Perpetual Insecurity

Another form of damage that I would be very concerned about is quite subtle and unlike the previous two problems, for all intents and purposes, is undetectable. Once a member database is compromised, the association can never again be sure that access to its member only areas is actually limited to members only. With access to the member data used by the web site, the persons who have already successfully compromised the site, have the information used in any automated registration process.

The intruder no longer needs any technical skills to enter the member only areas at will. All they need to do is pick a record from the stolen database and enter the right pieces of information in the automated registration processes. Further, unlike the original intrusion, such access would be indistinguishable from legitimate member access.

If they entered the stolen data into a database management system (DBMS) and deleted each record that no longer contained useable data, they would have a gradually decreasing pool of data to work from. Not until the stolen information about each member at the time of the theft became obsolete, could they be kept out of the member only areas.

Depending on several factors including the nature of the original insecurity that allowed the first compromise and the kinds of functions available in the member only areas, continued access to member only areas would likely provide information to facilitate future thefts or other compromises. Since many web insecurities are related to program bugs in dynamic content, being able get the names and parameters via the displayed forms of web site scripts is a large step towards finding potential bugs in such scripts. Bugs can lead to almost any kind of compromise that can be described.

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