'Impossible-to-hack' security turns out to be no security
jltee.substack.comFrom https://databreaches.net/2025/02/24/no-need-to-hack-when-its...
DataBreaches also invited Sean Banayan to provide a statement for publication. He replied promptly to this site’s email: "We will further investigate this matter internally and do not wish to entertain this matter with your website."
He really missed all the lessons in both manners, common sense and media training.
To be fair, security through denial, lies and intimidation is the industry standard.
Leaving the passwords in clear text is double plus ungood. But my employer recently bought another outfit that does just that, and fixing it is not a near term option. So I'm stuck managing that and three of my fingers are pointing back to me.
Some powerful people subscribe to the idea that "if I (or the law) says don't touch it, it's secure". This attitude was on full display a little over three years ago in Missouri. https://missouriindependent.com/2021/10/14/missouri-governor...
That's a good one!
Reporter: "Hey, you dropped your wallet" Governor: "Thief!"
Missouri
fixed, thank you.
Technically speaking if there's nothing to break, it is unbreakable right? Also if you change the law about some crime, you don't have a crime anymore...
Dang this is real life. “We didn’t used to do it but..”
> my employer recently bought another outfit that does that does just that [leaves passwords in cleartext], and fixing it is not a near term option
Could you expand on why not? I can't think of a good reason why this isn't a relatively quick fix. What's the blocker?
It requires programming in a language specific to one little known db product, in an extremely brittle and spaghettified code base . There's exactly one person in the company who kinda knows how to do it, and they're unavailable for the foreseeable future on higher priorities. We don't have the money to throw at new hires or huge porting projects.
Imagine software that has been in production since the 80's, was written by a very inexperienced dev and has since been continually "organically" upgraded to handle any new promise that a nontechnical product manager feels is necessary to solve the immediate problem of an angry customer. It's a Jenga tower with a reset button.
> they're unavailable for the foreseeable future on higher priorities
Need I respond to that?
If you know the secret to getting a company to prioritize potential security problems that haven't yet emerged in forty years over meeting payroll, please share.
why does it sound like you're defending the argument of;
I couldn't act ethically because I had to make money.
My paycheck depends on reconciling myself to it. Should I quit possibly my last job before retirement in a bleak job market to protest my manager's decision to protect her job and mine by putting revenue before protecting jane@doe.com's login from being stolen for the Nth time? Am I the bad guy?
It's not my place to define your ethics for you. I'm pointing out so any other readers can be innoculated from accidentally stumbling into this ethical minefield.
I'm not telling you stealing bread so your family doesn't starve is unethical, I'm pointing out it's stealing.
No idea if you're the bad guy, but you're not the ~~good guy~~ hero, no.
I'm a participant in sub-criminal negligence rather than stealing. I'd call that a lesser offense. And it's a failure I have mitigated by working to protect the data. I can't claim innocence, but I sleep OK.
It's also not about bread, because that was just an analogy.
I would sleep ok too, until something bad happened and people I had a responsibility to protect got hurt. Then I wouldn't sleep so well... Turns out humans are really bad at risk calculations.
As your attorney I would not advise admitting that on a public website. Even posting it implicates this website in the risk registry.
(not op, just hypothesising)
> I can't think of a good reason why this isn't a quick fix.
What if there's some IoT product with no update mechanism and the access password to function is stored on all of them in plain text?
Possibly, but that's a very different scenario to a database of cleartext passwords (which is what I assumed was meant), as each device would have to be identified and compromised to access a password to a device which at that point is already compromised...
The tone of the article is unprofessional to say the least. You could remove the argumentative tone, vitriol, and insults and have a more impactful article that reflected well on the author while appropriately warning people against this company. Please, don't choose team troll.
Personally, I find the tone of the article appropriate for the response received. The first email clearly set the tone as cordial and friendly while still being urgent. The response was in a clearly adversarial tone. So the prompter adjusted their tone accordingly.
It wasn't necessary to match tones with the person whom wanted to be uncharitable, but it definitely feels more human to me, which is who the writing is for: humans. I would have been fine with an info dump, but I enjoy turnabout as much as any other fan of fair play.
If you want all the clicks and comments and drama you can get, staying professional is just boring.
Professionalism minimizes the risk of derailing or devaluing your argument by you being rude, inappropriate, etc. and avoids aggravating your counterparty. If - as in this case - the goal is NOT Internet drama but rather an improvement in security - the best way to do that would be to remain professional.
It is a question for the author of the piece which angle they prefer - consider that keeping it cool calm and collected is the slow way to build an audience.. even if the audience it builds is more engaged.
While there's a large audience for Jerry Springer style content, verbal abuse and stooping to the level of someone you're criticizing are not required. I don't read HN for name calling or childish taunting. It is always dispiriting to read, and even more so to read people defending. Humans, as you note, have base instincts, but giving into them and catering to them should be left to X and other sites devoted to pandering.
Where precisely is the "verbal abuse" and "name calling"?
Chill. I think you are the one overescalating, here.
The author is not acting in a professional role here.
He, in his own time, discovered a pretty serious exposure of information and politely informed them. They decided to not be polite in return. He responded in the same tone as them.
There was never any professional obligation, nor any obligation for the author to inform them of their breach at all, nor was there any obligation to give them time to notify clients before publication. Those are all courtesies.
This man didn't choose team troll, he responded to team troll in kind.
To double down here, the author did the correct thing by using their snarkiness.
If someone who in theory is a professional (the company that left all of this in the open) responds in an unprofessional way from the start - you are done using professional tone. That tool isn't producing results. Stop using that tool.
The goal is not to model perfect manners - it is to bring attention to a breach so it can be remedied. The author understands this and has acted so to achieve this result.
Exactly. The stakes of the conversation are quite high. Innocent people could suffer real harms.
Professional norms exist to support people in taking responsibility for the power they have. The CEO is manifestly failing in his responsibilities.
Not a journalist or a reporter, posts aren't meant to be professional. The only reason I even write any of my posts is because companies DO NOT disclose incidents at all, so I have to do it for them.
I thoroughly enjoyed the post and thought your tone was appropriate, entertaining, and kind of kethartic. You didn't call them names, engage in ad hominem, or do anything click-batey. You were understandably irritated at how they talked to you and how they were clearly trying to hide a massive exposure from their users. And then you shredded them with data.
A+ - And thanks for trying to keep folks like this honest!
> You didn't call them names, engage in ad hominem
Well, the author wrote:
> Teammate App CEO, Sean Banayan, who has the reading comprehension and IT knowledge of a toddler
So it wasn't very nice, but deserved imo.
Fair - maybe there was a little name calling. But, I agree it was deserved.
To be fair that doesn't appear to be an ad hominem because the author lists many facts supporting his assertion none of which was particularly personal. Nor is it name calling as he compared the CEO to a toddler, but did not say that he was a toddler.
(*cathartic)
sure you're a journalist, but the best kind! Gonzo![0]
I found the tone highly entertaining; don't let the haters wear you down
I was also ready to chalk this up to "Yet another security researcher needs to learn how to play well with others..." but the moronic and indigent response from "Sean" makes it clear who's wrong here.
Imagine an alternate universe where "Sean" wasn't so aggressively stupid, and instead replied: "Thanks, JayeLTee, we took the database down while we do an audit. We don't think there were any access, and we would rather you not go public about the findings, but it will take us time to check. Please hold off on your publication until [DATE] and we will be in touch."
There. That didn't take much effort! But, no, "Sean" chose belligerence and threats rather than professionalism. I don't know what is wrong with people who just seem to default to "bad attitude" in their communications.
The alternative universe can be seen on this post: https://jltee.substack.com/p/lcptrackercom-lcptracker-inc-se...
The company did reach out and said something similar, I held my publication for months months waiting for a reply which they said they would send and ended up finding out their were filing breach notifications to multiple states and never said anything back to me.
why is the author obligated to use a professional tone?
Concur. Tone comes off as "toxic manboy". Not sure why the author chose that tone. I would not hire them for their security services just yet, no matter how big a genius they are. Maybe once they understand the world is made of people, not rational actors.
I see this kind of take every time someone exposes incompetence. I get it - you'd rather hire a marketing person to use buzzwords than someone like OP. That's your prerogative.
Hardly. There are simply two ways to expose incompetence. You can be nice or you can be a prick. Your choice. Seeing your handle, you may find it interesting to note that my master's degree in CS was completed at the Technion. I am not looking for marketing people or buzzwords. I am looking for people mature enough to handle other people and get the job done. For example, if you tasked a security boy genius with pushing a fix and all they ended up doing was alienating the dev team, then you are scoring an own goal. I want bright AND mature. I am picky that way.
Even in a professional setting, you are not obligated to coddle aggressive stupidity. That's how we end up in a world where nobody says what they mean, everything is just BS on top of BS, and nothing improves. Being direct, being honest, and being accurate are critically important in professional technical work, and while it's not necessary to be antagonistic, it is completely reasonable and socially acceptable to respond in kind to the energy you get. People who are aggressively stupid do not get a pass.
The author is more professional than the sean was, and conveys the correct amount of disgust we should all hold for this company and it's leadership.
The point of the essay was to be disrespectful of the CEO. Slightly less disrespectful than the CEO was, so IMO he still holds onto the high ground of ethics.
Please do choose team troll. The correct response to someone being a shitter, is not always to kill them with kindness. A lot of the time it is, but this time, I'm clearly on the authors side. He tried twice to be kind, was ignored and then insulted. When really he was owed a thank you, not to be disrespected.
The tone doesn't have to be professional. Not everybody owes you professional courtesy, especially when you're giving away personal information on your customers.
The tone is perfect here, you don’t have to play nice with people who are not nice to you.
You only get the benefit of professionalism if you act like one.
Your comment is unprofessional, the CEO in question deserves a lot more vitriol frankly.
I'm confused about the chronology here:
1. He discovers an unprotected database.
2. He mails the CEO of the company.
3. The database is fixed.
4. He mails the CEO again to say he's publishing.
5. The CEO replies and says there was no security breach.
6. He goes spelunking in the database tables to write a rebuttal?
How does step 6 happen? What has this person exfiltrated from the database, in advance of losing access to it in step 3?
If I read the article correctly step 6 was using data from a previous dump to access files now.
So say the dumped data contained the URL of a file and you couldn't get the URL now (due to step 3) but you can still download the actual file.
TBH it sounds like he exfil'ed / downloaded the database before reporting.
Isn't this a jurisdictional crime that a well connected CEO could get him in a lot of trouble for?
Step 6 happened because the CEO in his hubris, decided it would be in his best interests to threaten someone instead of being greatful.
Additionally, had the CEO responded appropriately and followed the standard methodology of all reasonable bug bounty programs, it would have included a request for the researcher to verify the fix and that there are no additional related bugs or defects with the current patch.
You noticed that the email implies the security has been perfected. Did you also note that it would be unethical for a professional to blindly convey that false belief.
I'm wondering how it's possible that step 6 happened, not what the motivations are. It's written in multiple places as if database queries were issued after the database was taken down.
I think the data he discloses in the post is the one that he got before getting in contact with the company. He does this in order to prove that the database was accesible to anyone on the internet, instead of the "no breach at all" claimed on the response email.
He writes as if he has access to large quantities of data after the CEO responded to him, which implies that it was after the exposed database was fixed, as the author acknowledges in the email he sent to the CEO.
No I did not query the database after it was exposed.
The information I had was from when the database was publicly exposed.
I don't want to be too specific about the links for the files as I don't know if others accessed this information and could exploit it but they had the website path to download the files exposed on the database, you just needed to know what to add to it, I tried a few things from the information I had and found out they worked.
I would of probably skipped over this, but after their response I wondered if there was more to it.
The files were not stored on the database, they were on a cloud storage but that link made it so no authentication was required to access them (not an expert but would say some hard coded access keys or something similar).
No I did not query the database after it was fixed.*
Did you not consider the CEO would just lie about fixing something?
I assume the author isn't lying when they acknowledged that it had been.
I'm lost, what are you referring to? The author references the claim by the CEO, and then goes on to prove it was a lie.
That's a very common linguistical pattern.
The email that the author sends to the CEO, in which his rationale for immediate disclosure is the fact that the database was fixed.
To which the CEO was rude and dismissive and threatening. Which is often a sign of having something to hide. I assume the author decided to then verify if the threats were made from a position of strength or weakness.
I read his email as a polite gesture, giving them a chance to request more time. I'm still confused as to what parts you're missing. Are you trying to imply something, or do you really not understand that people can lie and withhold information?
Did you miss this bit from the article:
> The email was read by someone, I assume the CEO, and less than an hour after it was sent, I could not connect to the exposed server anymore.
This was after the author’s first email, and before the CEOs reply.
What tptacek was getting at is that the article is a bit unclear on when the review of DB contents occurred, since the author no longer had access. (But I think it’s just because the author reviewed the contents already before they reported the issue.)
Oh dear, that really is a poor response by the CEO. Can't wait to see the grovelling apology he comes up with when NZ media/regulator comes asking questions
It looks like the CEO is both clueless and his reports are also probably misleading him. Whoever looked into the security problem probably saw the extent of it. This possibly got downplayed when reported back to the CEO. However rude, the CEO had little reason to lie about the extent of the problem towards the security researcher.
I imagine the conversation between the CEO and his reports included something about "it's no biggie, the passwords were hashed using bcrypt, that's like irreversible encryption" without contextualizing that and mentioning that plaintext auth tokens were also exposed.
I think it was downplayed even more. Supposedly the initial email by the researcher only had evidence for leaking database sizes, and I think it's likely that the CEO only got confirmation for this evidence internally and nothing more.
Although I say:
"This server contains over 3,8GB of data exposed including the logins for 16,500 of your users and a lot of PII and credentials, you need to secure access to the server as soon as possible."
After all that transpired after etc I believe it's possible someone downplayed the severity of this to the CEO and he took that as an opportunity to ignore everything I wrote on the emails and reply that way to me assuming I was some cybersecurity vendor working for "Proton" trying to push something for the company to buy.
CEO felt a threat to his company and responded accordingly. He is clearly green and impolite. Sending a vulnerability disclosure to someone without knowing their experience, and given the amount of spam on the web, one should not be surprised at the response. Trying to do a good thing and getting scolded for it feels terrible, though. One might understand why the researcher would put up database details for the world to see and fail to realize it is petty to do so. I hope both gentlemen learned their lesson.
New Zealander here, really thrilled to see our national medical testing service (primarily blood tests) in here. I've sent a note to them to make sure they're aware of this.
Also I feel like I took the wrong path, trying to be a serious and responsible software developer - seems like all the money is in throwing shit together and making wild claims about it.
Usually like reading such posts but the author’s approach did seem very blackmail-like.
The CEO is surely coming off as a crazy guy but the author isn’t a white knight or good Samaritan either.
The company closed the database access and the guy says “now I will disclose it or you can do X” Would he have not disclosed it if they offered hush money? We won’t know, for his case I hope not. In any case - what was he expecting?
I’d imagine there is 50%+ chance that any smaller company without a dedicated security team will take this disclosure as a threat and blackmail. Especially that on the first second and third thought it seems the disclosure would be a way for the author to boost their blog and content marketing for their consulting.
If there was a bug bounty or something on their site it would have been different.
> Would he have not disclosed it if they offered hush money? We won’t know, for his case I hope not. In any case - what was he expecting?
A bog-standard responsible disclosure that any tech CEO should either be familiar with or have someone at hand that is, as is clearly communicated in that e-mail.
Both e-mails are OP reaching out to help this company out, the first fixing the vulnerability, the second giving them a chance for compliance / potential regulatory aspects they might want to follow. It's not on random people reporting security vulnerabilities to tutor random companies on this and both behaviors (non-responsiveness, then hostility) of this CEO, despite being sadly common, are actively harmful if you want to get productive security reports in the future. (And the company unilaterally signing up for bug bounty programs is rather irrelevant for independent researchers as well if they have no interest in participating in those.)
I just got offered to discuss a "token of appreciation" by another company that included deleting public posts and signing NDAs. I replied saying I don't accept bribes. If that's clear enough for you.
And I didn't say "I will disclose it or you can do X". I asked follow up questions as I always do. Related to intent on notifications to regulators or clients so I can delay my report until the company does their notifications if that is their intent. I've done this multiple times for multiple companies, some I delayed the post for 3-4 months.
I was actually trying to be nice to the company by not doing a disclosure before them, up until this point this was just like every other interaction I have. I sent the information, the server got closed and no one got back to me. None of my communications warranted the reply I got back from this.
That's almost too good to be true - - that the CEO thought that Proton was the author's company
Unfortunately, there are people out there (with a seemingly large overlap with CEOs) that have incredibly fragile egos, and any perceived criticism (such as pointing out a dreadful security failure) can result in lies, excessive reactions, defensiveness, denial, insults, scapegoating or even retaliation. Or all of the above.
In situations like this, it feels to me like the reaction is “how dare you think that I would need your help?!”
I’m mostly amused and surprised to see a drag race gif on a security substack. Not surprised at any of the rest of it.
Name and shame. Great job, great write up.
Once again, one of my rules of thumb holds true: if someone is claiming that their security is "impossible to hack", they're either massively incompetent or they're trying to sell you some BS.
Even if a guy is an easily hackable asshole, usually accessing the stuff directly and downloading his database is still a crime (at least in the US), stay safe buddy.
Is it hacking when there is no "breach?"
If I serve a file with info I didn't intend for the world to see at example.com/secret and you access it, did you commit a crime? Clearly no.
Given that, you have no way to even know if the data which was available publicly contained any private information. This guy is doing a fine public service, and any company he helps should pay him for saving their asses.
Prosecutors are not famous for caring about internet arguments, weev (who is a piece of shit for other reasons) got sentenced to 41 months for effectively incrementing an integer in a url - https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/new-york-man-sentenced-41...
"he concocted the fiction that he was trying to make the Internet more secure, and that all he did was walk in through an unlocked door. The jury didn’t buy it, and neither did the Court in imposing sentence upon him today.”"
You can still get dragged to court for it[1], even if you may (eventually) win, lawyers are expensive.
[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/15/f12-isnt-hacking-missouri-...
But he wasn't dragged to court for it.
https://missouriindependent.com/2022/02/11/prosecutor-isnt-p...
Not very polite or understanding.
Wants to be helpful but comes across as aggressive, names and shames them, insults and ridicules them... come on, you can do better.
OP here, the one who found the exposed data.
Not sure if you read my 2 emails to the company but I would say I was polite to them and was met with accusations of harassment and straight up lies.
Don't expect me to pat you in the back if you come at me with such claims when I simply alerted you of a security issue.
Welcome to Hacker News. Thank you for the post and your advocacy.
I don't think you get to call yourself polite or well-meaning when you pan them and air their shit out publicly after they respond in a way you don't like. Maybe you were superficially polite, but you do not come across as an angel. I _still_ don't know exactly what your goals are, if you're looking for acknowledgement, payment, or just trying to make the Internet a safer place for users.
I think the around 50 public disclosures I did in the last year where I asked 0 times for anything kinda show I'm not looking for any payments.
There is a huge issue regarding publicly exposed data that no one seems to want to acknowledge or talk about, what you see online? It's 100 times worse.
I'm someone who is trying to raise awareness through my finds, nothing else.
Also I was initially polite to the company, not once but twice, as I am to anyone who I reach out, why wouldn't I be? I want them to fix the issues, not ignore me.
Don't expect the politeness to be infinite though, specially when you start accusing me of harassment and lying about the severity of the exposure that affects thousands of people, the ones I DO care about, not the companies.
Sure you do. The poster was polite, got an extremely rude response, and has no obligation to be polite afterwards.
Airing their shit out is a disclosure of a vulnerability, and it's important to do. Typically you reach out to say, "how would you prefer I do this?" And work through a common understanding. The company flipped the bird, so it got aired very publicly.
I can call myself a bicycle but I don't have any wheels.
Their behavior when things don't go their way belies their initial "politeness". When the transaction didn't go how they wanted, they pulled the trigger on being a dick, publicly. That is a much worse offense that an impolite email. If this were a coworker or a contractor, it would color all of my interactions with them going forward.
> they pulled the trigger on being a dick, publicly. That is a much worse offense that an impolite email.
brain dead take; the article was impolite, the email was an overt threat by an impotent exec *in response to someone trying to help*!
Dang it bobby, it's not worse to respond to respond to asshattery (the email) with irreverent sunlight (the article).
I also wouldn't call you a bicycle because you're not going anywhere with this attitude. The CEO got a gift, and the author got a middle finger. No matter what happens after, the CEO without a doubt shot first. And shot someone just trying to help. He can get fucked, and anyone defending him can join in too.
I'm not defending him so much as advocating for understanding, grace, transparency, and de-escalation. You of course are welcome to conduct yourself in the ways that you see fit.
> I'm not defending him so much as ...
Nah, it's clear to me that you're defending the CEO, and blaming the researcher. In a manner that's as you state is just my opinion, is inverse from what justice would be.
Wild how I can state my intentions and then someone would just not believe me.
But seriously, it's not possible for me to frame how the researcher could improve future probability of success without framing it from the CEOs perspective. To do that I must recognize he is a human person with his own internal motivations for his behaviors, which likely are not so much monstrous as childish.
Your other comments across the larger topic refute your claimed good intentions. It's not that wild that no one would believe you, when you contradict yourself.
My thoughts on the matter may have evolved over time while interacting with other people in the thread. While I do still believe it could have been an attempt at blackmail, I think it most likely was not, even though the researcher clearly must have downloaded the entire database ahead of time based on the chronology presented. In that case, I can see how I have apparently contradicted myself. But I can assure you, I am not acting in bad faith.
I never thought you were acting in bad faith. My assumption was that you were gaslit like every other non-security person has been, where you were willing to shoot the messenger (the researcher) instead of the person creating the problem (the CEO). My problem wasn't that you were lied to, my only problem was that you were repeating a common lie that I think needs to die.
People operating in bad faith give up or hide when they notice their position is weakening, people working in good faith respond, and acknowledge the weaknesses in their ideas. Like you are doing.
Okay.
Agree. "You're not wrong, Walter, you're just an asshole!" Best case scenario, CEO just got an annoying distraction that was a credible enough threat they had to waste time investigating. Worst case they had a breach and someone is extorting or hacking them. Some grace on the part of the researcher is warranted IMO, despite the amateur handling by the CEO. No one looks good here.
The OP/researcher looks fine. They tried twice to help someone who would eventually prove they didn't deserve they help. They then, after being disrespected, still upheld all the ethical requirements from a security researcher, redacting sensitive information. The CEO looks like a twat waffle, but the researcher is clean, and just looks like someone intolerant of overt disrespect. Being willing to stand up to bullies is admirable, not disheartening.
I don't know how you could see the CEO as a bully in this situation. The researcher clearly has "power" in this situation over the CEO, he pretty much has caught him with his pants down, so in this case the CEO is lashing out at a perceived threat. You are entitled to the opinion that the researcher responded proportionately in this situation, I happen to disagree. I would not want my friends or coworkers responding this way in their daily dealings, I would want to give someone a chance to make amends instead of escalating, because this is not a playground and the stakes for the CEO are very real and potentially very damaging.
I hope maybe we can agree, though, that with a few simple modifications to his approach, he is likely to reduce the probability of negative responses to the initial email. For example, he seems to already understand that people will take this email as a scam or sales attempt. But much is left to the imagination of the (uninformed) recipient about what the auth truly _does_ want. By filling in those blanks, the imagination need not be active.
> I don't know how you could see the CEO as a bully in this situation.
someone tried to help him, he responded by making threats, and being rude. This is bully behavior. Why do you think responding to either email with a direct threat is reasonable?
> The researcher clearly has "power" in this situation over the CEO
You don't work in, or around information security do you? You're the first person to ever make any claim remotely close to saying any "researcher" has any kind of power. Without the context, if I told any of my security friends about researchers having power, I'd get a laugh about how absurd that idea is.
> he pretty much has caught him with his pants down, so in this case the CEO is lashing out at a perceived threat. You are entitled to the opinion that the researcher responded proportionately in this situation, I happen to disagree. I would not want my friends or coworkers responding this way in their daily dealings,
Much stronger than the expectations I have for security researchers, I wouldn't want my CEO to respond to them like a petty twat. Because when you piss off a researcher, just like the cyclist and the car. We can *both* lose https://gr.ht/i/both-lose.png
> I would want to give someone a chance to make amends instead of escalating, because this is not a playground and the stakes for the CEO are very real and potentially very damaging.
yeah, couldn't agree more... maybe you should raise your expectations for the CEO who's paid not to be a POS, and actually has a duty to protect users, instead of the random trying to stop bad things happening to people he doesn't know?
> I hope maybe we can agree, though, that with a few simple modifications to his approach, he is likely to reduce the probability of negative responses to the initial email. For example, he seems to already understand that people will take this email as a scam or sales attempt. But much is left to the imagination of the (uninformed) recipient about what the auth truly _does_ want. By filling in those blanks, the imagination need not be active.
It's not his responsibility to do any of that, that's the CEOs. Across all your replies, you defend the CEO like he's your brother. Hold *THEM* to the higher standard.
> someone tried to help him, he responded by making threats
My whole point is that he doesn't actually know what the researcher wants, saw it as a threat, and responded to it as if it were a threat.
> You're the first person to ever make any claim remotely close to saying any "researcher" has any kind of power.
Having the entirety of their application database including customer PII, possibly the capability to encrypt the database and extort the company with it, not to mention the possibility of other potentially undisclosed vulnerabilities, decidedly IS significant power over a company. That's how bad actors are able to use any combination of these things to make money.
> Much stronger than the expectations I have for security researchers, I wouldn't want my CEO to respond to them like a petty twat.
I agree whole-heartedly. As for the rest, we more or less agree, you just are putting the onus on the CEO. I also expect more out of a CEO. I just don't think that feedback is actually particularly constructive to the audience here at HN.
> I also expect more out of a CEO. I just don't think that feedback is actually particularly constructive.
Your attempts to put any onus on the researcher are actively harmful. No one should point finger at the researchers trying to help. We should all point fingers at the primary person who's able to prevent bad things happening. You haven't once attempted to put any responsibility on the CEO. This is the first time. You asked in another reply if everyone else is being dense; but you're the one blaming the researcher, did you stop to consider if everyone disagrees with you, that maybe you're the problem?
edit:
> My whole point is that he doesn't actually know what the researcher wants, saw it as a threat, and responded to it as if it were a threat.
Yeah, and doing that was gross negligence. There's a reason you're not allowed waive harms arising from gross negligence.
The CEO is not here, and will never, ever be here, so criticism of him is not constructive, further the author already criticized him and so do many comments here. It is plain to see he acted like an idiot, and no one thinks he is the hero here. That's why it's not constructive. Maybe my response is actively harmful, I don't know, that's not what I'm after, of course.
