Case Studies
A curated history of high-impact security breaches. Learn from the mistakes of the past to build a more secure future.
Samsung ChatGPT Source Code Leak
The Incident
Semiconductor division employees inputted sensitive wafer measurement source code and meeting notes into ChatGPT for optimization, inadvertently feeding proprietary secrets into the AI training pool.
Technical Breakdown
Unsafe use of online tools. Lack of egress filtering allowed sensitive data to be transmitted as prompts to a third-party AI platform.
Lesson Learned
"Strictly prohibit the input of internal code or confidential data into unvetted online AI tools."
Capital One SSRF Breach
The Incident
An attacker exploited an SSRF vulnerability to access the AWS metadata service, stealing data from 106 million customers and resulting in an $80 million fine.
Technical Breakdown
SSRF (Server-Side Request Forgery) + IAM Misconfiguration. The attacker leveraged a WAF vulnerability to obtain temporary credentials for an IAM role with excessive S3 permissions.
Lesson Learned
"Follow the Principle of Least Privilege, restrict cloud instance role permissions, and enforce IMDSv2 usage."
Log4j (Log4Shell) Critical Vulnerability
The Incident
A remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability that affected hundreds of millions of devices globally, characterized by its ease of exploitation and devastating impact.
Technical Breakdown
JNDI Injection. Log4j incorrectly supported dynamic lookup syntax, allowing attackers to induce the server into loading and executing malicious code from a remote source.
Lesson Learned
"Never trust user input, even in logging utilities. Establish rapid dependency update mechanisms."
Toyota T-Connect GitHub Credential Leak
The Incident
Toyota T-Connect source code remained public on a GitHub repository for 5 years, exposing nearly 300,000 customer records.
Technical Breakdown
Hardcoded Secrets. External contractors accidentally pushed source code containing database access keys to a public repository.
Lesson Learned
"Prohibit hardcoding API keys or database passwords in source code. Enforce mandatory secret scanning and code audit processes."
Uber MFA Fatigue Attack
The Incident
An 18-year-old hacker used an MFA fatigue attack—bombarding an employee with push notifications—to eventually gain internal administrative access.
Technical Breakdown
Social Engineering + Improper Privileged Credential Management. Once inside the network, the attacker found hardcoded PAM admin credentials in a script.
Lesson Learned
"MFA is not a silver bullet; be wary of notification fatigue. Administrative credentials must never be stored in plain text scripts."
More case studies being added daily by our security research team.