This isn't the time to tread lightly, but to go scorched earth. This isn't an "oh, we disagree on the finer points!" debate between peers kind of situation, but a flat-out "these knuckleheads are putting you at risk and you need to know it". You want to get the point across that you're not messing around or leaving room for doubt.
Source: have had these conversations several times over the years. I normally pride myself on tact, but in my experience tact is the exact wrong approach here as it gives the client the impression that there's a wiggle room of doubt.
“I’m sorry if this means we can’t do business any more, but this situation has gotten so severe, that I just have to tell you the unvarnished truth, and ….”
Hummmm. So a couple of years back, I was working on some internal tools that passed sensitive information around and I found some interesting info.
Some bloggers INCORRECTLY thought that HTTPS didn't secure the URL Flags. Correct fact: parameters passed in the URL like ?item=bla is encrypted
Also, some cloud providers aload Balancers (AWS) allow you to offer load HTTPS encryption/decryption - so there REALLY IS plain text stuff in the final leg of the journey (e.g. from the LB to the server)
In the end, the biggest thing I learned is that HTTPS is hard and it sucks.
It’s still good practice to keep sensitive info out of URL query parameters, which often leak into server logs.
This is customizable by setting the referrer policy: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Re...
At first I thought this must have been what they meant; perhaps there was some configuration thing we got wrong.
So we asked for clarification and nope, the example given was that someone logging in from an office could have their credentials sniffed freely by anyone else on the office LAN.
I sent the client back a list of government and military websites that responds to ping. As an extra bonus, it turned out the pentesters own website responded to ping.
Cheese, this one line in their report causes around 3 hours of meetings with around 10-20 people on them... and there were a lot of lines like this.
They try to sell us external/internal Auth service, similar to KeyCloack with their support. What pentesters want to achieve is not improved security, but to sell their services as DevOps and developers. This were not what we expected from pentesting.
In the very last paragraph, as a conclusion to YOUR exercise, explain how the utter lack of competence in the subject matter displayed by the consultant has resulted in blah, blah, dollars, time, effort, all down the drain. Emphasize the harm to the organization and how it affects the trust required between different groups.
I guarantee it will get you promoted or fired. Which one depends on the organization and I expect you already know what will happen.
Interestingly, I checked a few big sites, and while Google doesn’t, Facebook and Amazon both use client-side encryption. Is it just to provide some extra protection for pwned users who have trusted bad certs? I’m no security expert, and I’m struggling to think of any real benefit.
For the JS/CSS thing, I have literally no idea.
They also flagged up that users can access JavaScript and CSS files. Not the original source files mind you, nor is directory indexing enabled or anything like that. They pointed to our compiled and minified app.js and app.css, and suggested we block access to these files as the source code to the app is “sensitive information”.
Having to tell a client another company they’ve hired are absolute clowns, without making it seem like we’re trying to save our own skin, is certainly interesting.