Security on haloscan.com

time to read 2 min | 260 words

I just got the standard referrer email from my blog on my latest post. Only this one wasn't the usual one. I usually check the pages that link to my blog if I can, and so I followed this one, to find myself in Haloscan's page.

HaloScan.com provides a free, easy to use commenting and trackback system for weblogs and websites, allowing visitors to leave instant feedback. By copying and pasting just two lines of code into your site, you will enable your visitors to easily leave their feedback, opinion or a comment on the subject at hand.

The problem that I have with is simple, actually. The url that I got had the normal format of http get parameters, and allowed me unlimited access to the account. Including editing/deleting both comments and trackbacks.

What happened is that I trackbacked the story, and the author apperantly followed it from his management page to my blog, which caused my blog to send me a referrer email with the referring adress.

The big problem here is that just the URL is enough to warrant access to the account.
At a minimum, they need to use cookies or POST variables.

I informed both the author and HaloScan.com, we'll see what comes out of it.

This is the first security related bug that I discovered. :-)

[Update: It seems that you can mitigate this if you logout of your session]