Went to update payment info, showed me some random person’s credit card info | Hacker News Reader

Went to update payment info, showed me some random person’s credit card info

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I saw something very similar to this happen once in a system (many moons ago, before my current role). Hopelessly incompetent software developers put the session cookie in a static field of one of the Java classes responsible for the login process, and if two users logged in at the exact same moment (and their requests happened to be served by the same node of the app server cluster), one of them would be given the other's session cookie. So A and B would both log in at the same time, and there was a chance that B would get logged into A's account details instead of their own.

Somehow, all through QA testing, nobody noticed it (or if they did, they didn't report it). At just about the last possible minute before go-live, somebody observed it happen. Then there was a mad rush to patch the bug in the middle of the go-live weekend so the go-live stayed on schedule.

Yikes.

This is part of the reason why I prefer to never let any services/apps/etc. save my bank/card details. If there’s not an option to save the card details that I can uncheck, 9x out of 10, I reconsider the transaction.

The assumption here though is that the services/apps/etc. that do provide the option actually respect it; in other words, unless you use fake/virtual card details (not entirely reliable, in my experience), you can’t be 100% sure that you’re safe either way, which sucks.

Cross wiring user data is always a bad bug. Especially when it has to deal with payments and credit card data. I hope this is a very rare thing and they find the cause quickly. Could be in user authentication, the payment card tokens, or one of any numbers of things. My bet would be on Auth.

Credit cards are never secure by default. It is best to assume that the number will be stolen eventually.

I really wish they had multi-factor authentication like bank transfers have. The only credit-cards that I use are prepaid ones, for the reason you just mentioned.

Confirming online debit and credit card payments with a one-time password has become a standard practice in the EU. These solutions are also available in the US, are they not being adopted by banks there?

https://usa.visa.com/pay-with-visa/featured-technologies/ver...

https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/consumers/payment-technologi...

It's not just in Europe, even here in West Africa OTPs (and hardware tokens) have been standard practice for years. I always feel weirdly unsafe interacting with US-based companies/payment processors.

They do in Europe. Since 9/13 it is mandatory for online transactions with some exceptions. The implementation is up to the bank, so can take different forms.

In my case my bank has an app which will show the transaction and I can then accept/reject. My mom's bank's implementation looks very much like TOTP though I haven't investigated if it is.

Transactions at a POS use a PIN.

Here in Poland there is also an instant electronic transfer called BLIK, where you confirm the payment as well. What is sent is a temporary numeric code to the terminal (it can be typed in as well as sent over NFC or QR code) and it is similar to automatic escrow. Disputes work differently depending on the bank though.

And in some banks they're starting to roll out OTP 3D Secure etc. confirmations even for PoS terminals above certain value. Most terminals support it, it's just a hold on transaction.

If it’s prepaid, is it then a credit card anymore?

I believe this is relevant with respect to much of the protection you have from using a credit card (chargebacks etc)

Well, there's Revolut not quite prepaid virtual debit cards.

Some banks offer temporary card numbers as a premium feature.

This is why I use privacy.com whenever I can to make payments. I heard DoNotPay has a similar feature.

Should not this incident involve PCI in some way?

PCI requires a forensic investigation after a breach occurs. (Further requirements may exist, I am not an auditor etc.)

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