As a white-hat hacker and co-founder of A42, a platform that helps identify hidden vulnerabilities and data leaks, I recently encountered a fascinating yet concerning case.
🔎 The Situation: A company that recently raised a million dollars in investment to develop its product made a critical security mistake. On one of their subdomains, an authorization form accidentally exposed a login and password in the value parameter, granting direct access to a developer account. The password was set as Frankeshtein!2023. While the issue was quickly fixed by removing auto-fill credentials, surprisingly, the developer had not implemented two-factor authentication (2FA). Instead of strengthening security, they merely changed the password to Frankeshtein!2024—an easily predictable approach.
⚠️ Lesson Learned: A small human error like this can risk an entire million-dollar investment, especially with valuable data and client trust at stake. As a cybersecurity professional and A42 founder, here’s what I recommend:
🔑 Follow robust password practices:
• Set passwords with at least 12 characters, including uppercase, lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.
• Uniqueness: Never reuse passwords across platforms, and avoid predictable patterns like “password+year.”
• Regular Updates: Rotate passwords every 90 days, preventing reuse of previous passwords.
đź”’ Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): Even if a password is compromised, 2FA adds a second barrier, blocking unauthorized access.
đźš« Avoid storing passwords in plain text: Use hashing for secure storage, and never embed passwords in code or scripts.
🛡 Regularly audit access: Pay special attention to developer accounts with elevated privileges.
A42 helps clients see threats from a hacker’s perspective and proactively secure against data leaks. When millions in investments are at stake, security should be the top priority!
