Re: [Wikimedia-l] Information on "Multiple failed attempts to log in" emails

[Dennis During]

Wouldn't disclosure in a public forum of any details of such an attack
potentially inform the attackers and would-be imitators of the success or
lack thereof of the attack, of its methods, and of detection and cleanup
methods?

On Sat, Aug 25, 2018 at 12:21 PM, Fæ  wrote:

> Dear Security group of the Wikimedia Foundation,
>
> The community has been patiently waiting for *113 days* for an
> analysis to be published for the login attack of 3 May 2018.
>
-- 
Dennis C. During
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Information on "Multiple failed attempts to log in" emails

[Fæ]

Dear Security group of the Wikimedia Foundation,

The community has been patiently waiting for *113 days* for an
analysis to be published for the login attack of 3 May 2018.

The community has been waiting for *650 days* (that's around one year
and 10 months) for an analysis of the OurMine hack to be published.

We are repeatedly, and at times rudely, advised by WMF employees to
raise Phabricator tickets for these types of task, which now appears
to be deliberately bad advice if the tickets can remain open but
languish as "Needs Triage" and ignored by the WMF for a period of
years or indefinitely until the community conveniently forgets about
them.

The OurMine hack was an important breach of Wikimedia project
security, and though the precise details may not be smart to make
public as this might risk becoming guidance for future hackers, nobody
can object to a potted summary and analysis of how severe the attack
was, and what types of steps the WMF has taken to ensure this will
never be repeated.

Links
1. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193846 Publish analysis of
sustained login attack of 3 May 2018
2. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T150605 Publish an analysis of
the OurMine hack (11 November 2016)

Thank you for helping out with better community communication,
Fae
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

On Fri, 4 May 2018 at 10:40, Fæ  wrote:
>
> On 4 May 2018 at 01:27, John Bennett  wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Many of you may have been receiving emails in the last 24 hours warning you
> > of "Multiple failed attempts to log in" with your account. I wanted to let
> > you know that the Wikimedia Foundation's Security team is aware of the
> > situation, and working with others in the organization on steps to decrease
> > the success of attacks like these.
> >
> > The exact source is not yet known, but it is not originating from our
> > systems. That means it is an external effort to gain unauthorized access to
> > random accounts. These types of efforts are increasingly common for
> > websites of our reach. A vast majority of these attempts have been
> > unsuccessful, and we are reaching out personally to the small number of
> > accounts which we believe have been compromised.
> >
> > While we are constantly looking at improvements to our security systems and
> > processes to offset the impact of malicious efforts such as these, the best
> > method of prevention continues to be the steps each of you take to
> > safeguard your accounts. Because of this, we have taken steps in the past
> > to support things like stronger password requirements,[1] and we continue
> > to encourage everyone to take some routine steps to maintain a secure
> > computer and account. That includes regularly changing your passwords,[2]
> > actively running antivirus software on your systems, and keeping your
> > system software up to date.
> >
> > My team will continue to investigate this incident, and report back if we
> > notice any concerning changes. If you have any questions, please contact
> > the Support and Safety team (susa{{@}}wikimedia.org).
> >
> > John Bennett
> > Director of Security, Wikimedia Foundation
> >
> > [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Password_strength_requirements
> > [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ChangePassword
> > ___
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> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
> > 
>
> Thanks for the update.
>
> Could you please follow up with a public report about incident and the
> analysis. There is plenty of data available in the public domain, and
> an awful lot of users have been affected, there seems no special
> reason to keep the basic analysis a secret even if some
> behind-the-scenes changes might need to remain unpublished. I have
> raised this as a Phabricator ticket as a prompt.[1]
>
> By the way, the Wikimedia user community is still waiting for the
> promised report on the OurMine hack of 11th November 2016. Could you
> get on with it please? Leaving users hanging for more than a year for
> analysis to get published is not a good look for the WMF, it leaves us
> wondering if this type of standard analysis gets done properly or
> not.[2]
>
> Links
> 1. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193846 Publish analysis of
> sustained login attack of 3 May 2018
> 2. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T150605 Publish an analysis of
> the OurMine hack
>
> Thanks
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Information on "Multiple failed attempts to log in" emails

[Gergo Tisza]

On Sun, May 6, 2018 at 11:24 PM Nathan  wrote:

> I get hundreds of these a year (my user name, Nathan, seems to be a popular
> target). It would nice to be able to use some sort of multi-factor
> authentication, which is actually supported by OAUTH. However, it seems
> most projects (including en.wp) restrict use to accounts with elevated
> rights. Can anyone explain why these tools can't be made more widely
> accessible?
>

Lack of usability around recovering a lost second factor (and not losing it
in the first place) AIUI. Right now only developers can reset the second
factor; that does not scale to all Wikimedia editors.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Information on "Multiple failed attempts to log in" emails

[Nathan]

I get hundreds of these a year (my user name, Nathan, seems to be a popular
target). It would nice to be able to use some sort of multi-factor
authentication, which is actually supported by OAUTH. However, it seems
most projects (including en.wp) restrict use to accounts with elevated
rights. Can anyone explain why these tools can't be made more widely
accessible?

On Sun, May 6, 2018 at 1:24 AM Pine W  wrote:

> Thanks, John.
> Fae, I suggest that we let the WMF folks who are working on this issue
> extinguish the current fire before asking them to write a report about a
> previous one.
> I agree that the report about the previous incident is overdue. Perhaps as
> the current situation becomes calmer (updated metrics and news would be
> nice to have on the public Phab tickets) some staff can be moved off of the
> front line and back to the archives.
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
> null
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Information on "Multiple failed attempts to log in" emails

[Pine W]

Thanks, John. 
Fae, I suggest that we let the WMF folks who are working on this issue 
extinguish the current fire before asking them to write a report about a 
previous one. 
I agree that the report about the previous incident is overdue. Perhaps as the 
current situation becomes calmer (updated metrics and news would be nice to 
have on the public Phab tickets) some staff can be moved off of the front line 
and back to the archives.
Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
null
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Information on "Multiple failed attempts to log in" emails

[Fæ]

On 4 May 2018 at 01:27, John Bennett  wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Many of you may have been receiving emails in the last 24 hours warning you
> of "Multiple failed attempts to log in" with your account. I wanted to let
> you know that the Wikimedia Foundation's Security team is aware of the
> situation, and working with others in the organization on steps to decrease
> the success of attacks like these.
>
> The exact source is not yet known, but it is not originating from our
> systems. That means it is an external effort to gain unauthorized access to
> random accounts. These types of efforts are increasingly common for
> websites of our reach. A vast majority of these attempts have been
> unsuccessful, and we are reaching out personally to the small number of
> accounts which we believe have been compromised.
>
> While we are constantly looking at improvements to our security systems and
> processes to offset the impact of malicious efforts such as these, the best
> method of prevention continues to be the steps each of you take to
> safeguard your accounts. Because of this, we have taken steps in the past
> to support things like stronger password requirements,[1] and we continue
> to encourage everyone to take some routine steps to maintain a secure
> computer and account. That includes regularly changing your passwords,[2]
> actively running antivirus software on your systems, and keeping your
> system software up to date.
>
> My team will continue to investigate this incident, and report back if we
> notice any concerning changes. If you have any questions, please contact
> the Support and Safety team (susa{{@}}wikimedia.org).
>
> John Bennett
> Director of Security, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Password_strength_requirements
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ChangePassword
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: 
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> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
> 

Thanks for the update.

Could you please follow up with a public report about incident and the
analysis. There is plenty of data available in the public domain, and
an awful lot of users have been affected, there seems no special
reason to keep the basic analysis a secret even if some
behind-the-scenes changes might need to remain unpublished. I have
raised this as a Phabricator ticket as a prompt.[1]

By the way, the Wikimedia user community is still waiting for the
promised report on the OurMine hack of 11th November 2016. Could you
get on with it please? Leaving users hanging for more than a year for
analysis to get published is not a good look for the WMF, it leaves us
wondering if this type of standard analysis gets done properly or
not.[2]

Links
1. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193846 Publish analysis of
sustained login attack of 3 May 2018
2. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T150605 Publish an analysis of
the OurMine hack

Thanks
Fae
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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[Wikimedia-l] Information on "Multiple failed attempts to log in" emails

[John Bennett]

Hello,

Many of you may have been receiving emails in the last 24 hours warning you
of "Multiple failed attempts to log in" with your account. I wanted to let
you know that the Wikimedia Foundation's Security team is aware of the
situation, and working with others in the organization on steps to decrease
the success of attacks like these.

The exact source is not yet known, but it is not originating from our
systems. That means it is an external effort to gain unauthorized access to
random accounts. These types of efforts are increasingly common for
websites of our reach. A vast majority of these attempts have been
unsuccessful, and we are reaching out personally to the small number of
accounts which we believe have been compromised.

While we are constantly looking at improvements to our security systems and
processes to offset the impact of malicious efforts such as these, the best
method of prevention continues to be the steps each of you take to
safeguard your accounts. Because of this, we have taken steps in the past
to support things like stronger password requirements,[1] and we continue
to encourage everyone to take some routine steps to maintain a secure
computer and account. That includes regularly changing your passwords,[2]
actively running antivirus software on your systems, and keeping your
system software up to date.

My team will continue to investigate this incident, and report back if we
notice any concerning changes. If you have any questions, please contact
the Support and Safety team (susa{{@}}wikimedia.org).

John Bennett
Director of Security, Wikimedia Foundation

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Password_strength_requirements
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ChangePassword
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