures, and access review configurations.
The continuous nature of this vulnerability meant that newly added users to the system were automatically included in the exposed dataset, creating an ongoing security risk that expanded over time.
According to CloudSek Report, the attack vector’s sophistication lies in its simplicity requiring no advanced technical skills or sophisticated tools, merely knowledge of the exposed endpoint location.
This accessibility significantly lowers the barrier for potential attackers while maximizing the potential impact, as the exposed data could facilitate privilege escalation attacks, identity theft schemes, and highly targeted phishing campaigns leveraging authentic organizational information.
Compliance Ramifications
The scale of this data exposure presents far-reaching consequences for both immediate security posture and long-term organizational risk management.
With over 50,000 users affected, the breach encompasses a substantial portion of the organization’s workforce, including executive-level personnel whose exposure creates particularly high-value targets for social engineering and impersonation attacks.
The exposed personal identifiers, user principal names, and access role assignments provide attackers with comprehensive intelligence about the organization’s internal structure and hierarchy.
From a technical security perspective, the leaked authorization tokens could grant unrestricted visibility into internal directory structures and governance decisions, potentially enabling attackers to map the organization’s entire identity infrastructure.
This level of access facilitates advanced persistent threat scenarios where attackers can maintain long-term access while gradually escalating privileges and expanding their footprint within the organization’s systems.
The regulatory compliance implications are equally concerning, as the unauthorized exposure of personally identifiable information without proper safeguards creates potential violations under major data protection frameworks including GDPR and CCPA.
The aviation industry’s stringent regulatory environment compounds these concerns, as data breaches can trigger industry-specific compliance investigations and operational disruptions that extend beyond standard privacy regulations.
Security experts recommend immediate implementation of comprehensive remediation measures to address both the immediate vulnerability and underlying security architecture weaknesses.
Priority actions include disabling public access to the vulnerable endpoint, implementing strict authentication controls, and immediately revoking all compromised tokens while rotating affected credentials.
Organizations must enforce least privilege principles by conducting thorough reviews of token scopes and limiting permissions to only those absolutely necessary for legitimate business functions.
This incident emphasizes the critical importance of securing front-end components and ensuring that sensitive backend services remain properly isolated from public access.
The vulnerability demonstrates how seemingly minor configuration oversights in client-side code can create massive security exposures that compromise entire organizational directories and user populations.
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