5 ms·

> In every case it turned out to be a known vulnerability that we had been too slow to patch. Yes. This is why relying on "patching" is a bound to fail at some

by gnyman 3y ago

> In every case it turned out to be a known vulnerability that we had been too slow to patch. Yes. This is why relying on "patching" is a bound to fail at some point. Maybe it's a 0-day, or maybe the attackers are just quicker. The solution to this is defence in depth, and it's very easy for most services, especially when self-hosting personal things. Few tips most people can do is. Put up a firewall in front or put it behind VPN/tailscale. Hide it in a subfolder. The automated attacks will go for /phpmyadmin/ , putting it in /mawer/phpmyadmin/ means 99.9% of the attackers won't find it. (This is sometimes called security by obscurity and people correctly say you should not rely on it, but as a additional layer it's very useful). Sandbox the app, and isolate the server. If the attackers get in, make it hard or impossible for them to get anywhere else. Keep logs, they allow you to check if and how you got attacked, if the attack succeeded and so on. Depending on the service, pick one or more of these. Add more as necessary. The key thing is that you should not rely on any ONE defence, be it keeping it patched or firewalled, because they will all fail at some point.

citizenpaul 3y ago
>security by obscurity I detest this phrase right up there with "fake it till you make it". All security is by definition obscurity. Just a meaningless platitude that rhymes. I suppose un-formalized un-proofed security practices will eventually be broken or counting on hackers not to do any investigation of your system will get you hacked, doesn't roll off the tongue though.
- rablackburn 3y ago
  > All security is by definition obscurity. Can you expound on this? For example, if I add a 30 second lockout after failed authentication attempts I don’t see how that comes under any non-tortured definition of “obscurity”.
  - hanszarkov 3y ago
    yes, also add cryptographic complexity, don't think that qualifies either.
    - citizenpaul 3y ago
      Cryptographic complexity is math if you ask me? A hammer is not construction, it's a tool used by construction?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - citizenpaul 3y ago
    The lockout doesn't exist without the authentication system in the first place. Which exists to keep people from knowing the information. Its a subset of something that is needed for obscuring the information in the system from anyone that should not see it. I really feel dirty trying to justify this level of nerdy pedanticness. I'm sure you can poke some holes from my off the hip internet comment if you really want to I'm not trying to be academic. I mostly fueled this comment with my distaste for that other platitude.
    - leononame 3y ago
      I think you miss the point of security through obscurity. It's not about keeping the information itself obscure (in your example login information), but rather the method. For example, your password hashing mechanism. If you have a strong password hash function, you don't need to obscure which hash function you use (otherwise, open source software couldn't even exist in certain areas). However, if your security relies on you obfuscating your broken, home-made hash function that only hashes the first three letters of the password, you're not really secure. Security through obscurity is an attempt at securing an otherwise unsecure system by hiding or disguising the implementation. That being said, obscuring parts of an otherwise secure system is fine as an additional layer, especially if you just want to deter script kiddies that always hammer the same endpoints
jmb99 3y ago
> This is sometimes called security by obscurity and people correctly say you should not rely on it, but as an additional layer it's very useful. Anyone who thinks “security by obscurity” is useless should try reverse engineering some properly obfuscated executables (or even code). Obscurity is absolutely useful; definitely not a complete solution by itself, but a very useful component to a security solution.
- bradknowles 3y ago
  The term "security by obscurity" or "security through obscurity" implies that ONLY obscurity is being used to provide the security in question. Like leaving a totally unsecured server on your network with root access available with no password, and telnet or sshd open on a high numbered port instead of the regular ones. Obscurity is a useful tool to be added on top of real security, and can help reduce the random baseline doorknob jiggling attacks, where people are just scanning the standard ports. But obscurity by itself is not enough to provide any real security beyond that.
  - bruce511 3y ago
    You are completely correct. For a level 3 person. Level 1 : I don't know what I'm doing, so I'll invent stuff only I know in the expectation that'll be enough. This person is told (with good reason) that security by obscurity is no security at all. Level 2. They got the above message, so do everything right. Setups, firewalls, permissions, and so on. They are proud of their expertise and lecture level 1s all day long. Level 3. Understand that all the fundamentals need to be done right. Add addional obscurity onto that because it doesn't hurt, and can filter out some useless traffic. (These folk should also lecture level 1 with the simplified message, but can explain the benefits to level 2.) The problem with HN threads like these is that I don't know who's giving the advice. Level 1 2 or 3. Equally readers could be any level. Which might be dangerous if they are level 1. IF you ARE level 1, learn the correct way to secure things first. THEN feel free to add obscurity onto that if you like.
    - hnfong 3y ago
PLG88 3y ago
"and if at all possible keep them off the public internet", this is the way. I would recommend going beyond a VPN to implement zero trust networking which does outbound-only connections so that its impossible to be subject to external network attacks. Tailscale does part of that, other exist, such as the open source project I work on - https://github.com/openziti https://github.com/openziti

by gnyman 3y ago

citizenpaul 3y ago

>security by obscurity I detest this phrase right up there with "fake it till you make it". All security is by definition obscurity. Just a meaningless platitude that rhymes. I suppose un-formalized un-proofed security practices will eventually be broken or counting on hackers not to do any investigation of your system will get you hacked, doesn't roll off the tongue though.

rablackburn 3y ago
> All security is by definition obscurity. Can you expound on this? For example, if I add a 30 second lockout after failed authentication attempts I don’t see how that comes under any non-tortured definition of “obscurity”.
- hanszarkov 3y ago
  yes, also add cryptographic complexity, don't think that qualifies either.
  - citizenpaul 3y ago
    Cryptographic complexity is math if you ask me? A hammer is not construction, it's a tool used by construction?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- citizenpaul 3y ago
  The lockout doesn't exist without the authentication system in the first place. Which exists to keep people from knowing the information. Its a subset of something that is needed for obscuring the information in the system from anyone that should not see it. I really feel dirty trying to justify this level of nerdy pedanticness. I'm sure you can poke some holes from my off the hip internet comment if you really want to I'm not trying to be academic. I mostly fueled this comment with my distaste for that other platitude.
  - leononame 3y ago
    I think you miss the point of security through obscurity. It's not about keeping the information itself obscure (in your example login information), but rather the method. For example, your password hashing mechanism. If you have a strong password hash function, you don't need to obscure which hash function you use (otherwise, open source software couldn't even exist in certain areas). However, if your security relies on you obfuscating your broken, home-made hash function that only hashes the first three letters of the password, you're not really secure. Security through obscurity is an attempt at securing an otherwise unsecure system by hiding or disguising the implementation. That being said, obscuring parts of an otherwise secure system is fine as an additional layer, especially if you just want to deter script kiddies that always hammer the same endpoints

jmb99 3y ago

> This is sometimes called security by obscurity and people correctly say you should not rely on it, but as an additional layer it's very useful. Anyone who thinks “security by obscurity” is useless should try reverse engineering some properly obfuscated executables (or even code). Obscurity is absolutely useful; definitely not a complete solution by itself, but a very useful component to a security solution.

bradknowles 3y ago
The term "security by obscurity" or "security through obscurity" implies that ONLY obscurity is being used to provide the security in question. Like leaving a totally unsecured server on your network with root access available with no password, and telnet or sshd open on a high numbered port instead of the regular ones. Obscurity is a useful tool to be added on top of real security, and can help reduce the random baseline doorknob jiggling attacks, where people are just scanning the standard ports. But obscurity by itself is not enough to provide any real security beyond that.
- bruce511 3y ago
  You are completely correct. For a level 3 person. Level 1 : I don't know what I'm doing, so I'll invent stuff only I know in the expectation that'll be enough. This person is told (with good reason) that security by obscurity is no security at all. Level 2. They got the above message, so do everything right. Setups, firewalls, permissions, and so on. They are proud of their expertise and lecture level 1s all day long. Level 3. Understand that all the fundamentals need to be done right. Add addional obscurity onto that because it doesn't hurt, and can filter out some useless traffic. (These folk should also lecture level 1 with the simplified message, but can explain the benefits to level 2.) The problem with HN threads like these is that I don't know who's giving the advice. Level 1 2 or 3. Equally readers could be any level. Which might be dangerous if they are level 1. IF you ARE level 1, learn the correct way to secure things first. THEN feel free to add obscurity onto that if you like.
  - hnfong 3y ago

PLG88 3y ago

"and if at all possible keep them off the public internet", this is the way. I would recommend going beyond a VPN to implement zero trust networking which does outbound-only connections so that its impossible to be subject to external network attacks. Tailscale does part of that, other exist, such as the open source project I work on - https://github.com/openziti https://github.com/openziti