Silent Breach has uncovered a critical zero-day vulnerability embedded within the infrastructure of a major European university. Discovered during a routine offensive security operation, the vulnerability exposes a sobering reality: even prominent academic institutions remain vulnerable to fundamental misconfigurations that can compromise the personal data, research output, and operational continuity of entire campuses.

Technical Breakdown

Our Red Team's assessment revealed that the university had inadvertently left its core configuration system accessible via a publicly exposed web server. Within minutes of discovery, our analysts were able to retrieve sensitive configuration data that opened the gates to the university's backend systems.

This misconfiguration included full database credentials linked to the university's web services:

• Database name and username: dist2_web

• Database host: db.iam.upr.si

• Password: exposed in cleartext, allowing immediate unauthenticated access

Additionally, the system's WordPress framework revealed its complete set of secret keys and salts—values used to sign cookies and secure session tokens. These included AUTH_KEY, SECURE_AUTH_KEY, LOGGED_IN_KEY, and NONCE_KEY, among others. With these secrets exposed, any attacker would be able to forge administrator sessions, hijack legitimate user accounts, and silently bypass authentication mechanisms.

A particularly concerning finding was the FS_METHOD value set to direct, which allowed unrestricted modification of core files without FTP or SSH access. This would permit a remote attacker to upload and execute arbitrary malicious payloads directly from the browser, with zero interaction or logging from standard access layers.

In effect, this vulnerability created a comprehensive attack chain in which a single file opened a pathway to:

• Dumping or manipulating sensitive academic databases

• Hijacking admin-level user sessions

• Defacing websites and altering core platform behavior

• Stealing unpublished research or student records

• Establishing persistence and pivoting into the university’s internal network

Strategic Significance

Had this vulnerability been exploited by threat actors, the consequences could have been severe: data leaks affecting thousands of students and faculty, loss of intellectual property, reputational damage, and potential legal penalties under GDPR. Moreover, the timing of the exposure coincided with an active academic semester, magnifying the operational disruption that such an incident could have caused.

Silent Breach acted swiftly, responsibly disclosing the vulnerability through Open Bug Bounty (https://www.openbugbounty.org/reports/4135149/) to ensure that the university’s security team could mitigate the threat before any real-world exploitation occurred. Remediation actions are now underway.

This event highlights the enduring risk of configuration drift and the importance of ongoing offensive validation, even for institutions that consider themselves non-traditional targets. Academic institutions hold troves of sensitive data and often rely on decentralized IT management—a dangerous combination in today’s threat landscape.

Silent Breach continues to support universities, government agencies, and enterprises across Europe with advanced red team operations and exposure management. If your institution is unsure of its exposure, contact Silent Breach to schedule a full-spectrum threat assessment.

To learn more or request a targeted threat simulation, contact Silent Breach today.

About Silent Breach: Silent Breach is an award-winning provider of cyber security services. Our global team provides cutting-edge insights and expertise across the Data Center, Enterprise, SME, Retail, Government, Finance, Education, Automotive, Hospitality, Healthcare and IoT industries.