After giving this some more thought I think you’re right. I would even broaden your definition to include using authorized access in ways that weren’t originally intended by the computer system’s designers.
I was trying to distinguish between breaches that result from intentional exploitation (malicious or otherwise) and breaches that result from negligence. Having thought about it a bit more, these things are not actually mutually exclusive. Many intentional exploitations take advantage of dumb mistakes (e.g. posting credentials in a public repo).
As such, I take back my earlier disagreement: this is a valid use of the word “hack”.
Myself, I would agree with your earlier definition of this being a leak[1] simply using the definition. There wasn't a program created or exploit discovered that exposed previously private information, an authorized user posted to the incorrect privilege level location.
A leak by definition is something from inside. This was not. This was an exploit from outside actors that made this data available to the public.
Note the difference:
> accidentally posting credentials for Atlassian's Envoy setup in a public repository
this was a leak.
Using those credentials to then obtain other data and post them publicly-> this is the hack. A hack does not need to be complicated, just to accomplish something that was not intended.
I disagree that finding mistakingly posted credentials, logging in and performing an export task is a hack, hacking, or exploitation. All the functionality was already available as it would be for any authorized user. This is the equivalent of reading the user guide.
> Using leaked credentials to access a system that would not otherwise be accessible is >absolutely an exploit.
Can you go into this a bit more as I'm not seeing anything being exploited? Were the credentials not valid? Was exporting data not available to that authentication user? Did they elevate their permissions beyond what the original credentials provided?
If I find $20 on the street and buy a lotto ticket and win, what was exploited? I used the money to buy an item that can be purchased with money. In this example would you be saying that finding the money was the exploit or using the discovered money to buy something?
> Similarly, convincing a security guard to let you in to an area of a building that you >aren’t allowed into is also an exploit.
I agree this is an exploit, aptly named social engineering. However in this example you started with nothing and "convinced" the guard to do something.
This is different than already having the credentials. The equivalent for this example, to me, would be finding a persons office/building card and walking past the guard but I wouldn't see that as an exploit. Both the access control and guard are reacting accordingly to the expected inputs.
I would view an exploit as going beyond the intent of the built-in/existing controls.
There is an active searching for these credential leaks in the various repositoriues to then be used so this is an exploit. It shows intent, an organised way of searching for vulenrabilities and accomplishment of the task.
It's the equivalent of stalking the security guard and evasdroping on his public communications in the hope that he slips us and when drunken enough will reveal the passcode to the entrance door. Public repositories make it more easy to "stalk" in that sense, but yet it's a active search for a vulnerability, that of not not following security recomandations.
If someone intends to rob a bank doens't matter how they have obtained the vault key, when the bank was robbed.
I was trying to distinguish between breaches that result from intentional exploitation (malicious or otherwise) and breaches that result from negligence. Having thought about it a bit more, these things are not actually mutually exclusive. Many intentional exploitations take advantage of dumb mistakes (e.g. posting credentials in a public repo).
As such, I take back my earlier disagreement: this is a valid use of the word “hack”.