'Impossible-to-hack' security turns out to be no security
156 comments
·February 24, 2025delichon
To be fair, security through denial, lies and intimidation is the industry standard.
Leaving the passwords in clear text is double plus ungood. But my employer recently bought another outfit that does just that, and fixing it is not a near term option. So I'm stuck managing that and three of my fingers are pointing back to me.
cratermoon
Some powerful people subscribe to the idea that "if I (or the law) says don't touch it, it's secure". This attitude was on full display a little over three years ago in Missouri. https://missouriindependent.com/2021/10/14/missouri-governor...
coolhand2120
That's a good one!
Reporter: "Hey, you dropped your wallet" Governor: "Thief!"
soco
Technically speaking if there's nothing to break, it is unbreakable right? Also if you change the law about some crime, you don't have a crime anymore...
dieselgate
Dang this is real life. “We didn’t used to do it but..”
scoot
> my employer recently bought another outfit that does that does just that [leaves passwords in cleartext], and fixing it is not a near term option
Could you expand on why not? I can't think of a good reason why this isn't a relatively quick fix. What's the blocker?
delichon
It requires programming in a language specific to one little known db product, in an extremely brittle and spaghettified code base . There's exactly one person in the company who kinda knows how to do it, and they're unavailable for the foreseeable future on higher priorities. We don't have the money to throw at new hires or huge porting projects.
Imagine software that has been in production since the 80's, was written by a very inexperienced dev and has since been continually "organically" upgraded to handle any new promise that a nontechnical product manager feels is necessary to solve the immediate problem of an angry customer. It's a Jenga tower with a reset button.
scoot
> they're unavailable for the foreseeable future on higher priorities
Need I respond to that?
null
ben_w
(not op, just hypothesising)
> I can't think of a good reason why this isn't a quick fix.
What if there's some IoT product with no update mechanism and the access password to function is stored on all of them in plain text?
scoot
Possibly, but that's a very different scenario to a database of cleartext passwords (which is what I assumed was meant), as each device would have to be identified and compromised to access a password to a device which at that point is already compromised...
iandanforth
The tone of the article is unprofessional to say the least. You could remove the argumentative tone, vitriol, and insults and have a more impactful article that reflected well on the author while appropriately warning people against this company. Please, don't choose team troll.
catapart
Personally, I find the tone of the article appropriate for the response received. The first email clearly set the tone as cordial and friendly while still being urgent. The response was in a clearly adversarial tone. So the prompter adjusted their tone accordingly.
It wasn't necessary to match tones with the person whom wanted to be uncharitable, but it definitely feels more human to me, which is who the writing is for: humans. I would have been fine with an info dump, but I enjoy turnabout as much as any other fan of fair play.
cadamsdotcom
If you want all the clicks and comments and drama you can get, staying professional is just boring.
Professionalism minimizes the risk of derailing or devaluing your argument by you being rude, inappropriate, etc. and avoids aggravating your counterparty. If - as in this case - the goal is NOT Internet drama but rather an improvement in security - the best way to do that would be to remain professional.
It is a question for the author of the piece which angle they prefer - consider that keeping it cool calm and collected is the slow way to build an audience.. even if the audience it builds is more engaged.
iandanforth
While there's a large audience for Jerry Springer style content, verbal abuse and stooping to the level of someone you're criticizing are not required. I don't read HN for name calling or childish taunting. It is always dispiriting to read, and even more so to read people defending. Humans, as you note, have base instincts, but giving into them and catering to them should be left to X and other sites devoted to pandering.
baobun
Where precisely is the "verbal abuse" and "name calling"?
Chill. I think you are the one overescalating, here.
dghlsakjg
The author is not acting in a professional role here.
He, in his own time, discovered a pretty serious exposure of information and politely informed them. They decided to not be polite in return. He responded in the same tone as them.
There was never any professional obligation, nor any obligation for the author to inform them of their breach at all, nor was there any obligation to give them time to notify clients before publication. Those are all courtesies.
This man didn't choose team troll, he responded to team troll in kind.
vorpalhex
To double down here, the author did the correct thing by using their snarkiness.
If someone who in theory is a professional (the company that left all of this in the open) responds in an unprofessional way from the start - you are done using professional tone. That tool isn't producing results. Stop using that tool.
The goal is not to model perfect manners - it is to bring attention to a breach so it can be remedied. The author understands this and has acted so to achieve this result.
theschmed
Exactly. The stakes of the conversation are quite high. Innocent people could suffer real harms.
Professional norms exist to support people in taking responsibility for the power they have. The CEO is manifestly failing in his responsibilities.
JayeLTee
Not a journalist or a reporter, posts aren't meant to be professional. The only reason I even write any of my posts is because companies DO NOT disclose incidents at all, so I have to do it for them.
mind-blight
I thoroughly enjoyed the post and thought your tone was appropriate, entertaining, and kind of kethartic. You didn't call them names, engage in ad hominem, or do anything click-batey. You were understandably irritated at how they talked to you and how they were clearly trying to hide a massive exposure from their users. And then you shredded them with data.
A+ - And thanks for trying to keep folks like this honest!
oskarkk
> You didn't call them names, engage in ad hominem
Well, the author wrote:
> Teammate App CEO, Sean Banayan, who has the reading comprehension and IT knowledge of a toddler
So it wasn't very nice, but deserved imo.
Arn_Thor
(*cathartic)
dingnuts
sure you're a journalist, but the best kind! Gonzo![0]
I found the tone highly entertaining; don't let the haters wear you down
ryandrake
I was also ready to chalk this up to "Yet another security researcher needs to learn how to play well with others..." but the moronic and indigent response from "Sean" makes it clear who's wrong here.
Imagine an alternate universe where "Sean" wasn't so aggressively stupid, and instead replied: "Thanks, JayeLTee, we took the database down while we do an audit. We don't think there were any access, and we would rather you not go public about the findings, but it will take us time to check. Please hold off on your publication until [DATE] and we will be in touch."
There. That didn't take much effort! But, no, "Sean" chose belligerence and threats rather than professionalism. I don't know what is wrong with people who just seem to default to "bad attitude" in their communications.
JayeLTee
The alternative universe can be seen on this post: https://jltee.substack.com/p/lcptrackercom-lcptracker-inc-se...
The company did reach out and said something similar, I held my publication for months months waiting for a reply which they said they would send and ended up finding out their were filing breach notifications to multiple states and never said anything back to me.
woodrowbarlow
why is the author obligated to use a professional tone?
ngneer
Concur. Tone comes off as "toxic manboy". Not sure why the author chose that tone. I would not hire them for their security services just yet, no matter how big a genius they are. Maybe once they understand the world is made of people, not rational actors.
technion
I see this kind of take every time someone exposes incompetence. I get it - you'd rather hire a marketing person to use buzzwords than someone like OP. That's your prerogative.
ngneer
Hardly. There are simply two ways to expose incompetence. You can be nice or you can be a prick. Your choice. Seeing your handle, you may find it interesting to note that my master's degree in CS was completed at the Technion. I am not looking for marketing people or buzzwords. I am looking for people mature enough to handle other people and get the job done. For example, if you tasked a security boy genius with pushing a fix and all they ended up doing was alienating the dev team, then you are scoring an own goal. I want bright AND mature. I am picky that way.
tristor
Even in a professional setting, you are not obligated to coddle aggressive stupidity. That's how we end up in a world where nobody says what they mean, everything is just BS on top of BS, and nothing improves. Being direct, being honest, and being accurate are critically important in professional technical work, and while it's not necessary to be antagonistic, it is completely reasonable and socially acceptable to respond in kind to the energy you get. People who are aggressively stupid do not get a pass.
grayhatter
The author is more professional than the sean was, and conveys the correct amount of disgust we should all hold for this company and it's leadership.
The point of the essay was to be disrespectful of the CEO. Slightly less disrespectful than the CEO was, so IMO he still holds onto the high ground of ethics.
Please do choose team troll. The correct response to someone being a shitter, is not always to kill them with kindness. A lot of the time it is, but this time, I'm clearly on the authors side. He tried twice to be kind, was ignored and then insulted. When really he was owed a thank you, not to be disrespected.
tptacek
I'm confused about the chronology here:
1. He discovers an unprotected database.
2. He mails the CEO of the company.
3. The database is fixed.
4. He mails the CEO again to say he's publishing.
5. The CEO replies and says there was no security breach.
6. He goes spelunking in the database tables to write a rebuttal?
How does step 6 happen? What has this person exfiltrated from the database, in advance of losing access to it in step 3?
kruffalon
If I read the article correctly step 6 was using data from a previous dump to access files now.
So say the dumped data contained the URL of a file and you couldn't get the URL now (due to step 3) but you can still download the actual file.
chias
TBH it sounds like he exfil'ed / downloaded the database before reporting.
polynomial
Isn't this a jurisdictional crime that a well connected CEO could get him in a lot of trouble for?
grayhatter
Step 6 happened because the CEO in his hubris, decided it would be in his best interests to threaten someone instead of being greatful.
Additionally, had the CEO responded appropriately and followed the standard methodology of all reasonable bug bounty programs, it would have included a request for the researcher to verify the fix and that there are no additional related bugs or defects with the current patch.
You noticed that the email implies the security has been perfected. Did you also note that it would be unethical for a professional to blindly convey that false belief.
tptacek
I'm wondering how it's possible that step 6 happened, not what the motivations are. It's written in multiple places as if database queries were issued after the database was taken down.
TremendousJudge
I think the data he discloses in the post is the one that he got before getting in contact with the company. He does this in order to prove that the database was accesible to anyone on the internet, instead of the "no breach at all" claimed on the response email.
null
grayhatter
Did you not consider the CEO would just lie about fixing something?
null
celticninja
Oh dear, that really is a poor response by the CEO. Can't wait to see the grovelling apology he comes up with when NZ media/regulator comes asking questions
badmintonbaseba
It looks like the CEO is both clueless and his reports are also probably misleading him. Whoever looked into the security problem probably saw the extent of it. This possibly got downplayed when reported back to the CEO. However rude, the CEO had little reason to lie about the extent of the problem towards the security researcher.
shitter
I imagine the conversation between the CEO and his reports included something about "it's no biggie, the passwords were hashed using bcrypt, that's like irreversible encryption" without contextualizing that and mentioning that plaintext auth tokens were also exposed.
badmintonbaseba
I think it was downplayed even more. Supposedly the initial email by the researcher only had evidence for leaking database sizes, and I think it's likely that the CEO only got confirmation for this evidence internally and nothing more.
JayeLTee
Although I say:
"This server contains over 3,8GB of data exposed including the logins for 16,500 of your users and a lot of PII and credentials, you need to secure access to the server as soon as possible."
After all that transpired after etc I believe it's possible someone downplayed the severity of this to the CEO and he took that as an opportunity to ignore everything I wrote on the emails and reply that way to me assuming I was some cybersecurity vendor working for "Proton" trying to push something for the company to buy.
ngneer
CEO felt a threat to his company and responded accordingly. He is clearly green and impolite. Sending a vulnerability disclosure to someone without knowing their experience, and given the amount of spam on the web, one should not be surprised at the response. Trying to do a good thing and getting scolded for it feels terrible, though. One might understand why the researcher would put up database details for the world to see and fail to realize it is petty to do so. I hope both gentlemen learned their lesson.
mattdw
New Zealander here, really thrilled to see our national medical testing service (primarily blood tests) in here. I've sent a note to them to make sure they're aware of this.
Also I feel like I took the wrong path, trying to be a serious and responsible software developer - seems like all the money is in throwing shit together and making wild claims about it.
wellthisisgreat
Usually like reading such posts but the author’s approach did seem very blackmail-like.
The CEO is surely coming off as a crazy guy but the author isn’t a white knight or good Samaritan either.
The company closed the database access and the guy says “now I will disclose it or you can do X” Would he have not disclosed it if they offered hush money? We won’t know, for his case I hope not. In any case - what was he expecting?
I’d imagine there is 50%+ chance that any smaller company without a dedicated security team will take this disclosure as a threat and blackmail. Especially that on the first second and third thought it seems the disclosure would be a way for the author to boost their blog and content marketing for their consulting.
If there was a bug bounty or something on their site it would have been different.
tastroder
> Would he have not disclosed it if they offered hush money? We won’t know, for his case I hope not. In any case - what was he expecting?
A bog-standard responsible disclosure that any tech CEO should either be familiar with or have someone at hand that is, as is clearly communicated in that e-mail.
Both e-mails are OP reaching out to help this company out, the first fixing the vulnerability, the second giving them a chance for compliance / potential regulatory aspects they might want to follow. It's not on random people reporting security vulnerabilities to tutor random companies on this and both behaviors (non-responsiveness, then hostility) of this CEO, despite being sadly common, are actively harmful if you want to get productive security reports in the future. (And the company unilaterally signing up for bug bounty programs is rather irrelevant for independent researchers as well if they have no interest in participating in those.)
JayeLTee
I just got offered to discuss a "token of appreciation" by another company that included deleting public posts and signing NDAs. I replied saying I don't accept bribes. If that's clear enough for you.
And I didn't say "I will disclose it or you can do X". I asked follow up questions as I always do. Related to intent on notifications to regulators or clients so I can delay my report until the company does their notifications if that is their intent. I've done this multiple times for multiple companies, some I delayed the post for 3-4 months.
I was actually trying to be nice to the company by not doing a disclosure before them, up until this point this was just like every other interaction I have. I sent the information, the server got closed and no one got back to me. None of my communications warranted the reply I got back from this.
readthenotes1
That's almost too good to be true - - that the CEO thought that Proton was the author's company
sevg
Unfortunately, there are people out there (with a seemingly large overlap with CEOs) that have incredibly fragile egos, and any perceived criticism (such as pointing out a dreadful security failure) can result in lies, excessive reactions, defensiveness, denial, insults, scapegoating or even retaliation. Or all of the above.
In situations like this, it feels to me like the reaction is “how dare you think that I would need your help?!”
azinman2
I’m mostly amused and surprised to see a drag race gif on a security substack. Not surprised at any of the rest of it.
From https://databreaches.net/2025/02/24/no-need-to-hack-when-its...
DataBreaches also invited Sean Banayan to provide a statement for publication. He replied promptly to this site’s email: "We will further investigate this matter internally and do not wish to entertain this matter with your website."
He really missed all the lessons in both manners, common sense and media training.