Actual Sync-server Gocardless service is logging sensitive data including bearer tokens and account numbers — @actual-app / sync-server
Generation of Error Message Containing Sensitive InformationSummary
The GoCardless components in Actualbudget in are logging responses to STDOUT in a parsed format using console.logand console.debug (Which in this version of node is an alias for console.log). This is exposing sensitive information in log files including, but not limited to:
- Gocardless bearer tokens.
- Account IBAN and Bank Account numbers.
- PII of the account holder.
- Transaction details (Payee bank information, Recipient account numbers, Transaction IDs)...
Details
Whenever GoCardless responds to a request, the payload is printed to the debug log: https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/blob/36c40d90d2fe09eb1f25a6e2f77f6dd40638b267/packages/sync-server/src/app-gocardless/banks/integration-bank.js#L25-L27
This in turn logs the following information to Docker (all values removed here. These fields are possibly dependent on what is returned by each institution so may differ):
{
"account": {
"resourceId": "",
"iban": "",
"bban": "",
"currency": "",
"name": "<full legal name in the bank>",
"product": "",
"status": "",
"bic": "",
"usage": "",
"id": "",
"created": "",
"last_accessed": "",
"institution_id": "",
"owner_name": "",
"institution": {
"id": "",
"name": "",
"bic": "",
"transaction_total_days": "",
"countries": [
""
],
"logo": "",
"max_access_valid_for_days": "",
"supported_features": [
"",
"",
""
],
"identification_codes": []
}
}
}
https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/blob/36c40d90d2fe09eb1f25a6e2f77f6dd40638b267/packages/sync-server/src/app-gocardless/banks/integration-bank.js#L83-L85
This is the first of the 10 transactions:
{
"top10Transactions": [{
"transactionId": "",
"entryReference": "",
"bookingDate": "",
"valueDate": "",
"transactionAmount": {
"amount": "",
"currency": ""
},
"creditorName": "",
"creditorAccount": {
"bban": ""
},
"debtorName": "",
"debtorAccount": {
"bban": ""
},
"remittanceInformationUnstructured": "",
"remittanceInformationStructuredArray": [
{"reference": "", "referenceType": ""}
],
"additionalInformation": "",
"proprietaryBankTransactionCode": "",
"debtorAgent": "",
"internalTransactionId": "",
"payeeName": "",
"date": ""
}]
}
Additionally, in the error handling for GoCardless, there is a catch all for unclassified errors that prints the entire stack trace to the console.
https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/blob/36c40d90d2fe09eb1f25a6e2f77f6dd40638b267/packages/sync-server/src/app-gocardless/app-gocardless.js#L263-L264
Our bank was offline today for maintenance which threw a 503 error from Gocardless. The entire response payload was dumped to console, which includes the Bearer tokens for accessing GoCardless:
Something went wrong ServiceError: Institution service unavailable
at handleGoCardlessError (file:///app/src/app-gocardless/services/gocardless-service.js:59:13)
at Object.getTransactions (file:///app/src/app-gocardless/services/gocardless-service.js:530:7)
at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5)
at async Object.getNormalizedTransactions (file:///app/src/app-gocardless/services/gocardless-service.js:267:26)
at async file:///app/src/app-gocardless/app-gocardless.js:186:13 {
details: h [AxiosError]: Request failed with status code 503
at te (file:///app/node_modules/nordigen-node/dist/index.esm.js:13:914)
at IncomingMessage.<anonymous> (file:///app/node_modules/nordigen-node/dist/index.esm.js:17:16315)
at IncomingMessage.emit (node:events:529:35)
at endReadableNT (node:internal/streams/readable:1400:12)
at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:82:21) {
code: 'ERR_BAD_RESPONSE',
config: {
transitional: {
silentJSONParsing: true,
forcedJSONParsing: true,
clarifyTimeoutError: false
},
adapter: [ 'xhr', 'http' ],
transformRequest: [ [Function (anonymous)] ],
transformResponse: [ [Function (anonymous)] ],
timeout: 0,
xsrfCookieName: 'XSRF-TOKEN',
xsrfHeaderName: 'X-XSRF-TOKEN',
maxContentLength: -1,
maxBodyLength: -1,
env: {
FormData: [Function: _] {
LINE_BREAK: '\r\n',
DEFAULT_CONTENT_TYPE: 'application/octet-stream'
},
Blob: [class Blob]
},
validateStatus: [Function: validateStatus],
headers: T [AxiosHeaders] {
Accept: 'application/json',
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
'User-Agent': 'Nordigen-Node-v2',
'Authorization': 'Bearer eyJ0eXAi... (the full token is in the response)',
'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip, compress, deflate, br'
},
method: 'get',
url: URL {
href: 'https://bankaccountdata.gocardless.com/api/v2/accounts/<Account id Was Here>?date_from=2024-12-22',
origin: 'https://bankaccountdata.gocardless.com',
protocol: 'https:',
username: '',
password: '',
host: 'bankaccountdata.gocardless.com',
hostname: 'bankaccountdata.gocardless.com',
port: '',
pathname: '/api/v2/accounts/<Account id Was Here>/transactions',
search: '?date_from=2024-12-22',
searchParams: URLSearchParams { 'date_from' => '2024-12-22' },
hash: ''
},
data: undefined
},
And quite a few pages more.
PoC
- Setup an Actualbudget server inside of Docker. In this instance I was using the Docker Compose script posted in the repository: https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/blob/master/packages/sync-server/docker-compose.yml
- Link a gocardless account to Actualbudget and sync a bank account
- Observe in the container using
docker logs actual-actual_server-1 -fthat sensitive details are logged to the console and ingested by docker.
Impact
Information disclosure. The services are available both on-premises and in environments that are not under the control of the end user, such as third-party providers who offer this application as a managed solution.
| Software | From | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
@actual-app / sync-server
|
- | 25.11.0 |
- https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/blob/36c40d90d2fe09eb1f25a6e2f77f6dd40638b267/packages/sync-server/src/app-gocardless/app-gocardless.js#L263-L264
- https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/blob/36c40d90d2fe09eb1f25a6e2f77f6dd40638b267/packages/sync-server/src/app-gocardless/banks/integration-bank.js#L25-L27
- https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/blob/36c40d90d2fe09eb1f25a6e2f77f6dd40638b267/packages/sync-server/src/app-gocardless/banks/integration-bank.js#L83-L85
- https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/commit/97482a082d502887ef22514b93e35e4c67f4f30f
- https://github.com/actualbudget/actual/security/advisories/GHSA-xvp7-8vm8-xfxx
Deep Security Visibility Without the Complexity
SynScan provides clear, real-time security insights so you can monitor your attack surface, spot risks early, and act fast—without extra complexity.
- No setup fees
- 5-min deployment
- Cancel anytime
Frequently Asked Questions
A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.
CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.
A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.
Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.
Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.
SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.