FreshBooks, a Canadian unicorn startup constructing cloud accounting software program, saved an Amazon Net Companies (AWS) Storage bucket holding delicate worker data unprotected on the web, out there to anybody who knew the place to look, consultants have claimed. 

Because of this, greater than 30 million of its customers, in additional than 160 nations around the globe had been put prone to id theft and different cybercrime.

The alert was issued by the Cybernews (opens in new tab) analysis staff, which first found the database in late January 2023.

Simply cracked passwords

On first look, it held storage photographs and metadata of its weblog, however deeper evaluation found backups of the web site’s supply code, in addition to web site data, configurations, and login knowledge for 121 WordPress (opens in new tab) customers. The login knowledge – usernames, e-mail addresses, and hash passwords – belonged to the location’s directors. They had been hashed utilizing “simply crackable” MD5/phpass hashing framework, the researchers mentioned, suggesting that getting the data in plaintext was comparatively simple.

With this data, the Cybernews’ staff says, risk actors may have accessed the web site’s backend and made unauthorized modifications to its content material. They may have analyzed the supply code, understood how the web site operated, and located different vulnerabilities to promote or exploit. In reality, a 2019 server backup held “a minimum of 5”weak plugins that had been put in on the web site on the time, the researchers discovered. 

In an much more harmful state of affairs, they might have put in malicious software program, moved laterally all through the community, and stolen delicate knowledge.

There’s a caveat to exploiting the vulnerability, although: “The web site’s login web page to the admin panel was secured and never publicly accessible,” the researchers clarify. “Nonetheless, attackers may nonetheless bypass this safety measure by connecting to the identical community as the web site or discovering and exploiting a weak WordPress plugin.”

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Through: Cybernews (opens in new tab)