Fox News' FTP Password Anyone?

An anonymous reader writes "While browsing around the Fox News website, I found that directory indexes are turned on. So, I started following the tree up, until I got to /admin. Eventually, I found my way into /admin/xml_parser/zdnet/, in which, there is a shell script. Seeing as it's a shell script, and I use Linux, I took a peek. Inside, is a username and password to an FTP. So, of course, I tried to login. The result? Epic fail on Fox's part. And seriously, what kind of password is T1me Out. This is just pathetic." It's already been changed of course, but that's still pretty amusing.

Comments

Wasted chance

[Mark_in_Brazil]

Dude, why didn't you look around for the bug that makes them misreport the news so horribly that a majority of FOX News viewers still believes Iraq was responsible for 9/11 and Saddam had WMDs when the US invaded?

Re:Wasted chance

[niceone]

Hey, that's not a bug - it's a feature.

Re:Wasted chance

[Anonymous Coward]

"T1me Out"... that's the kind of password an idiot would use on his luggage!

Re:Wasted chance

[iapetus]

If America wants to encourage countries not to proliferate, would it not make sense to disband our own arsenal? Who are we going to use it on anyway?

Oh sure. Let's shed all our defenses and leave ourselves vulnerable to an attack by Canadia. That would be a good idea. I say we nuke Ontario now, just to be on the safe side.

Re:Wasted chance

[Anonymous Coward]

they can get ton's of free publicity

Now, is that "ton is of free publicity", or does Mr. Ton have a lot of "of free publicity" that he could potentially give to you?

Re:Wasted chance

[indifferent children]

Bush didn't tell the American people that he 'believed' that Saddam had WMDs. He said, "I guarantee that Saddam has WMD's". I just want to know if that was a money-back guarantee, 'cause, if so, my future grandkids have one hell of a rebate check coming.

Re:Wasted chance

[Anonymous Coward]

Saddam Hussein backed an attempt on the life of W's dad after George Bush became an ex-pres. W had also tried to convince his dad to takeover Baghdad in Gulf War I, but daddy said no so there probably was, for a lifelong screw-up, a need to show his father he could succeed where daddy couldn't. Plus Cheney wanted it so his executive buddies at Halliburton could make a mint on a no-bid contract.

HaHa

[Anonymous Coward]

You're going to jail and slashdot is getting shut down. It's a federal offense to interfere with an official government propaganda outlet.

Nice...

[x3rc3s]

Enjoy your stay in gitmo!

oblig SpaceBalls

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the same password to my locker!

Changed by whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now the question is, was it changed by Fox or someone else.

Great all we need.

[forgotten_my_nick]

That is all we need, months of stories how "evil hackers got into Fox network"

Followed up with "Hackers: Evil and must be stopped?" to linking hacking to Obama, a danger to your kids and finally Hackers gone wild at Spring break.

Re:Great all we need.

[sammy baby]

You missed another possibility: that we'll be throwing beads at pasty, flabby geeks to get them to put their clothes back on.

Re:Linux Ver Security hole, fox stupidity, or both

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh shut the fuck up, you Gentoo fanboi. If they used Gentoo, the server would still be recompiling from a kernel update six months ago. Take your Genntoo, and jam it up your ass sideways and backwards. It's 0.038% more optimized for that.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[AlHunt]

>And honestly how many of you guys use a password like YwMCU07D?

Great - now I have to go change all my passwords.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[Anonymous Coward]

> And honestly how many of you guys use a password like YwMCU07D?

My account passwords are nothing like that and my root passwords are > 24 chars.

At the very least create a random string of 4-8 chars and use it as a (pre|post)-fix to your standard passwords.

Here's some for the lazy...

tVx1x%65
T9uOL0;{
]3HUk2:w
SWg7E1K*

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[asliarun]

I agree, and my personal experience with corporate passwords has been the same. I'm sure this would disturb security geeks at various levels (or get them salivating!), but I don't see this as a *huge* loophole since most of the systems are inside the corporate firewall anyway. IMHO, this is about as big a security threat as an employee or a contractor copying sensitive data (which the password is protecting) and trying to profit from it illegally.

A system that I was managing once started crashing, and further investigation revealed that the password of an upstream system had been changed. When we contacted the admin team of the offending application, they informed us that they had upgraded the password from 123 to the "highly secure" (in their words) 234.

This is the closest Fox News will ever get...

[TheReallyMadScientis]

...to doing 'fair and balanced' journalism.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[tehcyder]

>And honestly how many of you guys use a password like YwMCU07D?

Great - now I have to go change all my passwords.

Me too!

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[jollyreaper]

>>And honestly how many of you guys use a password like YwMCU07D?

>Great - now I have to go change all my passwords.

Don't feel bad, I had the same combination on my luggage.

so much for that blog

[mgabrys_sf]

Tit's up - and outa there!

"mysql_pconnect() [function.mysql-pconnect]: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (111) in /home/linuxin/public_html/site/admin/db.php on line 50
Warning: mysql_select_db(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /home/linuxin/public_html/site/admin/db.php on line 50
Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (111)"

We have meltdown - I repeat we have meltdown. Now someone get that pile of circuts and goo off the rack and get a new one in here pronto.

Re:Employee information leaked

[realdodgeman]

Do you think they mind if I delete all the files containing Bill O'Reilly?

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[DeeKayWon]

> Great - now I have to go change all my passwords.

Don't worry about it. I just did it for you.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[The One and Only]

No way is Fox News going to do that. That's Al Gore's strategy!

Re:Dick Cheney has mod-points?!?!

[Guppy]

Dick Cheney has mod-points?!?! Only for a few hours, while the regular moderator was getting his colon checked out.

Re:what's wrong with T1me Out

[gknoy]

Actually, only 7 of them were joking .... but which seven? :)