The games on Stripe's CTF were more secure than this site...
EDIT: Looks like it was just patched. Still managed to get a few dozen AWS keys though.
The games on Stripe's CTF were more secure than this site...
EDIT: Looks like it was just patched. Still managed to get a few dozen AWS keys though.
"Looks like it was just patched. Still managed to get a few dozen AWS keys though. I sent emails to the affected parties."
EDIT: effected-> affected (I'm not sure what's up with the snarky comment. Do most people think its inappropriate/snarky to urge proper notification?)
The concern isn't just that RKearney has the keys - it is that anyone could have the keys for anyone on the site. Sending an email to the people whose keys he snagged would help them - but the people whose keys he didn't are still vulnerable too.
Do I think the developer should email all of the users? Yes, which is why in my response to the developer's comment about destroying the IAM keys I said "You should think about sending an email to all of your users..."
Do I think that the right thing for rkearney to do is send emails to the people whose information he has? Yes. Is it the best possible scenario? No, but it is better than no notification at all, which at the time was a possibility.
if anyone's concerned about your AWS key, just destroy your IAM user and create a new one. that's what it was designed for.
actually, we'll just wipe them and force new ones.
We each have 24 hours in a day. I spend 8-9 of mine sleeping, 9-10 at work. That doesn't leave much leftover for me.
If zacharyvoase wants to spend his precious free time educating people who haven't done any due diligence to learn how to build a secure web app, that's his prerogative. But I don't see it as a good use of his time - there's already tons of resources out there that will do a better job than zachary. Is HN supposed to be a newbie education destination?
ryan@ryankearney.com
https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f7d7b021fb488fe6a67ddb286...
I can search for email addresses too! Don't direct users to me because you failed to secure your web application.
It's nice to know someone who works at a company that handles credit card and bank payments would just post someones email address and photo. Granted this is all public since I posted on the Uservoice post, it was still unnecessary.
i left WePay ages ago. also, our info is publicly displayed here:
http://www.iceboxpro.com/about/team
we're not a company. we're two nerds.
Oh, so if you get sued for mishandling personal data or PII it'll be your personal responsibility rather than a company's?
Congratulations on demonstrating to me and countless others why I shouldn't use any product that you EVER touch. You don't get a pass because you're just two nerds. You have a form with a submit button -- that's where your responsibility as a founder and custodianship of user data begins. Day 1, you're already a liability.
I realize this is a pretty direct attack but I'm appalled and staggered by your behavior in this thread. You launched a service on the public Internet. There is no grace period, there is no "friendly fire"; you fucked up and you disclosed AWS credentials. Not users' favorite colors. AWS KEYS. Tied to credit cards, running servers, S3 backups, God knows what. You don't get to tell people to be nice to you when you're acting as the steward of AWS credentials; you protect them and act like you care when someone tells you that you fucked up doing so.
Your behavior here is just foreboding for the future, and you need to realize that before launching your next endeavor (this one is probably done, after that little mess).
---------
You are quickly making the case for having one of the worst responses I've ever seen, to a huge security flaw. Trying to wipe things under the rug when your users information is clearly exposed is an easy way to destroy trust.
I seriously can't fathom the ineptitude it takes to direct people to someones email like that over your glaring mistake.
RKearny pointed out a very real, very important issue that will help you make your service better, and help you deliver even more value for your users. And he did it for free! You should be thanking him and asking him for more feedback, not deflecting responsibility like this.
i'm not sure why thanking him is in order... ?
5 people emailed me privately about the security issue. we fixed it promptly, and followed up with instructions to everyone exposed (~20) on how to protect their credentials. i haven't yet heard a complaint from our actual users.
--
"Still managed to get a few dozen AWS keys though"
Good for you! What a nice person you are. Please abuse more small projects like this. Even if they say they say it was "was only meant for friends to test out".
Oh I see, you just found a security hole and trying to get some reputation? Cute. Please do it by abusing the small power you found and hurting innocent users. That's really, really nice of you.
"Still managed to get a few dozen AWS keys though"
Wow. Just wow.
You sir, just ruined my night. Thank you.
Ps. I am really concerned about your company and its users. If you can do something like this, I wonder what else you could do (or doing) at your current company. I hope, I'm assuming wrong.
edit: "the" » "your". last paragraph.
You can find a security hole and report it. That's nice and good behavior. But when you say "I have compromised the data with me", then you are being evil.
I signed up to the app because I liked the idea and wanted to support them. I knew that their app was in alpha stage yet.
I'm upset about his behavior. I'm upset that his behavior might hurt 2 nerds' inspiration.
I'm not upset about he got my keys.
But you are right. His behavior is still better than not saying anything.
I'm hoping they're inspired to write secure code from line one.
As it stands we don't know whether hostile agents (silently) got copies of the AWS keys of every user on the site. That should be incredibly concerning for you, but apparently it's not.
I'm still trying to improve my English. Next time I'll try to be more clear. Thank you.
1. I didn't disclose how to do it, merely that it was possible.
2. By "get" I in no way mean harvested. I just manually incremented the ID in the URL by hand in my web browser to see how many users could be affected.
3. Since I never saved any of the information (just viewed the pages) I no longer have it since the flaw was patched.
Nothing malicious was done.
I'll update my comment above.
The problem with this is that people become more skeptical in general about new products/companies, which is bad for the community as a whole.
The issue here is how do you deal with this kind of thing? Assuming it is in fact bad for others who are trying to get people to test their prototypes, how do we help avoid basic pitfalls like this one? This could be a service...