Equifax security issues uncovered in 2016
Security issues identified in 2016 on the Equifax website are still not fixed. It is one step to identify the problem but it's an even bigger challenge to fix it. It requires time and skill to go back into the code, understand the context and fix the issues.
It is clear developers at Equifax were under a lot of stress and many known vulnerabilities didn't get fixed. Unfortunately that lack of action has now had the worst possible response.
Security needs to be baked in from the start and developers needs the skills, training and in-IDE tools to minimize writing known vulnerabilities. It requires specific language and framework knowledge to fix the problems identified. The general principle on fixing a XSS issue stays the same, however the actual implementation is dependent on the frameworks in place.
If you want to do some interactive training on how to fix XSS issues in Struts, check out: https://portal.securecodewarrior.com/#/simple-flow/web/xss/reflected/java/struts
Skip forward to 2016 and a security researcher found a common vulnerability known as cross-site scripting (XSS) on the main Equifax website, according to a tweet from a researcher who goes by the name x0rz. Such XSS bugs allow attackers to send specially-crafted links to Equifax customers and, if the target clicks through and is logged into the site, their username and password can be revealed to the hacker.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/09/08/equifax-data-breach-history/#552ab1c9677c
Skip forward to 2016 and a security researcher found a common vulnerability known as cross-site scripting (XSS) on the main Equifax website, according to a tweet from a researcher who goes by the name x0rz.
Matias Madou, Ph.D. is a security expert, researcher, and CTO and co-founder of Secure Code Warrior. Matias obtained his Ph.D. in Application Security from Ghent University, focusing on static analysis solutions. He later joined Fortify in the US, where he realized that it was insufficient to solely detect code problems without aiding developers in writing secure code. This inspired him to develop products that assist developers, alleviate the burden of security, and exceed customers' expectations. When he is not at his desk as part of Team Awesome, he enjoys being on stage presenting at conferences including RSA Conference, BlackHat and DefCon.
Secure Code Warrior is here for your organization to help you secure code across the entire software development lifecycle and create a culture in which cybersecurity is top of mind. Whether you’re an AppSec Manager, Developer, CISO, or anyone involved in security, we can help your organization reduce risks associated with insecure code.
Book a demo
Matias Madou, Ph.D. is a security expert, researcher, and CTO and co-founder of Secure Code Warrior. Matias obtained his Ph.D. in Application Security from Ghent University, focusing on static analysis solutions. He later joined Fortify in the US, where he realized that it was insufficient to solely detect code problems without aiding developers in writing secure code. This inspired him to develop products that assist developers, alleviate the burden of security, and exceed customers' expectations. When he is not at his desk as part of Team Awesome, he enjoys being on stage presenting at conferences including RSA Conference, BlackHat and DefCon.
Matias is a researcher and developer with more than 15 years of hands-on software security experience. He has developed solutions for companies such as Fortify Software and his own company Sensei Security. Over his career, Matias has led multiple application security research projects which have led to commercial products and boasts over 10 patents under his belt. When he is away from his desk, Matias has served as an instructor for advanced application security training courses and regularly speaks at global conferences including RSA Conference, Black Hat, DefCon, BSIMM, OWASP AppSec and BruCon.
Matias holds a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Ghent University, where he studied application security through program obfuscation to hide the inner workings of an application.
Security issues identified in 2016 on the Equifax website are still not fixed. It is one step to identify the problem but it's an even bigger challenge to fix it. It requires time and skill to go back into the code, understand the context and fix the issues.
It is clear developers at Equifax were under a lot of stress and many known vulnerabilities didn't get fixed. Unfortunately that lack of action has now had the worst possible response.
Security needs to be baked in from the start and developers needs the skills, training and in-IDE tools to minimize writing known vulnerabilities. It requires specific language and framework knowledge to fix the problems identified. The general principle on fixing a XSS issue stays the same, however the actual implementation is dependent on the frameworks in place.
If you want to do some interactive training on how to fix XSS issues in Struts, check out: https://portal.securecodewarrior.com/#/simple-flow/web/xss/reflected/java/struts
Skip forward to 2016 and a security researcher found a common vulnerability known as cross-site scripting (XSS) on the main Equifax website, according to a tweet from a researcher who goes by the name x0rz. Such XSS bugs allow attackers to send specially-crafted links to Equifax customers and, if the target clicks through and is logged into the site, their username and password can be revealed to the hacker.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/09/08/equifax-data-breach-history/#552ab1c9677c
Security issues identified in 2016 on the Equifax website are still not fixed. It is one step to identify the problem but it's an even bigger challenge to fix it. It requires time and skill to go back into the code, understand the context and fix the issues.
It is clear developers at Equifax were under a lot of stress and many known vulnerabilities didn't get fixed. Unfortunately that lack of action has now had the worst possible response.
Security needs to be baked in from the start and developers needs the skills, training and in-IDE tools to minimize writing known vulnerabilities. It requires specific language and framework knowledge to fix the problems identified. The general principle on fixing a XSS issue stays the same, however the actual implementation is dependent on the frameworks in place.
If you want to do some interactive training on how to fix XSS issues in Struts, check out: https://portal.securecodewarrior.com/#/simple-flow/web/xss/reflected/java/struts
Skip forward to 2016 and a security researcher found a common vulnerability known as cross-site scripting (XSS) on the main Equifax website, according to a tweet from a researcher who goes by the name x0rz. Such XSS bugs allow attackers to send specially-crafted links to Equifax customers and, if the target clicks through and is logged into the site, their username and password can be revealed to the hacker.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/09/08/equifax-data-breach-history/#552ab1c9677c
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Secure Code Warrior is here for your organization to help you secure code across the entire software development lifecycle and create a culture in which cybersecurity is top of mind. Whether you’re an AppSec Manager, Developer, CISO, or anyone involved in security, we can help your organization reduce risks associated with insecure code.
View reportBook a demo
Matias Madou, Ph.D. is a security expert, researcher, and CTO and co-founder of Secure Code Warrior. Matias obtained his Ph.D. in Application Security from Ghent University, focusing on static analysis solutions. He later joined Fortify in the US, where he realized that it was insufficient to solely detect code problems without aiding developers in writing secure code. This inspired him to develop products that assist developers, alleviate the burden of security, and exceed customers' expectations. When he is not at his desk as part of Team Awesome, he enjoys being on stage presenting at conferences including RSA Conference, BlackHat and DefCon.
Matias is a researcher and developer with more than 15 years of hands-on software security experience. He has developed solutions for companies such as Fortify Software and his own company Sensei Security. Over his career, Matias has led multiple application security research projects which have led to commercial products and boasts over 10 patents under his belt. When he is away from his desk, Matias has served as an instructor for advanced application security training courses and regularly speaks at global conferences including RSA Conference, Black Hat, DefCon, BSIMM, OWASP AppSec and BruCon.
Matias holds a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Ghent University, where he studied application security through program obfuscation to hide the inner workings of an application.
Security issues identified in 2016 on the Equifax website are still not fixed. It is one step to identify the problem but it's an even bigger challenge to fix it. It requires time and skill to go back into the code, understand the context and fix the issues.
It is clear developers at Equifax were under a lot of stress and many known vulnerabilities didn't get fixed. Unfortunately that lack of action has now had the worst possible response.
Security needs to be baked in from the start and developers needs the skills, training and in-IDE tools to minimize writing known vulnerabilities. It requires specific language and framework knowledge to fix the problems identified. The general principle on fixing a XSS issue stays the same, however the actual implementation is dependent on the frameworks in place.
If you want to do some interactive training on how to fix XSS issues in Struts, check out: https://portal.securecodewarrior.com/#/simple-flow/web/xss/reflected/java/struts
Skip forward to 2016 and a security researcher found a common vulnerability known as cross-site scripting (XSS) on the main Equifax website, according to a tweet from a researcher who goes by the name x0rz. Such XSS bugs allow attackers to send specially-crafted links to Equifax customers and, if the target clicks through and is logged into the site, their username and password can be revealed to the hacker.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/09/08/equifax-data-breach-history/#552ab1c9677c
Table of contents
Matias Madou, Ph.D. is a security expert, researcher, and CTO and co-founder of Secure Code Warrior. Matias obtained his Ph.D. in Application Security from Ghent University, focusing on static analysis solutions. He later joined Fortify in the US, where he realized that it was insufficient to solely detect code problems without aiding developers in writing secure code. This inspired him to develop products that assist developers, alleviate the burden of security, and exceed customers' expectations. When he is not at his desk as part of Team Awesome, he enjoys being on stage presenting at conferences including RSA Conference, BlackHat and DefCon.
Secure Code Warrior is here for your organization to help you secure code across the entire software development lifecycle and create a culture in which cybersecurity is top of mind. Whether you’re an AppSec Manager, Developer, CISO, or anyone involved in security, we can help your organization reduce risks associated with insecure code.
Book a demoDownloadResources to get you started
Secure by Design: Defining Best Practices, Enabling Developers and Benchmarking Preventative Security Outcomes
In this research paper, Secure Code Warrior co-founders, Pieter Danhieux and Dr. Matias Madou, Ph.D., along with expert contributors, Chris Inglis, Former US National Cyber Director (now Strategic Advisor to Paladin Capital Group), and Devin Lynch, Senior Director, Paladin Global Institute, will reveal key findings from over twenty in-depth interviews with enterprise security leaders including CISOs, a VP of Application Security, and software security professionals.
Benchmarking Security Skills: Streamlining Secure-by-Design in the Enterprise
Finding meaningful data on the success of Secure-by-Design initiatives is notoriously difficult. CISOs are often challenged when attempting to prove the return on investment (ROI) and business value of security program activities at both the people and company levels. Not to mention, it’s particularly difficult for enterprises to gain insights into how their organizations are benchmarked against current industry standards. The President’s National Cybersecurity Strategy challenged stakeholders to “embrace security and resilience by design.” The key to making Secure-by-Design initiatives work is not only giving developers the skills to ensure secure code, but also assuring the regulators that those skills are in place. In this presentation, we share a myriad of qualitative and quantitative data, derived from multiple primary sources, including internal data points collected from over 250,000 developers, data-driven customer insights, and public studies. Leveraging this aggregation of data points, we aim to communicate a vision of the current state of Secure-by-Design initiatives across multiple verticals. The report details why this space is currently underutilized, the significant impact a successful upskilling program can have on cybersecurity risk mitigation, and the potential to eliminate categories of vulnerabilities from a codebase.
Resources to get you started
Revealed: How the Cyber Industry Defines Secure by Design
In our latest white paper, our Co-Founders, Pieter Danhieux and Dr. Matias Madou, Ph.D., sat down with over twenty enterprise security leaders, including CISOs, AppSec leaders and security professionals, to figure out the key pieces of this puzzle and uncover the reality behind the Secure by Design movement. It’s a shared ambition across the security teams, but no shared playbook.
Is Vibe Coding Going to Turn Your Codebase Into a Frat Party?
Vibe coding is like a college frat party, and AI is the centerpiece of all the festivities, the keg. It’s a lot of fun to let loose, get creative, and see where your imagination can take you, but after a few keg stands, drinking (or, using AI) in moderation is undoubtedly the safer long-term solution.
Developer-driven coding.
Securely.
Contact us today and make software security an intrinsic part of your development process.
