Citibank Unable to Afford Secure Web Design
When I teach, I explain how most of the breaches and problems you hear in the world aren't about clever hackers or sophisticated attackers, but instead about weak security. This has just become my new go-to example.
What that means is that if you were to look at the address in your bar at the top of the browser, it contains the name of the website you're on and (as is typical) a whole lot of other junk like this:
http://www.citibank.com/account.asp?were=dumbbell&we=shouldhaveknownbetter
One of the values in the "lots of other junk" area told Citibank who's account to show. If you just entered any random number, the website would think you were the user with that ID and show you their page. Given that this kind of issue is one that security professionals have known about and handled for more than a decade apparently large (and rich) companies can somehow manage to forget the basics.
Tags: Account Security, Banks, Big Business, Negligence, Utter Failure