I found Prezi's source code

http://blog.shubh.am/prezi-bug-bounty/

by psychboo • 13 years ago

712 236 13 years ago

blog.shubh.am

nezza-_-• 13 years ago

Bad judgement call on the site of Prezi imho. He didn't abuse it and notified them immediately after verifying his finding as it seems.

Vivtek4• 13 years ago

And they sat on the decision until he pestered them. Not good at all.

ddoolin• 13 years ago

"Out of scope". Wow. Even more worthwhile that such a huge out of scope bug was found. These companies seem to try anything to keep from paying bug bounties.

gnur• 13 years ago

To be fair, there was a scope set, and the author was fully aware of it:

I had spent a total of 2 hours sifting and crawling through their services which were in scope, but wanted to see if I could locate any other subdomains, with the assistance of google.

While I agree that he most certainly found a "bug" (perhaps flaw would be a better word), it was out of scope. And using credentials from an employee to log in is nearly always out of scope.

3JPLW2• 13 years ago

That said, he could have gone "gray-hat" and used the source to find in-scope bugs. Such a resource would be invaluable to an exploit author or bug bounty hunter.

gnu8• 13 years ago

There should be a database of these bounty programs that can tell you if a company pays or not, sort of like a credit bureau.

alexkus• 13 years ago

https://bugcrowd.com/list-of-bug-bounty-programs

colinbartlett• 13 years ago

There should be some neutral third party non-profit that adjudicates bug bounties so that security researchers don't need to worry that their efforts will go to waste.

Companies could sign on to using this third party and pay a fee and put up escrow for the service. This would motivate researchers to find bugs for those companies that utilize the service, knowing payment will be impartial.

wodow• 13 years ago

Do it!

terhechte• 13 years ago

That could be done with Bitcoin contracts, too.

err4nt3• 13 years ago

Bitcoin is much easier (and faster) to acquire than to liquidate. I'd rather be paid in cash.

DavidChouinard• 13 years ago

I agree, see Synack [1] (marketplace for bug bounties, with the bugs and rewards vetted by Synack). I think it's a huge opportunity.

[1] http://www.synack.com/

christianh• 13 years ago

A simple option is CrowdCurity - reward programs as a service. Private or public, dollars or bitcoin payments - everything setup and managed for the companies.

https://www.crowdcurity.com/

Disclosure: I'm co-founder of CrowdCurity

xerophtye4• 13 years ago

You know, you are just harming yourself this way. If you must show your stuff on HN, why not post it as a ShowHN?? why do this dishonorable thing to gain attention? IMO it actually harms you.

xerophtye4• 13 years ago

Fine fine, i'll play nice...

Ps: the idea is pretty cool. So is the implementation =) though how would you guys have handled if an issue like this occurs on your platform? A submitter submits a bug but the company refuses to pay for it citing "out of scope" ??

hablahaha• 13 years ago

"We're pretty sure your actions were taken in good faith". Ouch, their email response contained barely an iota of gratitude and it was almost on the verge of passing judgement on his character.

dutchbrit• 13 years ago

Finder should receive the highest bounty possible IMO.

frankblizzard• 13 years ago

a unicorn tear

eli7• 13 years ago

It was out of scope. The rules are pretty clear: http://prezi.com/bugbounty/ and he broke at least two of them.

And it seems like he knew it was out of scope when he submitted it too: "I had spent a total of 2 hours sifting and crawling through their services which were in scope, but wanted to see if I could locate any other subdomains..."

Now I think Prezi should probably have paid him anyway because that's a pretty boneheaded error and I'd be very grateful if someone politely pointed it out to me... but they aren't obligated to. You can put your pitchforks down.

nowayman2• 13 years ago

Sometimes people and companies have their heads stuck so far in procedures and policies that they can't see the forests from the trees.

The Finder provided tremendous value by discovering this issues and reporting it responsibly. He certainly should be rewarded with something more substantial than swag.

Would Prezi have preferred that the Finder just not report this issues?

eli7• 13 years ago

It's not like they got him on some legalistic technicality. The bug bounty clearly doesn't cover the bug he reported.

And I don't usually go looking for them, but if I come across a security problem (e.g. someone left login credentials unsecured in bitbucket) I would let them know because it's the right thing to do, not because I expect cash.

duiker101• 13 years ago

So because it was out of scope it means that it could not have harmed the company so he should have just left it there?

lmm2• 13 years ago

You're not entitled to a bounty just because you found a bug. Some companies offer these bounties and it's good that they do, but that doesn't mean every company is obliged to offer them, or that a company that offers bounties for some bugs is obliged to offer them for all bugs.

eli7• 13 years ago

Prezi never claimed they would pay you for anything that harms the company. Their rules are, I think, unusually clear and specific.

atmosx• 13 years ago

Exactly. Because it was out of scope, he should find a competitor and sell the access to the the source code!!!! :-P

woodchuck64• 13 years ago

"Now I think Prezi should probably have paid him anyway because that's a pretty boneheaded error and I'd be very grateful if someone politely pointed it out to me"

But Shubham did one additional thing, he unintentionally embarrassed a founder. That's the real reason he's not getting paid, everything else is a technicality...

eli7• 13 years ago

That sounds like pure conjecture.

danielweber2• 13 years ago

Good life lesson: don't be a dick.

randallsquared• 13 years ago

Wow, I hope you didn't send them your physical address after this. We often hear of companies sending the police after people trying to be helpful.

jwr• 13 years ago

I don't understand why companies start those bug bounties and later try to avoid paying out the rewards. If it were me, I'd book the reward amount as "spent" the minute I decided on a bug bounty hunt.

I think this is (yet another) lesson that participating in these kinds of bounty hunts is very risky and should only be done if the company is reputable (which this one apparently is not).

DougBTX• 13 years ago

How is this not reputable? They are pretty clear about when they will not sue people trying to hack their systems, a bounty is a bonus.

jcromartie• 13 years ago

Simply by logging in he could be thrown in jail. I hope some prosecutor doesn't get wind and decides to bring charges.

err4nt3• 13 years ago

Why is that? Weren't the login credentials posted publicly?

Heliosmaster• 13 years ago

If you leave your door open and someone enters without your knowledge, would you call the police?

oijaf888• 13 years ago

Which laws would apply?

foldr8• 13 years ago

In the US, the CFAA:

https://ilt.eff.org/index.php/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act_(...

Apparently neither Prezi nor the guy who found the login are American, so this particular law might not apply, but many other countries have similar laws.

daviddoran2• 13 years ago

I think they acted pretty fairly by pointing out that it's the logging in that they have issue with. Although it's not as satisfying, I think Shubham could have submitted the link and credentials to Prezi without actually accessing the repo. In particular, the report email contains the snippet "... I explored the nexus console to confirm that ..." and I can understand Prezi not wanting to encourage pen testers to explore their systems, even if they find them open to the world.

shawabawa32• 13 years ago

I think they acted pretty fairly

They absolutely didn't.

I don't get how there seems to be absolutely no human side to these cases.

Guy discovers critical vulnerability and could have completely fucked the company over. Instead he responsibly reports it, and he gets back a big fuck you. How can you possibly think that's fair? The fact that it's out of scope only means they should give him an out of scope reward - much higher!

Saying he could have not checked the credentials is a bit silly, because if the credentials were invalid (quite likely), it goes from CRITICAL to MINOR.

And isn't the entire point in bug bounties to encourage pen testers to explore your system? Sure, you don't really want them poking around your source control, but better that than black hats.

All of the above aside. They really couldn't spare $500 for someone who could have caused $millions of damage?

daviddoran2• 13 years ago

Guy discovers critical vulnerability and could have completely fucked the company over.

We all frequently have the opportunity to cause damage, but we don't get rewarded for _not_ doing so. I think Prezi may have given the cash reward if the pentester hadn't logged in and browsed around. They probably don't want to set a precedent (take the data you find, get cash reward).

... because if the credentials were invalid (quite likely), it goes from CRITICAL to MINOR.

Agreed, but either way the pentester won't be able to fix it. All he can do is report his findings.

... but better that than black hats.

Agreed, but if you stray outside the terms of the bounty then you're no longer guaranteed the rewards. I think the pentester tried his best to report responsibly but I don't think Prezi are obligated to give the reward, based on the terms.

6cxs2hd62• 13 years ago

"Anyways, they did try and get it right, by emailing me an apology as well as responding to my constructive criticism. This blog post, is by no means attempting to discourage people from participating from Prezi’s bug bounty, but rather just a blog post about how finding Prezi’s source code was not eligible for their bug bounty."

Passive aggressive much?

I think he should have got a bounty -- if not the official one, then a special, bigger one. However, this is an odd way to conclude the post. "Oh, I'm not at all trying to discourage others for participating, oh no no". Of course he's trying to discourage others. With justification. I don't get it.

RyanZAG4• 13 years ago

Probably doesn't want anybody pointing legal fingers at him for harming Prezi or something.

6cxs2hd62• 13 years ago

Oh I see. You mean like, "Here's my experience; I decided to stop participating. But I'm not advising you to. Offer not valid in all areas. Yada yada..."

ganeumann• 13 years ago

I think he's just being humble: he disagrees with their policy, but isn't claiming that everyone else should just because he does--make your own decision. Fair enough.

nikcub• 13 years ago

Exhibit A of why having a scope for bug bounties is a terrible idea. What is the point of testing your app for esoteric bugs when your entire source code and passwords can be Google dorked?

nowayman2• 13 years ago

Exhibit A of why having a scope for bug bounties is a terrible idea.

Case closed.

mtrimpe• 13 years ago

Or for expanding the scope when you realize it's obviously too narrow.

girvo4• 13 years ago

Ignoring the bounty thing for a second, their email response "we think it was in good faith" seems... Not right to me. Am i reading that weird or did they seem pissed about him finding something like that?

He plugged a huge issue for them, and they screw him over due to "scope"... That's their choice, but it still seems bureaucratic to me.

rtkwe• 13 years ago

They're talking about viewing the source code and testing the login. The author could have just reported the leaked credentials and not logged on. Testing them especially since it wasn't part of the program falls under potentially extremely malicious.

jrochkind1• 13 years ago

What this guy describes doing (using accidentally exposed credentials to log in to somewhere) is quite a bit more than what other people have been successfully prosecuted for violations of the CFAA for. I'd be careful.

Vivtek4• 13 years ago

You mean that Prezi, a Hungarian company, would prosecute the author, an Australian, under an American law?

The Internet isn't just something happening in the United States.

kelvin0• 13 years ago

Oh, someone should tell the NSA that.

foldr8• 13 years ago

It's a fair point, but a lot of other countries have similarly strict laws.

shabble• 13 years ago

One wonders if he wouldn't have been better[1] off downloading their app source, and using that to find 'in-scope' vulns much easier than everyone else. They might catch on if you're too effective though. Maybe a spot of plausible parallel construction.

[1] Except for the totally illegal aspect, obviously. And the not-telling-them-their-source-is-open-to-the-world bit.

thrillgore• 13 years ago

Dude needs to lawyer up right now. Doing the remote login has been seen as a violation of the CFAA.

jpatokal• 13 years ago

Prezi the company is in Hungary, not the US, and intra.prezi.com (70.38.38.86) seems to be in Montreal, Canada.

Vivtek4• 13 years ago

And the dude in question is in Australia.

None of this happened in the United States at all - it's amazing! Non-Americans also have businesses!

eranation• 13 years ago

So let me get it straight, someone, aware of their bounty program or not, found their closed SOURCE CODE, and is getting a T-Shirt? How much do you value your own source code? at least 10,000$ right? ;) (probably much, much more) who cares about the scope, if someone found my wallet on the street which had 10,000$ in it, I would give them a bit more than a T-Shirt, I would buy them a whole wardrobe.

Think if someone found the source code for Windows / Office / Photoshop, without any bounty program, and responsibly disclosed it to the respective companies. If he didn't walk away with nice amount of money, he could easily just put it in the nearest torrent site* without even feeling guilty (*this is wrong, and illegal, don't do it)

girvo4• 13 years ago

If you found Adobes source code, they'd probably sic the cops onto you.

mimog4• 13 years ago

Nexus isn't a source code repository. What you found was their internal artifact server, i.e compiled jar files.

ollysb• 13 years ago

If you look inside those compiled jar files you'll find that the code is pretty easy to read. It's certainly enough to find vulnerabilities.

mimog4• 13 years ago

But.. that can be said about any java (jar) programs class files. It is also not difficult to decipher the asm of a disassembled exe file, but to equate that with finding the source code of the program would be disingenuous.

brown9-22• 13 years ago

Assuming they are building in Java, it's pretty common to publish source JARs to the repository along with the compiled classes.

mimog4• 13 years ago

I don't know of enough places that use Nexus to say whether it is common practice or not, however we do not bundle jar files with sources at my place of employment where we do use Nexus. If we wanted to bundle sources into jar that would have to be done so explicitly, as it would require something like mavens source plugin. In fact in maven the standard seems to be to include sources in a separate jar, if one wants to publish the sources i.e. again requiring explicit choice and configuration.

if_by_whisky• 13 years ago

Why not offer him the bounty in exchange for signing an NDA? If they're actually worried about not setting a precedent..

tbastos• 13 years ago

It would have been easy for him to steal the source code and blackmail them for bitcoins... companies are encouraging others to turn to the dark side by not giving fair rewards. I'm pretty sure there are lots of smart people living in difficult economic conditions who will now think twice before reporting a serious vulnerability at the risk of an unfair reward. If Synack can solve this it would be a major win for everyone.

Yhippa• 13 years ago

Are bug bounties roughly the market value of security holes in software? I wonder if this guy or less scrupulous developers could make more for them on the black market?

girvo4• 13 years ago

If the exploits are for the right targets, you bet they're worth more on the black market, but with great reward comes great risk: now you're doing something that can possibly get you jail time.

ansible• 13 years ago

So the question I haven't seen asked in this thread is: Why is anyone still using something other than SSH to connect to their version control system? Why is any software still using usernames and passwords stored in plain text anywhere? With SSH, you create SSH key pairs and set a passphrase on the private key... which shouldn't end up in any public place, ever.

brown9-22• 13 years ago

Well the credentials in the properties file shouldn't have ended up in a public place ever. So if you replace username/password with a key, a human can still accidentally publicize the key.

pccampbell• 13 years ago

Having stringent terms for a bug bounty program basically means you're trying to get the community to do your team's job. Agree with @nikcub - it should be wide open, because finding this out was huge, no matter how "simple" it may have been.

Systemic33• 13 years ago

What is the gain in setting up a "Can you hack us?" and then make some parts out of scope?! It's not like a black hat hacker would go "Oh well, this isn't their usual domain, so It's not fair" -.-

The only thing this causes is exceptionally bad PR, or even worse for the company; someone just got access and you don't know. Access to source code is like the gold mine of finding an exploit, because you will know exactly where a vulnerability is, and you won't even have to blindly test it.

raverbashing• 13 years ago

Exactly

In the end, everything matters

An out-of-band attack in the datacenter, VPS? Compromise of a developer machine to get inside the network? Social engineering?

in the end, if it caused loss or extraction of service/data, it doesn't matter how it's done.

gabemart2• 13 years ago

What is the gain in setting up a "Can you hack us?" and then make some parts out of scope?! It's not like a black hat hacker would go "Oh well, this isn't their usual domain, so It's not fair" -.-

This suggests that anything less than perfect security is worthless. Which is better, having pentesters look for vulnerabilities in 50% of your surface area, or having pentesters look for vulnerabilities in 0% of your surface area?

Setting up a bug bounty program has a cost, both in terms of processing the data submitted and in potential disruption of the provision of services. This cost will differ from attack vector to attack vector. Having pentesters dress up as utility workers and attempt to sneak into your company offices to install keyloggers will have an extremely high cost in terms of disruption. This cost may be higher than the potential benefit of learning about the company's vulnerabilities in this area.

There are also some attack vectors that may be problematic to allow pentesters to probe due to third-party contracts, data protection laws, compliance issues, etc.

You may disagree with the particular areas a company chooses to define as out-of-scope, but to claim that having any areas off-limits renders the whole enterprise pointless is reductive and incorrect.

r-s• 13 years ago

This suggests that anything less than perfect security is worthless. Which is better, having pentesters look for vulnerabilities in 50% of your surface area, or having pentesters look for vulnerabilities in 0% of your surface area?

Is this supposed to be rhetorical?

Say you buy a really good front door for your house, and forget to put a back door on your house. I would say that testing the security of the front door is a waste of time.

toddmorey• 13 years ago

Why even have a limited scope on bounty programs? (This is not the only time I've seen that.) Is it only to limit payout? Are their legal reasons? For example, their client tablet applications are ineligible. I just don't get the reasoning.

In their position, I'd pay him the $500 and remove the idea of scope. I'm just curious if there's some counter-argument I'm not thinking about.

eli7• 13 years ago

Well of course there have to be rules. Does spear phishing employees email accounts and using their password to access control panels count as a bug? I bet I could hack a lot of companies that way. Does being susceptible to a massive DDoS count as a bug? Cutting power to the building?

I can't speak for Prezi, but it seems like they want people to test the security of their app, but not of their employees or back office infrastructure. Maybe you disagree, but it's their bounty and I think those are fair rules.

davorak7• 13 years ago

A simple rule of thumb seems to be is, does it cause a problem if all the bug bounty hunters take the same approach.

Phishing employees, DDoSing definitely cause problems if a large number, or one, of bug bounty hunters take on the approach.

It seems even if all the bug bounty hunters searched for and found http://intra.prezi.com:8081, preformed google searches and tested found logins by hand, no problem would result for prezi.

So it seems like Phishing employees and DDoSing are inherently different then the approach in the post.

tantalor5• 13 years ago

Does spear phishing employees email accounts and using their password to access control panels count as a bug?

Yes, because those control panels should require 2FA, so password-only access is a bug.

fleitz3• 13 years ago

Yes, it does. Customers do not care how the intruder got in only that they got in. Spearfishing is an attack that makes the company look dumb. Leaving the credentials for your source code on the web makes you look even dumber.

To qualify for the bug bounty he should have inserted code into their codebase and then exploited that. Fuck these guys.

nostrademons• 13 years ago

Large tech companies routinely run pentest exercises against themselves that involve phishing their own employees. Good security has to include educating the human element as well: if you have great technical security but all you have to do to get in is ask an employee their password, you've lost.

Large companies also invest significantly in protection against massive DDoS and power cuts to the building, along with drills for earthquakes and zombie apocalypses.

RyanZAG4• 13 years ago

Having these kinds of rules on bug bounty programs is excellent for hackers though.

If I wanted to hack Prezi I now have a lot of very useful information.

1) Prezi is not interested in blocking access to people who already have the ID of the presentation. This is good news since it means I can enumerate the IDs and get access to private presentations - some of which could have useful private data.

2) Prezi is not interested in blocking attacks which enumerate user ids, etc. This is great news - I can get a list of likely email addresses to use later.

3) Prezi disallows any forms of attacks that utilize outside services. That means that while Prezi's core systems have now been nicely screened, other systems are going to be wide open because nobody has bothered to test them properly. This works well with the list of email addresses from above and possibly data obtained from the private presentations above.

EDIT: Just want to add that this shows a very large misconception in the corporate security world. Security is not something you can get a "B - good effort" for. Security is all encompassing. You either get an A+ and the hacker does not get in, or you get an F and your data is gone. There is no middle ground. Putting parts of your security off-limit means you shouldn't have even bothered to begin with.

dllthomas9• 13 years ago

'Just want to add that this shows a very large misconception in the corporate security world. Security is not something you can get a "B - good effort" for. Security is all encompassing. You either get an A+ and the hacker does not get in, or you get an F and your data is gone. There is no middle ground.'

That's not true. There are substantially different levels of security required depending on the expected resources an attacker can devote to attacking you, and you can be better or worse at resiliency and recovery (where dollars and hours very much form a continuum).

nraynaud• 13 years ago

It might simply be that they want to get some bugs first, then others later?

droopybuns• 13 years ago

I want to address your edit:

I think your post also shows a very large misconception in the disclosure world.

It sounds like you're saying that bug bounties should be a free-for-all.

Are you recognizing that these companies often already have security programs in place? Do you also concede that the companies may already be aware of where their vulnerabilities rest?

Large organizations know things that you don't when you're submitting bugs to a reward program. Constraints on a program help them focus on areas where they know they have unknowns. It also helps them deal with situations where they know fixes are scheduled, but not currently implemented.

How are things going to play out if you took the time to discover a bug and the company told you they're not going to pay for it because they already know about it and already have a fix scheduled?

The average 'researcher' is going to be pissed. You don't know if they're telling the truth, you put in your valuable time into finding the bug, and you're wondering why you should put in your time next time.

Rules on a bug bounty program do not necessarily exist to constrain the reporters to only the "known strong areas". They're there to help avoid situations that might lead them to quite reasonably ask why they bothered to try to do a responsible disclosure in the first place.

columbo• 13 years ago

I can see why they would want to set up rules instead of allowing anything to happen.

For example, if I was to set up a bounty I really wouldn't want people at random contacting current or former clients trying to phish for passwords; I completely understand this is a threat, but I would want to personally manage something like that.

With that said, if something like this was found I'd pay the person. There's a point where you just recognize "Oh shit, that's a big hole, pay the man.".

jarrett• 13 years ago

Your point is good. I'd solve the problem like this: Instead of whitelisting certain kinds of attacks and parts of the company for bounty eligibility, I'd create a very limited blacklist. This blacklist would consist of actions which, despite being good-faith security research, would cause unacceptable damage to the company. For example, blacklisted actions might include:

- Deleting the company's data.

- Stealing from customers.

- DDoSing the site.

If you find a bug by taking any of the blacklisted actions, you get no bounty.

This approach protects the company without unduly limiting the thoroughness of the review.

jbverschoor2• 13 years ago

Well, this social engineering is what got kevin mitnick in jail

dpeck• 13 years ago

Why even have a limited scope on bounty programs?

Theres a few reasons, most of them having to do with managing day to day operations and keeping the business operating, etc. It'd be great to have everything wide open and and getting hammered until anything resembling a vulnerability is found, but that is sadly not really practical in most businesses.

Most bounty hunters aren't using precision. Without a doubt some are very meticulous, but a great many will throw every possible tool/option at their disposal at an application. This is great if it finds bugs, but it can also cause a lot of problems if their script generates a few hundred thousand help desk tickets that put your support/sales team way behind at a crucial times.

Theres also a lot of politics thats come into play. A lot of times these bounty programs have a split fanbase within company management and anything that interrupts the business, causes "bad" PR, and such will be quickly pointed out as reasons why the program should be discontinued.

Bug bounties != pen tests. Penetration testing takes a lot more for teams to work with and get something out of, and honestly a lot of organizations don't get anything out of a pentest. They either get a vuln assessment that a scanner jockey exported to pdf and showed up in a sports coat to present, or if they get an actual pen test by some of the people really doing it they get their ass handed to them so badly they have no idea what to do.

Bounties are to help a company understand the problems they have and get them fixed. Pen testing is about seeing how well you respond when everything goes to hell around you. Smaller orgs being constantly beat down isn't going to let them get a lot done to do anything except put out fires. (beware, physical world analogy ahead) Learning to defend yourself involves working with an instructor, and constantly getting better, not paying someone to whip your ass daily until you can't stand. Some people can work through the latter and become very well adapted to mitigating the attacks, but most will just get beat down and quit.

Maybe Prezi was trying to take a stand by not paying the guy for being out of scope, and thats fine they're certainly dealing with the consequences of that decision, but its completely understandable as to why they'd want some sort of scope to begin with.

mpeg2• 13 years ago

I think it's ridiculous, I've reported similar "out of scope" bugs and got no bounty for them.

Even worse are the companies that DON'T state any kind of bug bounty or instructions to report a security bug...

I found a data leak issue in one of the web properties of an S&P 500 company last week and I'm not sure if I should report it, because I feel that if misunderstood it could have negative consequences for me; and not having a security contact means I can't be sure the person I'm talking to understands my motives.

kitsune_• 13 years ago

Sorry, I have some problems with this attitude of expecting a reward for each and every action that benefits other human beings. Whatever happened to altruism?

azernik• 13 years ago

Often this is to keep from having to pay out for bugs you can't fix (the most common things to be out of scope are third party services). In this case the problem was actually on Prezi, but I imagine the rule was written to exclude bugs in their version control system from the bounty program.

tlrobinson• 13 years ago

The only reason I see is if you provide immunity in exchange for following the rules you don't want to allow actions that can degrade your service like DDoSing, online brute forcing, vulnerability scanners, etc.

That doesn't really apply in this case though.

swalkergibson• 13 years ago

I suspect that the biggest reason is that this amazingly gigantic, critical vulnerability was so ridiculously easy to find that they cannot stand the idea of paying someone a large amount of money to "fix" it, when the fix is to simply deny access to that service from outside a LAN or whatever. Prezi thought that they found all of the easy ones. Not quite.

scotty79• 13 years ago

I hope he downloaded their whole sourcode. That should make locating in-scope bugs much easier.

cordite• 13 years ago

I don't know about you, but I'm not about to proof read someone else's source code for a system I don't even know.

Ensorceled3• 13 years ago

I'm willing to do it for $500 a bug :-)

j_s• 13 years ago

Break the rules, don't get the money. Surprise!!?? After reading the entire email thread, I think Prezi comes out better off than the OP:

Actually we're continuously thinking on your case and struggling on the right move. On one hand, your finding was very useful for us, and we learnt a lesson from it. On the other hand, intra.prezi.com is out of scope, and by using the credentials to log in you violated the terms and conditions of our bounty program.

...

In the past we turned down the bounty request of people finding issues in out-of-scope services. We had a lot internal discussions about your request: if we were about to pay, we couldn't justify our out-of-scope decisions for anyone else.

jessaustin• 13 years ago

...if we were about to pay, we couldn't justify our out-of-scope decisions for anyone else.

What, are we in kindergarten? Does Prezi not have managers entrusted with taking decisions? They can run their bounty program however they want.

That they choose to run it in this fashion sends several messages in addition to the obvious, "we are obnoxious miserly prats". While hackers in white hats might be hearing "concentrate your efforts elsewhere", those in black hear exactly the opposite message. Many people who might previously have admired Prezi for their innovation and paid them money for their services, have now heard a reason to find other means to create presentations. Potential acquirers and potential hires have heard that this company's management finds running a bounty program challenging.

EDIT: Maybe I'm being too harsh. Apparently this is a largely Hungarian company; it's possible there are cultural misunderstandings in play. From a (perhaps cliched?) American perspective, however, following the rules is less important than accomplishing the goals of the program.

Raphmedia• 13 years ago

So, the message they are sending is "if you find an 'out of scope' bug, sell it on the blackmarket because even if it could wreck havoc, we won't pay you for it."

Nice, nice.

edem2• 13 years ago

My problem here is that the OP did not mask the names. Actually he did quite the opposite: he bolded them. This is no good. I can imagine the dev searching for his name in google and finding that post.

infosec_au5• 13 years ago

Hi, I'm the author of the blog post. I've masked last names from the post and PDF, hopefully meaning that they wont be indexed with that post. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

edem2• 13 years ago

Thanks, it is much better now.

darkbot• 13 years ago

This is definitely out of the scope of their "bughunt", although I think the guy should be rewarded anyway.

But I'm also quite upset with the fact that OP is outing the dev. Everybody makes mistakes, no need to out any individual developer because OP is pissed at the company management.

infosec_au5• 13 years ago

I realised 2-3 hours after my blog post, and rushed to redact the last names from the post + pdf. I have now also redacted last names from the screenshots. Sorry about that! But thank you for letting me know. :)

vertis• 13 years ago

FYI, You can still see the url of the user on bitbucket and from there still get a name.

kyberias• 13 years ago

Why on earth would you ridicule the developer that made the mistake publicly? That is just utterly idiotic and irresponsible.

tantalor5• 13 years ago

The rules seem to allow a reward for this kind of vulnerability,

What’s up with other vulnerabilities? ... we will consider if they are eligible for a bounty or not

What is the bounty? ... we will increase it at our discretion for distinctly creative or severe bugs

Prezi explicitly designed the rules to be flexible, so they could give the award in this case, but decided not to because "intra.prezi.com is out of scope".

The rules about scope appear to exclude vulnerabilities in 3rd-party services such as AWS, not backends, e.g., the backends for our iPad and desktop applications are in scope

http://prezi.com/bugbounty/

mankypro• 13 years ago

Silly PR move on their part. They should've given this guy some shush money to prevent this (now) PR nightmare. Shoddy security practices, shoddy marketing and PR. Tsk, tsk.

psychboo• 13 years ago

I'm noticing yet another instance of HN modifying post titles. I originally titled this post "Finding Prezi's Source Code" specifically because I did not write the article. Now the post title reads (at first glance) as if I'm taking credit for the author's hard work.

meowface2• 13 years ago

So, you found Prezi's source code huh? How does it feel?

(I kid.)

welder• 13 years ago

Both titles are misleading. The title should be:

"I found Prezi's client-side source code"

lifeformed2• 13 years ago

The redacted names are kind of pointless, because they're not redacted in the images of the emails.

infosec_au5• 13 years ago

I redacted their names from the post and PDF only, to prevent Google from indexing and associating the blog post with them.

By doing this, future employers hopefully will not see the blog post when searching their names.

lifeformed2• 13 years ago

Oh I see, that makes sense.

sophacles2• 13 years ago

My $.02 on this is that Prezi should have not awarded the researcher the cash under the bug bounty program, however they should have given him a reward anyway. Awarding the money as part of the bug bounty wouldn't be fair play under the rules of that program, but he potentially saved them a TON of money and problems. As such, he should be rewarded somehow. Further, had he been less than honest, he may have been able to leverage the code itself to find more than one $500 bug.

I think Prezi should have done something like this:

* Acknowledge the problem and the seriousness of it

* offer a reward, but not under the bounty, just a "thanks"

* Have him sign an NDA about the source itself, and the specific details of the issue, and the amount of the award

* Allowed him to write up the experience should he choose (good PR for prezi)

* (maybe) offered a contract for the researcher to find more such issues, or announced a different program as a result of it.

The reasoning behind doing it outside the program is that Prezi needs to walk a fine line between saying "just attack everything and we'll pay you!", "we are too process driven for our own good", or they end up getting bad press from people who tried to follow the rules not getting anything, but cheaters are getting paid.

AGuyNamedChris• 13 years ago

Further, had he been less than honest, he may have been able to leverage the code itself to find more than one $500 bug.

I'm not sure I agree with this particular argument, it essentially reduces the concept of a bug bounty to blackmail. This mindset is not a constructive one.

The tester should get rewarded for their hard work and helpfulness, not the decision to follow the law.

Ensorceled3• 13 years ago

I think he meant scan the source code for security issues and then report those bugs one by one ...

oskarth• 13 years ago

Presumably the goal of the bounty was to make Prezi more secure. OP found a serious security hole, without using a "violent" approach (spear phishing, cutting the power, etc). OP reported this security hole.

In a legal sense, they aren't obligated to pay. There are a lot of legal loop holes. By not paying for something that they obviously want to know, they are discouraging other security researchers to disclose "out of scope" holes. To what end?

If you succeed, we will give you cash. That’s right; we’ll pay cold hard currency into your bank account. Think of it as a thank you. (Prezi bug bounty site)

I guess the right way to read this is as a (legal, of course) fuck you.

jneen• 13 years ago

"...and all I got was this stupid T-shirt"

JoeAltmaier• 13 years ago

A bounty program is to get 'white hat' hackers to find and report vulnerabilities. The bounty is small, nowhere near what an extortionist could charge to keep the source secret for instance.

By paying nothing for what could have been sold back to them for a huge sum, they may disaffect hackers, who could do them real harm. You become a sucker to volunteer for their 'bounty', and decide to turn to the dark side instead.

I think Prezi are very silly to be splitting hairs about this. They stuck the stick in the hornets' nest, now they are arguing with the hornets.

3223f• 13 years ago

This sends a worrying message to others - in future don't bother reporting vulnerabilities to Prezi, just obtain the source and sell exploits to the highest bidder.

It's no wonder security researchers turn to black hat methods, when they're treated/compensated like shit for their effort. "Swag" in return for your source code? What a joke

eyepulp• 13 years ago

"It's no wonder security researchers turn to black hat methods" -- this seems such a binary and pointless reduction of the options available. Yes, Prezi could have turned this into a PR and security win, and failed to capitalize; but the assumption that now the only option for a security researcher is to turn to the dark side is... pretty ridiculous.

Those who "turn to blackhat methods" do so because they want to make money and don't place a premium on the potential moral/legal/ethical issues at play in how they're doing it. They make a choice, irrespective of the shortsightedness on display by Prezi here. Don't conflate the two behaviors.

rohitv• 13 years ago

Here's the cached version of the commit: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...

The Nexus Repositories URL (http://intra.prezi.com:8081/nexus/content/repositories) is still not restricted

eyeareque• 13 years ago

Bug bounty program or not, I would be pretty afraid to try to log into a source code repository without authorization to do so. It seems like a lawyer could really go after you for doing something like this.

jbverschoor2• 13 years ago

I say release the code in the wild! Where it already was

IanDrake• 13 years ago

Anyone else notice that "Adam <Redacted>"'s full name and contact info are not redacted in the screen print of the email?

infosec_au5• 13 years ago

I removed the last names from the blog posts and from the PDF, as they could be indexed by Google. I have now also removed them from the screenshots. Thanks. My intention was not to negatively affect these developers careers.

_puk• 13 years ago

Commendable, though you probably need to redact the bitbucket link in the screenshot too as that has Adam <redacted>'s full name as owner of the repo.

Where does it end?!

icambron• 13 years ago

This would be unethical and I would never do it, but the interesting scenario would have been if he'd secretly pulled the source code and used his access to it to find a bunch more bugs. He would look like a genius and pocket a bunch more money.

supercanuck• 13 years ago

Seems like acting nefarious is more profitable than doing the right thing.

SeanDav• 13 years ago

The guy found and brought to their attention a simple exploit that could have seen valuable source code released into the wild and the guys at Prezi are debating about paying him a bounty?

Does this mean that Prezi do not value their code and don't believe there would have been any significant loss if that code became public?

Are they saying that the next person that discovers serious flaws in their security should just keep quiet - or sell it on to some hacker, where at least they can make some money from it?

Just what message are the Prezi people trying to send by nit-picking over $500?

joering2• 13 years ago

What an asshole approach [1]. Please, next time someone find a critical bug in the system, don't bother emailing them; just post it on Twitter.

[1] http://i.imgur.com/v3W9FD6.png

SideburnsOfDoom• 13 years ago

The picture says "intra.prezzi.com is out of scope". Because yeah, real attackers would definitely not go looking for a back door instead.

phaed2• 13 years ago

We should start an independent bounty in btc for whoever can find and release their sourcecode into the public. I can donate 1 btc to the cause.

pepe_kriek• 13 years ago

Seems like Prezi has changed its mind about not paying. Prezi being a Hungarian startup made a buzz in the local media with this story and one of the leader news site reached out to them and got this reply: "Prezi: Hibáztunk és fizetni fogunk" witch means: "We made a mistake, we will pay"

They also said that they will release a blog post and they will change the bounty program, so mistakes like this will not happen again (hopefully)

chatman• 13 years ago

Prezi deserves to be boycotted for cheating Shubham out of his bounty based on stupid "out of scope" excuse.

If cracking an internal service is possible, a bug exploiting it should be within scope of any bounty program.

d0m• 13 years ago

One trick to avoid stupidities like this is to tell them what you found, but not how.

How much is worth the vulnerability of having access to all your source code. Just ping me if you're interested.

veszig• 13 years ago

Here's the response from Prezi http://engineering.prezi.com/blog/2013/12/03/a-bug-in-the-bu...

prawn• 13 years ago

Don't worry about the bounty, here, have swag that freely advertises our company. Weak. Why should anyone put up with that?

Pay him something outside the bug bounty program. Easy and cheap solution that could've avoided all this mess.

halacsy• 13 years ago

I'm hp co-founder and CTO of prezi. We learn from our mistakes, we have changed the program: To improve the program from now on we will reward bug hunters who find bugs outside of the scope provided that they do not violate our users’ information and that their report triggers us to improve our code base. We will also retroactively check to see if other reports found issues that fall into this category. More info at engineering.prezi.com/blog/2013/12/03/a-bug-in-the-bugbounty/

agrias• 13 years ago

This should be up-voted some more so people can see the resolution. I'm glad you guys decided to reward the bug hunter for his time as well as provide a response.

buremba• 13 years ago

The main point is the thing that OP found is really important for Prezi. I don't really understand why they have to figure out whether the vulnerability is in "the scope", or not.

infosec_au5• 13 years ago

Hi, I just thought I would update everyone on my experience and the last 12 hours.

At the time in which I found the bug and was not awarded for it, I was quite upset, evident from my tone in the email in which I decided that I did not want to receive any of their "swag", but rather give them some constructive criticism.

I wasn't expecting the blog post to get as noticed as it did, but as it has, I was able to observe great points on both sides of the argument of whether or not I should be received the bug bounty. These discussions were definitely required as they brought out some important issues with bug bounties today and how security issues should really be dealt with.

Prezi, has now both apologised to me and also have offered to pay me for my findings. I have updated my blog post to show this, as well as the emails exchanged between us. I'm glad that it ended this way - all within the last 12 hours.

Initially, I did not redact the developers names, and after the blog post became I had to rush to make sure that I had removed them from all places which were indexed by Google. My intention was not to negatively affect the careers of the Prezi developers affected from my findings.

I thank everyone here, and generally on the internet, for looking closer into my findings.

Thank you, Shubham

thekevan• 13 years ago

Didn't he not find a bug, but found company resources that had not been secured properly?

jasonlmk• 13 years ago

In case anyone missed it: Prezi finally decided to pay him the bounty.

Still a bad move to have denied him the bounty in the first place, but good to see that they're listening to the outrage.

Fuxy• 13 years ago

This policy of limiting security assessments/bug bounties to only certain things is really stupid.

Do you really think that any extremely motivated hacker would just stick to the arbitrary terms you set.

He will do whatever it takes to get in and by limiting security research you're making yourself vulnerable in other areas not defined in that assessment request.

toryt• 13 years ago

good article

I found Prezi's source code

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