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Comment by robertlagrant | Hacker News Reader

The source code is the least of it! From the article:

> citizen PII databases and electronic signing documents were also collected but are being sold separately

Yeah the source code isn't really such a big deal aside from helping to find vulnerabilities. The PII is a real disgrace.

Seeming by other sources, it wasn't really information considered PII in Sweden (but would in other places), I'm not sure this is as a big deal as people try to make it out to be.

Man, you've got to be a real low-life to sell all of that.

You've got to be a real low-life to collect all of that and put it in a database that is not air-gapped.

It's something akin to a service provider in SAML parlance, if we are to believe reporting. How can it be air-gapped?

And if we are to believe the hacked company, it is a development environment with test data in it. That remains to be seen, but is a risky thing to lie about. If there is production data in the leak, we will surely know about it.

At the high end you can use data diodes to isolate critical data.

If you need the data, you cannot have it air gapped. And if it is air gapped, it is still easy to make misstakes.

> it is still easy to make misstakes.

That's not an excuse though, any system handling data like that should be continuously reviewed and pentested by professionals. Hopefully they can show that this has been done otherwise it's just negligence.

It was mainly an explanation, that "airgapping" does not magically provides better security, or is required (or possible) to use at all here.

And it's pretty clear to me that they were criticizing storage of sensitive data in a database that isn't properly secured and they simply misused the term "airgapped". The database in question was easily accessible from poorly maintained development infrastructure.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize

Imagine if the bank took such a cavalier attitude with the contents of my account.

"misstakes", love it, almost peotic

The point of a system like this is specifically that it’s accessible and not air gapped.

Being able to validate that a citizen is a citizen and their ID is valid inherently requires the system be accessible

If you can't implement it securely then perhaps such an undertaking wasn't a good idea? In the vast majority of cases I don't see why PII ever needs to be available over the network for remote queries. For the purpose of verification isn't it sufficient to verify hashes or better yet to attest via smartcard?

You can, they didn't; big difference.

By "can't" I mean "not capable" or "not going to in practice".

Encryption keys are mentioned as well.

I wonder if the focus on source code makes Swedish news slower to jump on this. I haven't seen it in domestic news yet. (Haven't looked too wide though)

I saw it on SVT a few hours ago. DN and Expressen have also reported. The details about what exactly it is that got leaked are unclear (some report it's basically the code and certs responsible for BankID SSO) but this is certainly being reported domestically.

In Aftonbladet comments from CGI they seem to think that no production related data has been leaked:

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/ArvG0E/cgi-sverige-uppg...

As if it ever happened that a breached company admitted immediately that they've just been fucked.

But a copy of production data in the test environment isn't production data... It's test data! :)

some report it's basically the code and certs responsible for BankID SSO

No. CGI has nothing to do with BankID.

IMO the most credible reports suggest that the source code and data involved are related to these four services:

https://www.cgi.com/se/sv/business-process-services/e-tjanst... "Mina engagemang offers a user-friendly and flexible solution that allows your customers to manage their cases directly through a personal portal. Here, users can view, track, and interact with their ongoing cases, which enhances both transparency and efficiency in the communication process." -- some kind of ticket/case management system for gov't agencies

https://www.cgi.com/se/sv/business-process-services/elektron... "With our secure end-to-end e-ID and eSign services, we can help you streamline document and contract management, gain access to all desired e-ID issuers, and improve cost efficiency." -- this sounds like a bad thing to compromise, but is to the best of my understanding a system for digital signatures on documents, and has no relation to BankID

https://www.cgi.com/se/sv/business-process-services/e-tjanst... "Gain better control over your organization’s representatives with our easy-to-use representative registry. By automating the identification and verification of representatives, you’ll gain a clear overview and enhance the security of your processes." -- sounds like some bullshit CRUD app for managing who can "represent" a gov't agency

https://www.cgi.com/se/sv/business-process-services/e-tjanst... "SHS is Sweden’s common standard for information exchange, enabling secure and efficient communication between government agencies, businesses, and organizations." -- this might be bad if real data was leaked

These are services used by various Swedish government agencies and it's pretty bad to have even a test instance of them hacked, but let's calm down. The entire Swedish state has not been compromised here.

> CGI has nothing to do with BankID

That's incorrect. Skatteverket used CGI for BankID-login, I don't know if they still do. I have personal experience working on a BankID-login using CGI for another company and it is still active.

Edit: I just confirmed Skatteverket still uses CGI for BankID-auth. "funktionstjanster" is CGI.

OK, let me rephrase that: CGI, while they may "have something to do" with BankID in the sense that they have developed systems that integrate with it, does not itself develop BankID and does not hold any private keys for BankID.

What does "electronic signing documents" mean? Keys used for signing? Or merely some documents that were signed with electronic signing?

If that is case, then it would have been wrong from the beginning for any government to keep hold of the private keys for the signature on my citizen card.

Because in that case they can sign documents on my behalf without my permission. In a court case, it would be near impossible for me to prove that the government gave my private key to someone else and that it wasn't me signing an incriminating document.

I apparently didn't phrase that very well. If what is the case? I was trying to ask which case was the case, not trying to claim that something specific was the case.

I'm familiar with electronic signatures, and I know what documents are, but I have never heard the phrase "electronic signing documents" and don't know what that is supposed to mean. What kind of documents? Documents about signing, documents that were signed, documents in the sense that files containing keys could be considered documents, or what?

In Portugal we were early adopters for digital signatures on citizen cards.

You use the card reader, insert your gov-issued identification and can sign PDF papers which have legal validity since the private key from the citizen card was used.

Now imagine someone signing random legal documents with your ID for things like debts, opening companies or subscritions to whatever.

Signed documents can be as simple as an ID of the transaction, a statement in text, PII data that identify what you sign, or a store of larger PDF files for download and verification. We do not know. I base this on how signing works technically in Sweden.

CGI is not the only supplier of these services.

We might've lucked out here, there is some signature data on ID cards today and official _plans_ to make a government backed signing service, but practically _nobody_ uses them in practice to just revoking all those keys will be a minor issue.

Currently most Swede's use a private bank consortisum controlled ID solution for most logins and signatures.

To the best of my understanding it means that a system made by CGI for digital signing of documents (as in: you get something like a PDF from a government agency and need to digitally sign it and send it back) has had its source code and/or some data belonging to it leaked.

Skatteverket, the Swedish tax authority, has been quoted in media as confirming that they use CGI's system for digital document signing but that none of their data nor that of any citizens has been leaked.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/uppgift-statlig-it-inform...

"One of the government agencies that uses CGI’s services is the Swedish Tax Agency, which was notified of the incident by the company. However, according to the Swedish Tax Agency, its users have nothing to worry about.

“Neither our data nor our users’ data has been leaked. It is a service we use for e-signatures that has been affected, but there is no data from us or our users there,” says Peder Sjölander, IT Director at the Swedish Tax Agency."

So if no data was leaked from the tax agency or from the users, then the leaked "digital signing documents" must have belonged to the only remaining party, which is CGI, so perhaps they were just some marketing documents about the benefits of their digital signing service?

The original phrasing from the attacker, from the website that put the data up for download/sale, was ”documents (for electronic signing)” which implies that they’re documents that would be signed in said system. I would take all of this with a large helping of salt though. CGI claims it’s not real production data anyway; maybe it is and maybe it’s not.

The best case scenario is in line with what CGI claims: these are lorem ipsum fake docs from an old git repo for a test instance of the system.

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