Missing access checks in a document portal expose over 800 million First American images (2019)
Sequential integer URLs in imaging web portal lacked object-level authorization checks; exposed 885 million escrow and wire documents.
The failure pattern
Watch the pattern: Cross-tenant access through a caller-controlled identifier
Safeguards that address it
CollectSEA's engineering analysis of what would have prevented or contained this failure.
- Enforce object-level authorizationCheck that the requester may access each document on every request and use unguessable identifiers instead of sequential ones.
- Escalate security findings to disclosure decision-makersRoute assessment results on known vulnerabilities to the people responsible for incident and disclosure decisions.
Related standards
CollectSEA's mapping through this incident's failure pattern; not an official determination by the standards bodies.
- AC-3 Access Enforcement
- AC-4 Information Flow Enforcement
- RA-5 Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning
- SI-2 Flaw Remediation
- RV.1.1 Gather vulnerability information from public sources
- RV.2.2 Plan and implement risk responses
- Goal 3 Reducing entire classes of vulnerability
- Goal 4 Security patches
- CWE-639 Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key
- CWE-1395 Dependency on Vulnerable Third-Party Component
Building something similar?
Describe your design and see every precedent that applies, with safeguards you can hand to your coding agent.
Incidents with the same pattern
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