Debug Log Flaw Exposes All User Passwords via Unsecured SIEM Dashboard

A security research exercise demonstrated how a forgotten debug statement in a web app's login route logged user passwords in plaintext on every authentication attempt. The logs were captured by an internal SIEM dashboard hosted at an unlisted but discoverable URL, reachable via standard directory enumeration tools like Gobuster. The SIEM console was protected only by default credentials, allowing anyone who found it to log in and read all captured passwords. Four distinct vulnerabilities enabled the attack: plaintext logging of sensitive fields, cleartext log storage, an exposed internal monitoring endpoint, and hardcoded default credentials. The findings highlight the need to redact sensitive data from logs, secure internal tools with proper credentials, and treat log files with the same care as production databases.