Legitimate System Functions Exploited to Steal Secrets in Shared Linux Setups

Security researcher Ionuț Cernica revealed how commonplace Linux utilities can be weaponized to siphon sensitive data in multi-tenant environments.

His talk, “Silent Leaks: Harvesting Secrets from Shared Linux Environments,” exposed that without any root privileges or zero-day exploits, attackers can exploit standard tools—such as ps, /proc, and temporary file handling—to harvest database credentials, API keys, and user secrets in plain sight.

Process Visibility as an Attack Vector

Linux’s transparent process model allows any user to inspect the command lines of running processes via /proc/[pid]/cmdline and commands like ps auxww and pgrep.

While designed for debugging and system monitoring, this openness inadvertently grants attackers a reconnaissance advantage.

By continuously polling process information, an unprivileged user can reveal active jobs and extract parameters such as database usernames and passwords.

Cernica demonstrated real-world scenarios on shared hosting platforms where WordPress CLI invocations exposed plaintext credentials—DB_USER ‘wp_new_user’ and ...