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I hate to look down my nose at other programmers, because I understand that we all start somewhere, but if you are building a financial exchange and you encrypt

I hate to look down my nose at other programmers, because I understand that we all start somewhere, but if you are building a financial exchange and you encrypted passwords using unsalted MD5 at any point in the history of your product, you have proven to me that you are learning as you go, and there is no way in hell I'd trust you with any significant sum of money.

Hawramani 15y ago
Where do programmers learn about this stuff? Is it taught at schools? Can anyone recommend good books on proper security procedures?
- defrost 15y ago
  A good start can be made by following the work of Ross Anderson and having a read of his book. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/ http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/ http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html
- bradleyland 15y ago
  Being a programmer means committing yourself to a life of continued education. Building a secure authentication system? Time to read up on the subject. You don't have to go far before you learn about the vulnerability of MD5 hashes for password storage.
- michaelf 15y ago
  A great place to start is "Applied Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier. http://www.schneier.com/book-applied.html http://www.schneier.com/book-applied.html Edit: Note, this really barely scratches the surface for building secure software. AC says how to apply cryptographic primitives correctly. It won't teach you how to avoid vulnerabilities specific to particular application domains (like CSS, SQL injection, etc...).
  - marshray 15y ago
    That book is old, and though still basically correct, there's much better ways to learn about the practice of developing secure systems. I recommend "Cryptography Engineering" by Ferguson, Schneier, Kohno which is a more modern descendant of Schneier's AC.
    - michaelf 15y ago
      Looks like I need to update my bookshelf. Thanks for the recommendation.
- nokcha 15y ago
  For web security, I'd recommend checking out this question on Stack Overflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/72394/what-should-a-developer-know-before-building-a-public-web-site http://stackoverflow.com/questions/72394/what-should-a-devel... Also the OWASP top ten vulnerabilities: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Top_Ten_Project https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Top_Ten_Proje...
- rmc 15y ago
  Websites like this are great. Just look at what other learned people here are saying about cryptography.
wcoenen 15y ago
To give some context, that financial exchange had a trading volume of less than 1000 dollars/day six months ago. http://i.imgur.com/HHlnd.png http://i.imgur.com/HHlnd.png The original author sold the site in March before things got really serious.

Hawramani 15y ago

Where do programmers learn about this stuff? Is it taught at schools? Can anyone recommend good books on proper security procedures?

defrost 15y ago
A good start can be made by following the work of Ross Anderson and having a read of his book. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/ http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/ http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html
bradleyland 15y ago
Being a programmer means committing yourself to a life of continued education. Building a secure authentication system? Time to read up on the subject. You don't have to go far before you learn about the vulnerability of MD5 hashes for password storage.
michaelf 15y ago
A great place to start is "Applied Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier. http://www.schneier.com/book-applied.html http://www.schneier.com/book-applied.html Edit: Note, this really barely scratches the surface for building secure software. AC says how to apply cryptographic primitives correctly. It won't teach you how to avoid vulnerabilities specific to particular application domains (like CSS, SQL injection, etc...).
- marshray 15y ago
  That book is old, and though still basically correct, there's much better ways to learn about the practice of developing secure systems. I recommend "Cryptography Engineering" by Ferguson, Schneier, Kohno which is a more modern descendant of Schneier's AC.
  - michaelf 15y ago
    Looks like I need to update my bookshelf. Thanks for the recommendation.
nokcha 15y ago
For web security, I'd recommend checking out this question on Stack Overflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/72394/what-should-a-developer-know-before-building-a-public-web-site http://stackoverflow.com/questions/72394/what-should-a-devel... Also the OWASP top ten vulnerabilities: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Top_Ten_Project https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Top_Ten_Proje...
rmc 15y ago
Websites like this are great. Just look at what other learned people here are saying about cryptography.

wcoenen 15y ago

To give some context, that financial exchange had a trading volume of less than 1000 dollars/day six months ago. http://i.imgur.com/HHlnd.png http://i.imgur.com/HHlnd.png The original author sold the site in March before things got really serious.