PhpMyAdmin Project Successfully Completes Security Audit

Workbench has some great features that I can't do without, but when it comes to just browsing around a DB I much prefer PhpMyAdmin's interface over it. That said I haven't really tried any of the other offerings in the space, so I expect that's a big part of my opinion.

I wish NCC Group had been given more time, since phpMyAdmin is nigh-ubiquitous in legacy PHP apps.

For example:

https://github.com/phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin/blob/4cd8ab8a957a23...

Despite setting several security-related session configuration values, they don't touch the cookie entropy fields, which means a potential session fixation vulnerability.

This might not be a concern for most users: typically your distro ships a php.ini configured to read at least 16 bytes from /dev/urandom. But not always! Many projects set cookie.entropy_length and cookie.entropy_source just to be sure.

To add a bit of color here, Google is correct to exclude CSV vulnerabilities. There is no way (through this vulnerability) to compromise a Google host, a user account managed by a Google host or sensitive data associated with a user account.

As framed, this is kind of similar to using a Google web tool to edit an XML file, export it and compromise someone using external entity injection. In that context, you're not really compromising Google, and you're not using Google as a medium to automatically compromise many Google users at once. Google is only peripherally involved in the process.

What would qualify for a bounty is code/script execution on a Google host using a CSV file, maybe through something like Google Trends Correlate (https://www.google.com/trends/correlate). Either reflect the CSV contents in a publicly accessible location with a mismatched content-type or leverage an arbitrary file upload error to execute a malicious payload disguised as a CSV on the server. But just exporting a CSV from a Google host is not really a vulnerability in Google.

By the way, for people who are interested in bug bounties, it looks like the page I linked hasn't been updated since 2011. Might want to check it out.

What are some good alternatives? I've been using DataGrip the last couple of months, but prior to that I used phpMyAdmin all the time because I just couldn't find anything else as useful for MySQL. And even with DataGrip, I sometimes have to log in to phpmyadmin because there's stuff DataGrip doesn't do....

Good question. It can be all or none of the above. Here's what happens at a high level:

Once a company decides it needs a security assessment performed on an application, it engages with a consulting firm. Consulting firms generally offer a variety of services, from web and mobile application penetration tests, to cryptanalysis (implementation and design), to reverse engineering and binary penetration testing, with source code audits sprinkled throughout (or as standalone assessments). Let's assume they move forward with a web application assessment.

The company decides if it wants a source code audit, a penetration test or both. The most comprehensive assessments will include source code and unmitigated access to a staging environment that the consultants do not have to worry about destroying. However, they could also decide they don't want to hand over the code (common in things like sensitive financial applications or in applications with protective developers). I've worked on many assessments where I had no source code - this is called a "black-box" assessment.

Conversely, an assessment might consist of a source code audit with no penetration test! This is less common, but it's particularly suited for engagements where the developers are fairly sure they've eliminated the most common issues and they are really focused on obscure errors, logic flaws and race conditions.

It really depends on the type of security audit. You can have more exotic ones, like black-box cryptanalysis where a company hands Riscure a proprietary payment mechanism and there is heavy reverse engineering and side channel analysis. It can also be very vanilla, like the web application penetration tests that bug bounty programs attempt to simulate. Companies decide what they are going to do based on their application's profile and their goals.

Putting this all together, these are the stages of a traditional security audit from a high-quality firm:

Step 1: A company receives several proposals and decides which company to move forward with based on which statement of work most closely matches their security goals, timing, budget and desired expertise. Then they decide on a start date.

Step 2: Representatives from the company (generally a technical manager, a security engineer or manager if the company has one and at least one developer) have a conference call with representatives from the security firm (generally, the security consultants performing the assessment, an account executive and a technical manager) to "kick off" the assessment with technical and logistical engagement planning. Things like "How will we access the staging environment?" and "Is there anything off-limits" are fleshed out here as well as reminders about scope and scheduling.

Step 3: Things like source code, infrastructure/application/API documentation, PGP keys, etc. are securely exchanged and verified. This comes out of a list of mutual action items from the kick-off call.

Step 4: The actual assessment happens, generally in a period of one to three weeks. I've never been involved in an assessment less than one week long, and assessments longer than four weeks usually need to re-scope or they become monolithic and difficult to coordinate. Progress reports with findings and testing data are securely sent to the company from the security firm.

Step 5: The assessment is finished and a final deliverable is securely sent to the company from the security firm. An optional re-test assessment might happen a few weeks or months later to confirm if the findings have been satisfactorily resolved.

This is based on my knowledge of having worked in security consultancies, engaging with them as an in-house security engineer and running my own consulting firm.