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0 pointsnitrogen5y ago0 comments

I'm saying I've been in exactly that position in many companies. Spent all of my social capital to get password hashes fixed, or a hacked DB audited, or circuit breakers, or rate limits, alerts, admin and monitoring tools, etc. It's really easy to preach here on HN. Saying it's an uphill battle "out there" is a drastic understatement.

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ziddoap5y ago· 1 in thread

I get where you're coming from, I do these types of engagements often. I just wanted to highlight the difference between "Please spend $25,000 on this pentest engagement" and "Don't set a maximum password length of 10" or "Don't set the default password to be 6 digits".

One is an investment and requires convincing a PM or C-Suite. The other two are some of the most basic concepts possible (literally first semester, if not first week of CS) in the design of anything that has to do with a password.

nitrogenOP5y ago

The other two are some of the most basic concepts possible (literally first semester, if not first week of CS) in the design of anything that has to do with a password.

There are still ways this can fail: e.g. tech lead on a team full of good but uninformed bootcamp devs with an absentee manager and a domineering PM, run as a democracy when only a minority have (formal or self-taught) CS education. If the PM doesn't like your recommendation they'll get one of the bootcampers to do a crappy job without telling you.

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