DrawAFish.com: A Security Disaster Caused by Silly Mistakes
2025-08-05
DrawAFish.com, a website that briefly hit the top of Hacker News, experienced a security disaster due to a series of amateur mistakes. An outdated six-digit admin password exposed in a past data breach, an unauthenticated username update API, and a JWT not tied to a specific user, allowed malicious actors to vandalize the site within hours. Usernames were changed to slurs and fish images were replaced. The author resolved the issue by restoring from backups and patching vulnerabilities, reflecting on the balance between rapid development and security.
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rapid development