Live data from Hacker News

Uber investigating breach of its computer systems

nytimes.com

61–70 of 327 posts

Re: Uber investigating breach of its computer systems

#61
post #46

I think it's worth repeating: at this point, MFA that is not based on Webauthn ( https://webauthn.guide/#about-webauthn ) should be considered dangerously insecure. Uber almost certainly enforces MFA for remote access; I strongly suspect we'll end up hearing that it was successfully provided during the authentication step (update: screenshots on Twitter appear to confirm this). As we saw in the case of the 0ktapus ca…

It’s too bad the user experience across devices sucks. The best experience by far is a yubikey nano since it is mostly permanently attached to your laptop. It’s always there and you just quickly tap it. Love it. Of course that doesn’t work with my iPhone. So I guess I need a second NFC yubikey that stays on my key chain in my pocket (which I don’t have since I don’t carry keys.). So then I have to remember to registe…

Android has a built-in FIDO2/webauthn authenticator these days (well, built-in to Chrome, and by Android I mean Pixel phones). I'm sure Apple will build something similar as they have the hardware for it.

Re: Uber investigating breach of its computer systems

#62
post #30
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reasonably sophisticated attacker could arrange for the entire team to get SIM-swapped and suspended from Facebook when they launch an attack. If only there were some way to have a central rallying point for everyone to meet at. Perhaps some sort of a structure, with the company's name on it, and it would have places to sit inside, with computers connected to the company's infrastructure to use.

Who controls the database of RFID cards allowed to open the doors?

My not super-secure datacenter requires either a palm-print plus RFID card, or showing ID to a human.

Re: Uber investigating breach of its computer systems

#63
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigcorps don't make exceptions for Tiny Tony's. If you work at these sorts of firms, you should probably start an anonymous exposé blog, it would be enlightening for the rest of us. It would also probably help get things fixed so they could avoid further embarrassment before it becomes a real problem (like in this case). I bet you could make a fair sum from the ad impressions alone, and feel good knowing you were…

Quoted post unavailable.

No post body was provided.

Re: Uber investigating breach of its computer systems

#64
post #26

Think about all that information you trusted uber with because now you're trusting organised crime. You /have/ to treat uber and the like as though they are organised crime even if you think they are and will always be in league with rainbows, fairies and unicorns will never put your interests behind theirs. edit: wave to uber's PR flunkies.

Eh, based on the screenshots and claim that they're doing some trolling, it might be a teen or small group of hackers that happened to gain such a wealth of data and their first instinct is to "download all the data, we'll figure out how to sell it later". If they had shopped around for a nation state buyer this certainly would've been more covert and a bigger hack.

Re: Uber investigating breach of its computer systems

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security is a cost center, not a profit center. Most companies cut that investment to the bone, which means paying the bare minimum that lets them check boxes. This is true for basically any non-tech company, and is true for like 75% of the tech companies. > You need to do the work upfront with Sec+ Sec+ is part of the paper mill parent is referring to. A book of terms to memorize for 3 months and then call it good.

+100 Not only is it a cost center it’s also seen as a hindrance to the fast progress. Rarely will you come across an exec who takes security seriously. For them it’s just a checkbox at best and an obstacle at worst. I’m speaking about application security though. It’s possible that IT sec, physical security etc are taken more seriously.

Cuts both ways, of course. There are terrible IT Security departments that don't understand the concept of false positives, create approval flows for critically needed items with 2 week SLA turnarounds, topple the network with poorly designed endpoint security scanners and tons of useless telemetry and so on.

Re: Uber investigating breach of its computer systems

#66
post #46

I think it's worth repeating: at this point, MFA that is not based on Webauthn ( https://webauthn.guide/#about-webauthn ) should be considered dangerously insecure. Uber almost certainly enforces MFA for remote access; I strongly suspect we'll end up hearing that it was successfully provided during the authentication step (update: screenshots on Twitter appear to confirm this). As we saw in the case of the 0ktapus ca…

It’s too bad the user experience across devices sucks. The best experience by far is a yubikey nano since it is mostly permanently attached to your laptop. It’s always there and you just quickly tap it. Love it. Of course that doesn’t work with my iPhone. So I guess I need a second NFC yubikey that stays on my key chain in my pocket (which I don’t have since I don’t carry keys.). So then I have to remember to registe…

> I wonder when I can just get a virtual yubikey built into my phone. No extra device. My phone is my device.

Last year, Apple shipped the first version of this: you can enroll your phone (or TouchID-equipped Mac) on sites like GitHub.com and it’ll use the Secure Enclave for WebAuthn secrets. I’ve been doing this since 15.4 came out and it’s great. Prior to that, I used a Yubikey 5 with USB and NFC, which is still handy since that’s where I store TOTP seeds for less secure sites.

Passkeys extend that idea further by allowing you to register once and have it synced rather than having to register every device on every site[1].

That last part is important because AWS has a huge barrier: the number of MFA devices you get is one, which means you either need insecure things like synced TOTP seeds or you have to be comfortable never losing your Yubikey. I have been asking our TAM to prioritize fixing that for years so backups can be a real thing.

1. Over simplified a little - hear Adam Langley at https://securitycryptographywhatever.buzzsprout.com/1822302/... for the right version

Re: Uber investigating breach of its computer systems

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Security is not easy, and the entire field is not negligent - the problem is massively asymmetrically stacked against security practitioners, enhanced by poisonous attitudes like the ones expressed here. Is remaining in a role in which it's not possible to be effective negligent?

What is your alternative? Should we do nothing instead? Should all SWEs quit because they can't stop writing security bugs?

I don't have a specific alternative, but I think that if it's not possible to be effective in a role, one should decline it. It's possible to be an effective SWE while still writing (and hopefully also sometimes fixing) bugs.

Re: Uber investigating breach of its computer systems

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be shocked if they didn’t issue all employees YubiKeys.

A lot of people still have legacy Yubikeys floating around, and these are replayable. What you need now is something like the Google Titan FIDO2 key or one of the Yubikey FIDO2 keys. Transitioning an entire company to these, getting everyone to self-enroll, and then removing the ability to use all the less safe options across the employee base, contractors, etc is not cheap nor easy, and of course requires a massive…

WebAuthn (well, U2F, but that's essentially WebAuthn with a slightly different browser API and WebAuthn is backward compatible with U2F only devices) support has been on the YubiKey since the Neo in 2014 [0]. It's basically impossible to have a YubiKey that does not support WebAuthn. You do not need FIDO2 on-key resident credentials to benefit from WebAuthn.

[0] https://www.yubico.com/blog/neo-u2f-key-apps/

Re: Uber investigating breach of its computer systems

#70
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s too bad the user experience across devices sucks. The best experience by far is a yubikey nano since it is mostly permanently attached to your laptop. It’s always there and you just quickly tap it. Love it. Of course that doesn’t work with my iPhone. So I guess I need a second NFC yubikey that stays on my key chain in my pocket (which I don’t have since I don’t carry keys.). So then I have to remember to registe…

Android has a built-in FIDO2/webauthn authenticator these days (well, built-in to Chrome, and by Android I mean Pixel phones). I'm sure Apple will build something similar as they have the hardware for it.

Here’s Apple’s documentation from 2020: https://webkit.org/blog/11312/meet-face-id-and-touch-id-for-...
Post reply on HN