The Okta bcrypt incident highlights crucial API design flaws that allowed attackers to bypass account lockout mechanisms. By accepting hashed passwords directly, Okta's API inadvertently circumvented its own security measures. This emphasizes the danger of exposing low-level cryptographic primitives in APIs, as it creates attack vectors that developers might not anticipate. The post advocates for abstracting away such complexities, forcing users to interact with higher-level authentication flows that enforce intended security policies, like lockout mechanisms and rate limiting. This abstraction simplifies security reasoning and reduces the potential for bypasses by ensuring all authentication attempts are subject to consistent security controls, regardless of how the password is presented.
Token Security, a cybersecurity startup focused on protecting "machine identities" (like API keys and digital certificates used by software and devices), has raised $20 million in funding. The company aims to combat the growing threat of hackers exploiting these often overlooked credentials, which are increasingly targeted as a gateway to sensitive data and systems. Their platform helps organizations manage and secure these machine identities, reducing the risk of breaches and unauthorized access.
HN commenters discuss the increasing attack surface of machine identities, echoing the article's concern. Some question the novelty of the problem, pointing out that managing server certificates and keys has always been a security concern. Others express skepticism towards Token Security's approach, suggesting that complexity in security solutions often introduces new vulnerabilities. The most compelling comments highlight the difficulty of managing machine identities at scale in modern cloud-native environments, where ephemeral workloads and automated deployments exacerbate the existing challenges. There's also discussion around the need for better tooling and automation to address this growing security gap.
OAuth2 is a delegation protocol that lets a user grant a third-party application limited access to their resources on a server, without sharing their credentials. Instead of handing over your username and password directly to the app, you authorize it through the resource server (like Google or Facebook). This authorization process generates an access token, which the app then uses to access specific resources on your behalf, within the scope you've permitted. OAuth2 focuses solely on authorization and not authentication, meaning it doesn't verify the user's identity. It relies on other mechanisms, like OpenID Connect, for that purpose.
HN commenters generally praised the article for its clear explanation of OAuth2, calling it accessible and well-written, particularly appreciating the focus on the "why" rather than just the "how." Some users pointed out potential minor inaccuracies or areas for further clarification, such as the distinction between authorization code grant with PKCE and implicit flow for client-side apps, the role of refresh tokens, and the implications of using a third-party identity provider. One commenter highlighted the difficulty of finding good OAuth2 resources and expressed gratitude for the article's contribution. Others suggested additional topics for the author to cover, such as the challenges of cross-domain authentication. Several commenters also shared personal anecdotes about their experiences implementing or troubleshooting OAuth2.
Summary of Comments ( 136 )
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42955176
Several commenters on Hacker News praised the original post for its clear explanation of the Okta bcrypt incident and the proposed solutions. Some highlighted the importance of designing APIs that enforce correct usage and prevent accidental misuse, particularly with security-sensitive operations like password hashing. The discussion touched on the tradeoffs between API simplicity and robustness, with some arguing for more opinionated APIs that guide developers towards best practices. Others shared similar experiences with poorly designed APIs leading to security vulnerabilities. A few commenters also questioned Okta's specific implementation choices and debated the merits of different hashing algorithms. Overall, the comments reflected a general agreement with the author's points about the need for more thoughtful API design to prevent similar incidents in the future.
The Hacker News post titled "Okta Bcrypt incident lessons for designing better APIs" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42955176) has generated several comments discussing the linked blog post's analysis of the Okta security incident and its implications for API design.
Several commenters focus on the core issue highlighted in the blog post: the dangerous combination of idempotency and asynchronous operations. One commenter elaborates on this, explaining how retry mechanisms, intended for robustness, can exacerbate vulnerabilities when combined with operations that shouldn't be repeated. They use the analogy of accidentally double-charging a credit card due to a retry. Another commenter points out the inherent difficulty in designing truly idempotent APIs, especially in distributed systems, suggesting that acknowledging the potential for duplicates and designing systems to handle them gracefully is crucial.
Another thread of discussion revolves around the specifics of the Okta incident and the blog post's analysis. One commenter questions the fairness of criticizing Okta's API design, arguing that the root cause was a misconfiguration rather than a fundamental flaw in the API itself. Others counter this by highlighting that the API design made the misconfiguration possible and its consequences more severe. They argue that a well-designed API should minimize the potential for such misconfigurations and their impact.
Several commenters offer alternative approaches or best practices for designing APIs to avoid similar issues. One suggestion is to use unique request identifiers to prevent duplicate processing. Another proposes incorporating explicit confirmation steps for sensitive operations, moving away from purely idempotent designs. The use of message queues and other asynchronous communication patterns is also discussed, with commenters highlighting the trade-offs between performance and safety.
The discussion also touches on the broader implications of the incident for security and API design. One commenter notes the importance of considering the "human element" in security, recognizing that even well-designed systems can be vulnerable to human error. Another emphasizes the need for thorough testing and validation of API designs, especially in security-sensitive contexts. Finally, some commenters express appreciation for the blog post's insightful analysis and the valuable lessons it offers for API developers.