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I discovered thousands of open databases on AWS

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Re: I discovered thousands of open databases on AWS

#11
post #3

This same article was posted previously, so I will post the same response I posted on the other thread: Elasticsearch until recently did not nudge you to set up a username or password by default. I noticed the last time I installed it on a fresh instance that on completion of the install it gives you a warning about this and tells you what to do to set a password. That is a small improvement. Most people would not ha…

[deleted]

Re: I discovered thousands of open databases on AWS

#12
post #7
post #3

This same article was posted previously, so I will post the same response I posted on the other thread: Elasticsearch until recently did not nudge you to set up a username or password by default. I noticed the last time I installed it on a fresh instance that on completion of the install it gives you a warning about this and tells you what to do to set a password. That is a small improvement. Most people would not ha…

There are lots of lessons in the internet's limited history that show poorly conceived defaults are the most common and dangerous mistake. Microsoft let Frontpage Extension credentials default to the domain name and a blank password through multiple major versions, without any prompt to change anything (you had to seek out the settings, and it wasn't even obvious where they were). Throughout the late 90s and early 00…

I remember hearing about FrontPage Extensions back in the day. I never had an opportunity to make use of them since I used Dreamweaver at the time, but what exactly were they? I tried googling, but couldn’t find a plain language explanation, only opaque marketing speak.

Re: I discovered thousands of open databases on AWS

#13
post #10
post #3

This same article was posted previously, so I will post the same response I posted on the other thread: Elasticsearch until recently did not nudge you to set up a username or password by default. I noticed the last time I installed it on a fresh instance that on completion of the install it gives you a warning about this and tells you what to do to set a password. That is a small improvement. Most people would not ha…

This same article was posted previously, so I will post the same response Don't repaste your own comments just because there's been a dupe.

Why not? I’m not saying people should do it, but what are the arguments against it?

Re: I discovered thousands of open databases on AWS

#14
I used to think you have to be pretty good af your job to get trusted to deploy stuff to the cloud for even medium sized companies. As these articles keep reminding me, you only need to fake competence to management to get the green light.

Even if you forget that the cloud is the internet and that the entire internet can reach you over the internet, it doesn't take a genius to set up a password for a cloud service. I have no idea how many of these databases are honey pots, but finding open and vulnerable servers is depressingly simple.

I suppose it's kind of liberating to know that you can be dumb enough to fling patient data into an unprotected cloud server and still get a job in IT. The bar is really set that low.

Re: I discovered thousands of open databases on AWS

#15
post #8
post #3

This same article was posted previously, so I will post the same response I posted on the other thread: Elasticsearch until recently did not nudge you to set up a username or password by default. I noticed the last time I installed it on a fresh instance that on completion of the install it gives you a warning about this and tells you what to do to set a password. That is a small improvement. Most people would not ha…

Interesting that ES is still such a widely used component, this is a huge red flag about a software product. And of course there are lots of other regular complaints about it (eg uses a lot of memory and wants a 3-node cluster so costs 4 figures/mo to run on AWS).

Because ES cluster should not be on public network. If anything this is red flag for AWS. ES v8 there many improvments to security.

It cost that much because AWS is incredibly expensive.

Re: I discovered thousands of open databases on AWS

#16
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of lessons in the internet's limited history that show poorly conceived defaults are the most common and dangerous mistake. Microsoft let Frontpage Extension credentials default to the domain name and a blank password through multiple major versions, without any prompt to change anything (you had to seek out the settings, and it wasn't even obvious where they were). Throughout the late 90s and early 00…

I remember hearing about FrontPage Extensions back in the day. I never had an opportunity to make use of them since I used Dreamweaver at the time, but what exactly were they? I tried googling, but couldn’t find a plain language explanation, only opaque marketing speak.

Extensions were a way of connecting the FrontPage editor directly to an IIS server, which provided publishing functionality (i.e. uploads) and basic server management. Ultimately, they were just a bunch of server scripts that responded to commands from the client over an FTP-like connection.

Re: I discovered thousands of open databases on AWS

#17
post #6
post #2

Another great example why I love to use managed services / serverless services and not take care of security groups and NACLs

Interesting. The conclusion you draw from this differs wildly from my conclusion. Whenever I read stories like these, it seems clear to me that someone moved to the cloud in order to not have to care about security. The 'cloud does everything for you!'. Just like you imply in your answer that PaaS, the next level of abstraction, will solve all your security problems. This move, however, will inevitably lead to a situ…

There's another side to this. The people deploying things with a security group open to the internet and no auth might have been saved by a grumpy network admin forcing them to use a VPN or even a firewall, but that's IMHO only hiding the real problem ( security not taken seriously) behind a thin fence. When that fence gets breached, everything would be up for grabs, so the main difference with "the cloud" is that such terrible security postures are easier and faster to spot ( from both sides).

Zero trust everything.

Re: I discovered thousands of open databases on AWS

#18
post #8
post #3

This same article was posted previously, so I will post the same response I posted on the other thread: Elasticsearch until recently did not nudge you to set up a username or password by default. I noticed the last time I installed it on a fresh instance that on completion of the install it gives you a warning about this and tells you what to do to set a password. That is a small improvement. Most people would not ha…

Interesting that ES is still such a widely used component, this is a huge red flag about a software product. And of course there are lots of other regular complaints about it (eg uses a lot of memory and wants a 3-node cluster so costs 4 figures/mo to run on AWS).

I guess there are more things to consider when choosing a software product then poor security defaults and that it feels expensive.

Re: I discovered thousands of open databases on AWS

#19
post #15
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that ES is still such a widely used component, this is a huge red flag about a software product. And of course there are lots of other regular complaints about it (eg uses a lot of memory and wants a 3-node cluster so costs 4 figures/mo to run on AWS).

Because ES cluster should not be on public network. If anything this is red flag for AWS. ES v8 there many improvments to security. It cost that much because AWS is incredibly expensive.

Network segregation is your last line of defense. Having anything rely on it is a recipe for a bad security that's always just one step away from someone getting around it due to misconfiguration, request forgery, networks configuration changes over time, malware transiting over via VPNs etc. And of course from the SW vendor POV they don't know if the customer env employs this defense in depth layer, so it's really irresponsible to rely on it. Like is amply demonstrated here...

If a product upon unboxing promptly flops on its back with "come here internet" access controls, even if by good fortune it's saved by your network ACLs, it's time to put it back in the box and return it.

Re: I discovered thousands of open databases on AWS

#20
> DevOps, Developers, and IT practitioners often misconfigure some of the following: Binding the socket on the wrong network interfaces. For example, listening to connections from 0.0.0.0/* — So it is visible to all network interfaces, instead of only the inner-network interface IP address (172.x.x.x)

Binding to 0.0.0.0 is unfortunately the default for Docker. I wish it would have been different.

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