TryHackMe Challenge Shows How Misconfigured AWS Cognito Role Exposes Sensitive Data

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A TryHackMe challenge called 'Byte Lotus Wellness' demonstrates how an over-permissive AWS guest role can leak sensitive user data without any authentication. The fictional wellness app uses an Amazon Cognito Identity Pool to silently issue temporary AWS credentials to every visitor, with no login required. Critical configuration details — including the Identity Pool ID, AWS region, and DynamoDB table name — are hardcoded in the app's client-side JavaScript file. By extracting these credentials, an attacker can query the DynamoDB table and access stored wellness profiles belonging to other users. The exercise highlights the real-world risks of unauthenticated Cognito identity pools paired with overly permissive IAM roles in cloud-hosted applications.

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