[AusNOG] Optus Hack
Jorji Costava
ausnog at arstotzka.su
Tue Sep 27 22:44:13 AEST 2022
Hi Giles,
Don't even need to ask yourself "what if" as it already happened back in
the early days. Though the issue was XSS and so nowhere near as serious
as Optus' screw up but still inexcusable in this or the previous decade.
When the person who found this attempted to responsibly disclose it to
the government, he hit a giant brick wall.
Here's the blog article
https://nikcub.me/posts/multiple-vulnerabilities-in-mygov-australian-government
and subsequent press coverage
https://www.smh.com.au/technology/revealed-serious-flaws-in-mygov-site-exposed-millions-of-australians-private-information-20140514-zrczw.html
The sad part is that as poorly as Optus has handled user info, I've seen
worse and frankly I'm amazed that one company I had the displeasure of
working with a number of years ago hasn't suffered something similar.
They kept even more PII than Optus (if you can believe that!) and did an
appalling job of securing it for the 100s of thousands of unfortunate
souls in their DB.
I don't know what the answer is though. If you want to see a mature
digital ID system, look at Sweden where they have something called
"BankID" which is a similar concept except administered by the banks and
only available to residents with a personnummer (similar to a tax file
number). It's a system that is great for those who are born into it or
have gained access via long term residency, but if you're on the
outside, it makes everything extremely cumbersome as basically every
company asks for it.
On 27/09/2022 11:48 am, Giles Pollock wrote:
> Had the same thought, and it's good in principle, until you get that
> obnoxious little thought creeping into your head "yeah... but what if
> MyGov got hacked too?"
>
> I suspect we'll end up with something akin to that down the track, as
> the information already exists across multiple government databases by
> law anyway. Might get interesting for non citizens though?
>
> (It probably will wind up all the sovcit types too who will start
> throwing around their favourite catchphrases - NWO, world government,
> UN control, etc)
>
> On Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 1:40 PM jay binks <jaybinks at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> mmm I was just bouncing something like this around in my head.
>
> In a perfect world, you could utilise MYGov infrastructure...
>
> Carriers could get a UUID that represents a "Know your customer"
> Data validation that occurred between carriers and "MyGov", where
> the customer was MFA prompted (with the MyGov ID service) to say
> "Confirm you want to identify yourself to XXXX".
>
> Then the carrier would only be required to retain that UUID for
> the MFA Verified auth transaction.
> (and be explicitly instructed NOT to retain PII other than an
> email address to send invoices)
>
> Anyways... back to the real world.
>
>
> On Tue, 27 Sept 2022 at 13:06, Nick Adams <ausnog at narkov.com> wrote:
>
> See the "Australia Card"[1] for why the Federal government
> probably couldn't provide central identification/auth
> services. It is politically very challenging...despite the
> obvious benefits it would provide.
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Card
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Nick Adams
>
> On Tue, 27 Sep 2022, at 12:39 PM, Michael Kahl wrote:
>> Is there any legal obligation to store sensitive ID
>> information in its original form? Storing a hashed version
>> only would be sufficient to prove the details had been
>> collected and verify any future ID verification requirements
>> without actually retaining the sensitive data.
>>
>> Separately, should the government provide an opt in two
>> factor ID verification service for critical services such as
>> telco, utilities, banking, etc? There are privacy concerns,
>> however if implemented correctly they wouldn't be collecting
>> any further information than what they legally have access to
>> now.
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 11:12 AM Nathan Brookfield
>> <Nathan.Brookfield at iperium.com.au> wrote:
>>
>> They’re legally obligated to retain it but why it’s on
>> the API and why it’s not encrypted.
>>
>> Looking at the data some fields are hashed and then
>> repeated in the bloody clear :(
>>
>> On 27 Sep 2022, at 11:02, glenn.satchell at uniq.com.au wrote:
>>
>> My understanding was that the data included the 100
>> points of ID info. Why are they retaining this? Surely
>> after confirming the 100 points there only needs to be a
>> record "100 points provided"=true and not retain the
>> actual details. This goes back to only keeping the
>> private data you need.
>>
>> regards,
>> Glenn
>>
>> On 2022-09-27 10:49, Damien Gardner Jnr wrote:
>> > Personally, I find putting Authentication on my API
>> endpoints to be a
>> > FANTASTIC first step towards API security. And then
>> not even using
>> > public IP addresses in test environments is a pretty
>> good second
>> > step.. </onlyhalfsarcasticherewhydoesthiskeephappening>
>> > On Tue, 27 Sept 2022 at 10:46, Bevan Slattery
>> <bevan at slattery.net.au>
>> > wrote:
>> >> Hi everyone,
>> >> Obviously a big week in telco and cybersecurity. As
>> part of my work
>> >> I am on the Australian Cyber Security Industry
>> Advisory Committee as
>> >> an industry representative.
>> >> I am keen to look at opening up a dialogue with more
>> and more telco,
>> >> DC and Cloud CISO’s on what they are doing around this
>> issue and
>> >> looking to take a proactive step towards best practice
>> on customer
>> >> data and system security.
>> >> There will be some pretty serious consequences of this
>> hack on the
>> >> industry and importantly we need to make sure we are
>> as best placed
>> >> to help each other continually increase in security
>> posture through
>> >> best practice, but also working with each other as an
>> industry.
>> >> Are people keen on having a online/VC session sometime
>> in the next
>> >> few weeks where like-minded industry participants get
>> together and
>> >> discuss security, retention, encryption, threat
>> detection etc.? If
>> >> so, just ping me directly and if there is enough
>> interest I will
>> >> send out an invitation to the list for a call.
>> >> Cheers
>> >> [b]
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >> AusNOG at ausnog.net
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>> > --
>> > Damien Gardner Jnr
>> > VK2TDG. Dip EE. GradIEAust
>> > rendrag at rendrag.net - http://www.rendrag.net/
>> > --
>> > We rode on the winds of the rising storm,
>> > We ran to the sounds of thunder.
>> > We danced among the lightning bolts,
>> > and tore the world asunder
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> > AusNOG at ausnog.net
>> > https://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
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>
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>
>
> --
> Sincerely
>
> Jay
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