#sicherheit geht uns alle an:
Welche Punkte/Regelungen/Belohnungen erwartet ihr in der #responsibledisclosure Policy von einer Seite wie LinuxNews.de? Bin da aktuell etwas planlos…

Hashtags damit wir volle Kanne in der #itsecurity Bubble einschlagen: #cybersecurity #cybersec #opsec #security #databreach #hackerangriff #hacker #itsec #credentialtheft #digitalsafety #digitalesicherheit #threatintelligence

(post describes my experience and does not represent my employer)

LinkedIn post (see also screenshot): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/johannes-greil-189bb813b_cybersecurity-infosec-workexaminer-activity-7386384177107116032-T3ow

I was involved in the mentioned cases and can only warn every penetration tester of bug bounty platforms.

I worked in an official CVE Numbering Authority (CNA) and we were legally threatened multiple times by vendors.

While bug bounty platforms claim to be a "safe harbor" and claim to mediate in difficult situations, in every instance they told us we have to adhere to the policies of the platform and didn't help any further. So, any user of these platforms has a double liability: first, to your country's law, second to the bug bounty platform's policy.

In the case of #HackerOne, they delegate this policy to the vendors:
"Security Teams will publish a program policy [...]. You should always carefully review this program policy prior to submission as they will supersede these [H1's] guidelines in the event of a conflict."
Source: https://www.hackerone.com/terms/disclosure-guidelines

So vendors can create a policy "no one is allowed to publish if we don't agree" and defeat responsible disclosure. In fact, some vendors do exactly that. Bug bounty platforms are paid by vendors and have no incentive to protect the researchers.

➡️ If you submit your vulnerability via email or similar directly to the vendor, then you are not legally bound to the bug bounty program's policy.
➡️ If there is trouble, involve your national CERT, they truly mediate.

Stay safe and warn your pentesting friends.

#PenetrationTesting #CVE #ResponsibleDisclosure

Unfair Experience in a Bug Bounty Program
A researcher discovered a critical sensitive information disclosure vulnerability, allowing access to system files like changelog, webconfig, and other sensitive data. The issue was fixed but the report remains unaccepted after two months, causing frustration and potentially discouraging responsible disclosure. Bug bounty platforms should prioritize fairness, transparency, and proper recognition for researchers to maintain motivation in the cybersecurity community. #BugBounty #CyberSecurity #EthicalHacking #Infosec #ResponsibleDisclosure #BugBountyCommunity
url
https://medium.com/@junedsilavata/unfair-experience-in-a-bug-bounty-program-d00803899e3e?source=rss------bug_bounty-5
🔒 Unfair Experience in a Bug Bounty Program

🔒 Unfair Experience in a Bug Bounty Program Recently, I found a critical sensitive information disclosure in a program listed on a bug bounty platform. I was even able to access and install system …

Medium
@BMDS Hallo, schon mal was von #ModernSolutionGmbH und dem #Hackerparagraphen gehört. Nach dem jetzt auch die letzte Instanz das #BVG den Programmierer hängen lässt nur zur Info. #ResponsibleDisclosure ist vorbei. In Moskau und Penking lachen Sie über uns. Ein Passwort im Klartext in einer Exe ist keine Sicherheitsmaßnahme. Wundert Euch nicht wenn es Demnächst noch viel mehr Schwachstellen im Darknet gibt. Die gehen mit Ihren Quellen besser um. #justmy2cents
Bundesverfassungsgericht lehnt Beschwerde im Fall Modern Solution ab

Das Bundesverfassungsgericht lehnt es ab, mehr Klarheit in den Umgang mit dem Hackerparagrafen 202 StGB zu bringen.

heise online

🤖 Hacked China's Biggest Robotics Company (Pudu Robotics)

Pudu makes those cat-faced BellaBot robot waiters you see in restaurants, plus cleaning robots, disinfection bots, and even FlashBots with mechanical arms for offices.

Found critical vulnerabilities in their app controlling their entire global fleet:

  • Zero authentication on APIs
  • Could control any robot worldwide
  • Accept 20k store IDs in single request, no rate limiting
  • Could steal food, documents, redirect hospital medicine delivery
  • FlashBot with arms could grab files & use elevators

Reported Aug 12. Sent emails to sales, support, tech teams - all ignored.

Had to email Skylark Holdings (7000+ restaurants) and Zensho directly about their compromised robots.

Pudu responded in 48hrs with obvious ChatGPT template - forgot to replace "[Your Email Address]" placeholder. Fixed 2 days later.

Thousands of robots (BellaBots, KettyBots, FlashBots, etc) in hospitals, restaurants, offices worldwide were vulnerable for a long time.

Full Technical Writeup: https://bobdahacker.com/blog/hacked-biggest-chinese-robot-company

#infosec #robotics #BellaBot #PuduRobotics #security #vulnerability #responsibleDisclosure #cybersecurity

I Hacked BellaBot and Every Robot from China's Biggest Robotics Company (Pudu Only Fixed It When I Told Their Clients)

Critical vulnerabilities in Pudu Robotics allowed unauthorized control of every Pudu Robotics Robot worldwide. They ignored emails until I contacted Skylark Holdings and Zensho about their compromised robot fleets.

Security Flaws in the WebMonetization Site

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/08/security-flaws-in-the-webmonetization-site/

I've written before about the nascent WebMonetization Standard. It is a proposal which allows websites to ask users for passive payments when they visit. A visitor to this site could, if this standard is widely adopted, opt to send me cash for my very fine blog posts.

All I need to do is add something like this into my site's source code:

<link rel="monetization" href="https://wallet.example.com/edent">

A user who has a WebMonetization plugin can then easily pay me for my content.

But not every website is created by an individual or a single entity. Hence, the creation of the "Probabilistic Revenue Share Generator".

Probabilistic revenue sharing is a way to share a portion of a web monetized page's earnings between multiple wallet addresses. Each time a web monetized user visits the page, a recipient will be chosen at random. Payments will go to the chosen recipient until the page is closed or reloaded.

Nifty! But how does it work?

Let's say a website is created by Alice and Bob. Alice does most of the work and is to receive 70% of the revenue. Bob is to get the remaining 30%. Within the web page's head, the following meta element is inserted:

<link rel="monetization" href="https://webmonetization.org/api/revshare/pay/W1siaHR0cHM6Ly9leGFtcGxlLmNvbS8iLDcwLCJBbGljZSJdLFsiaHR0cHM6Ly93aGF0ZXZlci50ZXN0LyIsMzAsIkJvYiJdXQ"/>

The visitor's WebMonetization plugin will visit that URl and be redirected to Alice's site 70% of time and Bob's 30%.

If we Base64 decode that weird looking URl, we get:

[ [ "https://example.com/", 70, "Alice" ], [ "https://whatever.test/", 30, "Bob" ]]

Rather than adding multiple URls in the head, the site points to one resource and lets that pick who receives the funds.

There are two small problems with this.

The first is that you have to trust the WebMonetization.org website. If it gets hijacked or goes rogue then all your visitors will be paying someone else. But let's assume they're secure and trustworthy. There's a slightly more insidious threat.

Effectively, this allows an untrusted 3rd party to use the WebMonetization.org domain as an open redirect. That's useful for phishing and other abuses.

For example, an attacker could send messages encouraging people to visit:

https://webmonetization.org/api/revshare/pay/W1siaHR0cHM6Ly9leGFtcGxlLmNvbS8iLDk5LCJpbWciXV0

Click that and you'll instantly be redirected to a domain under the attacker's control. This could be particularly bad if the domain encouraged users to share passwords or other sensitive information.

If the Base64 data cannot be decoded to valid JSON, the API will echo back any Base64 encoded text sent to it. This means an attacker could use it to send obfuscated messages. Consider, tor example:

https://webmonetization.org/api/revshare/pay/W1siUGxlYXNlIHZpc2l0IFJlYWxfZ29vZF9DYXNpbm9zLmJpeiBmb3IgbG90cyBvZiBDcnlwdG8gZnVuISEhIiwxMjM0NTYsImltZyJdXQ==

Visit that and you'll see a message. With a bit of effort, it could be crafted to say something to encourage a visitor to enter their credentials elsewhere.

When I originally reported this, the site could be used to to smuggle binary payloads. For example, this URl would display an image - however, it seems to have been fixed.

Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that the WebMonetization.org domain contains an unvalidated redirect and forwarding vulnerability.

I recommended that they ensured that the only URls which contain legitimate payment pointers should be returned. I also suggested setting a maximum limit for URl size.

Timeline

#BugBounty #CyberSecurity #ResponsibleDisclosure #WebMonetization #xss

Security Flaws in the WebMonetization Site

I've written before about the nascent WebMonetization Standard. It is a proposal which allows websites to ask users for passive payments when they visit. A visitor to this site could, if this standard is widely adopted, opt to send me cash for my very fine blog posts. All I need to do is add something like this into my site's source code: HTML<link rel="monetization"…

Terence Eden’s Blog

🆕 blog! “Security Flaws in the WebMonetization Site”

I've written before about the nascent WebMonetization Standard. It is a proposal which allows websites to ask users for passive payments when they visit. A visitor to this site could, if this standard is widely adopted, opt to send me cash for my very fine blog…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/08/security-flaws-in-the-webmonetization-site/

#BugBounty #CyberSecurity #ResponsibleDisclosure #WebMonetization #xss

Security Flaws in the WebMonetization Site

I've written before about the nascent WebMonetization Standard. It is a proposal which allows websites to ask users for passive payments when they visit. A visitor to this site could, if this standard is widely adopted, opt to send me cash for my very fine blog posts. All I need to do is add something like this into my site's source code: HTML<link rel="monetization"…

Terence Eden’s Blog