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My day job is web developer and i sit in an IRC channel where roughly half the traffic is making fun of security issues of sites. Such a glorious combination of

My day job is web developer and i sit in an IRC channel where roughly half the traffic is making fun of security issues of sites. Such a glorious combination of fuckups doesn't come about that often. I'm honestly more apalled that the passwords are in plaintext than that they expose them like that. I cannot say i am surprised though. A general amount of carelessness, undeserved self-confidence and ignorance is a given in most websites, especially when it comes to PHP.

theboss 13y ago
I'm not sure I agree with ``carelessness, undeserved self-confidence'' but I definitely agree with ignorance. I think the best thing is that people writing code just don't understand the internals of how a lot of web attacks work and why the best practices for security prevent them. I reported two account hijack vulnerabilities on startups this weekend and was met with ``What is CSRF?''. I think the reason for this is security people keep to themselves and work as consultants. Instead of making my own company, I can go around finding people who need what I know and get easy low-risk money. Also, there really is no place to hire a ``security person'' at a early stage startup. If a security guy DOES get hired, it's either part of an IR team, an internal pentest team, and if this is the case then there's already way too much code written to even check it for the most basic best practices (you might use some tool for static analysis but are you really going to check out the thousands of issues?) I don't like bashing PHP, because I think it is actually a phenomenal language for people who know what they are doing, but it is definitely a security death-trap for those who don't.
- Killswitch 13y ago
  > I don't like bashing PHP, because I think it is actually a phenomenal language for people who know what they are doing, but it is definitely a security death-trap for those who don't. Any language is a security death-trap for those who don't know what they're doing.
- camus2 13y ago
  @Killswitch Problem is PHP is a templating language, not a generic purpose one. Other languages use frameworks for webdevs that usually provide basic security features like auto escaping output,orms by default(so no sql strings),csrf on forms... PHP doesnt ,so it's easier to shoot yourself in the foot.
  - jimlei 13y ago
    You mean like Symfony, Laravel, etc? Frameworks that a lot of PHP developers use these days...
    - camus2 13y ago
      You dont need a framework to do PHP webdev, in every other languages,you do.That's my point, PHP IS a templating language,no Symfony,Zend or Laravel can change that. If i write "print" in Python it wont output the result back to HTTP like PHP does. Ruby or Java dont have <?ruby or <?java tags, you get my point.
      - smacktoward 13y ago
        > Ruby or Java dont have <?ruby or <?java tags I dunno about Ruby, but Java certainly does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaServer_Pages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaServer_Pages
      - mschuster91 13y ago
        If you use them in CGI mode, you very well have a "start" tag in form of a shebang first line like #!/usr/bin/env python. Also, shellscripts and perl are considered programming languages, and these too need a shebang line. Your point is invalid.
      - pushrax 13y ago
        Well, many Ruby webapps use erb, which is basically the same thing.
      - pushrax 13y ago
        Well, many Ruby webapps use erb, which is basically the same thing.
- raesene3 13y ago
  If you're worried about not being able to get access to "security people", I'd recommend looking at OWASP (http://www.owasp.org http://www.owasp.org) which has a lot of good free information and also chapter meet-ups which are free. Interestingly one of the problems I've faced running an OWASP chapter is how to get more developers along to it. Also security.stackexchange.com can be quite useful
- mgkimsal 13y ago
  "I think the reason for this is security people keep to themselves and work as consultants." ??? I know there are some pretty obscure edge cases in some successful attacks, but... almost everything I see as a security issue (and stuff I've done myself) usually falls in to XSS, CSRF and SQL injection. Those were the big 3 10+ years ago, and probably still will be. This isn't some magical 'hidden' info that a handful of security consultants hoard to themselves to maximize top dollar. Have safe password/authentication systems, prevent XSS, prevent CSRF and prevent SQL injection - you'd prevent a HUGE number of attacks for little effort. But... it takes education, and actually caring some about your job/company/product. "Also, there really is no place to hire a ``security person'' at a early stage startup. " Why not? I don't think they need 'hiring' full time. Many startups spend inordinate amount of time on 'user experience' and 'branding' and whatnot, with the (correct) understanding that you can't easily just 'add on' UX after the fact - it's much easier to develop UX as part of the overall dev process. Why do people not think of security the same way? Regular security audits/reviews by a security consultant (1-3 hours every week or so) would go a long way towards helping inexperienced developers spot gaping/obvious security holes well before they become big problems.
woah 13y ago
What channel is that? As an app developer, it sounds useful.
- Mithaldu 13y ago
  Find me on irc.perl.org, same name. :)
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theboss 13y ago

I'm not sure I agree with ``carelessness, undeserved self-confidence'' but I definitely agree with ignorance. I think the best thing is that people writing code just don't understand the internals of how a lot of web attacks work and why the best practices for security prevent them. I reported two account hijack vulnerabilities on startups this weekend and was met with ``What is CSRF?''. I think the reason for this is security people keep to themselves and work as consultants. Instead of making my own company, I can go around finding people who need what I know and get easy low-risk money. Also, there really is no place to hire a ``security person'' at a early stage startup. If a security guy DOES get hired, it's either part of an IR team, an internal pentest team, and if this is the case then there's already way too much code written to even check it for the most basic best practices (you might use some tool for static analysis but are you really going to check out the thousands of issues?) I don't like bashing PHP, because I think it is actually a phenomenal language for people who know what they are doing, but it is definitely a security death-trap for those who don't.

Killswitch 13y ago
> I don't like bashing PHP, because I think it is actually a phenomenal language for people who know what they are doing, but it is definitely a security death-trap for those who don't. Any language is a security death-trap for those who don't know what they're doing.
camus2 13y ago
@Killswitch Problem is PHP is a templating language, not a generic purpose one. Other languages use frameworks for webdevs that usually provide basic security features like auto escaping output,orms by default(so no sql strings),csrf on forms... PHP doesnt ,so it's easier to shoot yourself in the foot.
- jimlei 13y ago
  You mean like Symfony, Laravel, etc? Frameworks that a lot of PHP developers use these days...
  - camus2 13y ago
    You dont need a framework to do PHP webdev, in every other languages,you do.That's my point, PHP IS a templating language,no Symfony,Zend or Laravel can change that. If i write "print" in Python it wont output the result back to HTTP like PHP does. Ruby or Java dont have <?ruby or <?java tags, you get my point.
    - smacktoward 13y ago
      > Ruby or Java dont have <?ruby or <?java tags I dunno about Ruby, but Java certainly does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaServer_Pages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaServer_Pages
    - mschuster91 13y ago
      If you use them in CGI mode, you very well have a "start" tag in form of a shebang first line like #!/usr/bin/env python. Also, shellscripts and perl are considered programming languages, and these too need a shebang line. Your point is invalid.
    - pushrax 13y ago
      Well, many Ruby webapps use erb, which is basically the same thing.
    - pushrax 13y ago
      Well, many Ruby webapps use erb, which is basically the same thing.
raesene3 13y ago
If you're worried about not being able to get access to "security people", I'd recommend looking at OWASP (http://www.owasp.org http://www.owasp.org) which has a lot of good free information and also chapter meet-ups which are free. Interestingly one of the problems I've faced running an OWASP chapter is how to get more developers along to it. Also security.stackexchange.com can be quite useful
mgkimsal 13y ago
"I think the reason for this is security people keep to themselves and work as consultants." ??? I know there are some pretty obscure edge cases in some successful attacks, but... almost everything I see as a security issue (and stuff I've done myself) usually falls in to XSS, CSRF and SQL injection. Those were the big 3 10+ years ago, and probably still will be. This isn't some magical 'hidden' info that a handful of security consultants hoard to themselves to maximize top dollar. Have safe password/authentication systems, prevent XSS, prevent CSRF and prevent SQL injection - you'd prevent a HUGE number of attacks for little effort. But... it takes education, and actually caring some about your job/company/product. "Also, there really is no place to hire a ``security person'' at a early stage startup. " Why not? I don't think they need 'hiring' full time. Many startups spend inordinate amount of time on 'user experience' and 'branding' and whatnot, with the (correct) understanding that you can't easily just 'add on' UX after the fact - it's much easier to develop UX as part of the overall dev process. Why do people not think of security the same way? Regular security audits/reviews by a security consultant (1-3 hours every week or so) would go a long way towards helping inexperienced developers spot gaping/obvious security holes well before they become big problems.

woah 13y ago

What channel is that? As an app developer, it sounds useful.

Mithaldu 13y ago
Find me on irc.perl.org, same name. :)

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