Recently, Dell faced a significant data breach, where a threat actor exploited API vulnerabilities to steal 49 million customer records. This incident not only underscores the growing threat of API abuse but also highlights the necessity for robust security measures to protect sensitive data.

In this blog post, we will delve into the details of the Dell data breach, identify the specific API vulnerabilities exploited, and discuss how tools like Impart can address these types of security flaws.

Summary of the Dell Data Breach Incident

Dell recently experienced a significant data breach, with 49 million customer records stolen via a partner portal API. The threat actor, known as Menelik, exploited the API by registering fake companies, gaining access within 48 hours without verification. Once inside, Menelik used a program to generate service tags, sending up to 5,000 requests per minute over three weeks to scrape customer data, including names, order numbers, and warranty information.

The stolen data, comprising details of various Dell products like Inspiron Notebooks and Latitude Laptops, was put up for sale on the Breached hacking forum. Despite notifying Dell about the vulnerability on April 12th and 14th, Menelik continued harvesting data until the company addressed the issue two weeks later.

Dell confirmed receiving the threat actor’s emails and stated that they were already investigating the incident before being notified. The company has since engaged law enforcement and a third-party forensics firm to investigate the breach.

This breach highlights a growing trend of API abuse in data breaches. Similar incidents have occurred with Facebook, Twitter, and Trello, where APIs were exploited to scrape sensitive data due to inadequate rate limiting and security measures. This underscores the critical need for companies to implement robust API security practices to protect against such vulnerabilities.

API Vulnerabilities Exploited in the Dell Data Breach

The Dell data breach exploited several key API vulnerabilities, specifically from the OWASP API Security Top 10 2023 edition:

1. API1:2023 – Broken Object Level Authorization:
   • The partner portal API allowed access to sensitive order information without proper authorization checks, enabling unauthorized access to extensive customer data.
2. API2:2023 – Broken Authentication:
   • The API allowed new accounts to be registered with minimal verification, permitting the creation of fake companies to access the portal.
3. API4:2023 – Unrestricted Resource Consumption:
   • The absence of rate limiting allowed the threat actor to send up to 5,000 requests per minute, facilitating large-scale data extraction over three weeks.
4. API9:2023 – Improper Inventory Management:
   • Inadequate monitoring and detection systems allowed the threat actor to exploit the API and scrape data without detection for an extended period.

How Impart Addresses These types API Security Flaws

Impart takes a proactive approach to securing APIs, effectively addressing the vulnerabilities highlighted in the Dell data breach:

1. API1:2023 – Broken Object Level Authorization:
   • Impart Solution: Impart can protect against BOLA attacks by detecting enumeration attempts by attackers who created valid company accounts and API tokens,  then used those API tokens to enumerate through different service tags.  Impart can limit enumeration attempts using any combination of user attributes, such as API token, IP address, headers, ASN, and many others.  These hash patterns can be defined easily in code using built in hash pattern functions.
2. API2:2023 – Broken Authentication:
   • Impart Solution: Impart can protect against abuse from newly created accounts (in this case, accounts less than 48 hours) by adding new accountids (typically an API parameter or query string going to an account creation endpoint) to a dynamic runtime list which has more aggressive security monitoring and rate limiting in place.  Unusual activity from accounts from using these parameters or query strings can be monitored and prevented.
3. API4:2023 – Unrestricted Resource Consumption:
   • Impart Solution: Impart can rate limit the number of requests using any combination of user attributes, such as API token, IP address, headers, ASN, and more.  Rate limiting thresholds can be dynamically adjusted based on request history using dynamic runtime lists.
4. API9:2023 – Improper Inventory Management:
   • Impart Solution: Impart’s API Discovery feature maintains continuous inventory of all API endpoints.  This helps security teams better understand what APIs they have, what their purpose is, and how they work.

Conclusion

The Dell data breach serves as a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities inherent in APIs and the devastating impact they can have if left unaddressed. By understanding and mitigating these vulnerabilities, companies can better protect their sensitive data and avoid similar incidents. Impart’s comprehensive approach to API security provides robust solutions to the vulnerabilities highlighted in this breach, ensuring that organizations can safeguard their APIs against abuse and maintain the trust of their customers.

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