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As We Speak, Teen Social Site Is Leaking Millions Of Plaintext Passwords (arstechnica.com)

Posted by msmash on from the security-woes dept.

Dan Goodin, reporting for ArsTechnica: A social hangout website for teenage girls has sprung a leak that's exposing plaintext passwords protecting as many as 5.5 million user accounts. As this post went live, all attempts to get the leak plugged had failed. Operators of i-Dressup didn't respond to messages sent by Ars informing them that a hacker has already downloaded more than 2.2 million of the improperly stored account credentials. The hacker said it took him about three weeks to obtain the cache and that there's nothing stopping him or others from downloading the entire database of slightly more than 5.5 million entries. The hacker said he acquired the e-mail addresses and passwords by using a SQL injection attack that exploited vulnerabilities in the i-Dressup website. The hacker provided the 2.2 million account credentials both to Ars and breach notification service Have I Been Pwned?. By plugging randomly selected e-mail addresses into the forgotten password section of i-Dressup, both Ars and Have I Been Pwned? principal Troy Hunt found that they all were used to register accounts on the site. Ars then used the contact us page on i-Dressup to privately notify operators of the vulnerability, but more than five days later, no one has responded and the bug remains unfixed.

6 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. It's a pity... by OpenSourced · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's a pity that they didn't enroll little Bobby Tables in that website. That would have taught them to sanitize their SQL input.

    --
    Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
    1. Re:It's a pity... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The real problem was not SQL vulnerabilities. Plain text passwords should never be transmitted to servers. They should be salted and hashed on the client. It should have been clear to anyone that bothered to look at the data being transmitted that this website had major security problems and was developed by clueless amateurs.

    2. Re:It's a pity... by KFK2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So then the hash becomes a plain text password?....

  2. Ah yes... by The-Ixian · · Score: 5, Funny

    The old SQL injection attack.... been around since the beginning of forever but will web devs ever learn to take simple steps to protect their SQL backends? newp...

    Let's make sure we never sanitize HTML and never parameterize our SQL queries... that would just be like soooo neckbeard....

    --
    My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    1. Re:Ah yes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How about not storing passwords in plaintext? That way, simple attack, or more sophisticated attack, you're not just handing them credentials carte blanche....

  3. Re:Private industry doing it better than governmen by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    None of this is of any value if you don't give your kids access to your credit card.

    My 16 year old daughter has had her own card since she was 10.

    And if you do, then you're already exposed to bigger threats.

    Like kids who have learned responsibility and basic financial management? Just make sure the limit is low, and let kids make mistakes and learn from them. Your kids won't grow up to be capable and responsible adults if you shelter them from reality and make every decision for them.