Nova Scotia Embarrassment –

Just a quick post to have someone with the text. In case you aren’t aware, Nova Scotia’s “Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy” (FOIPOP) system allows you to request various information from the government, including information about yourself. When you request information about yourself it’s not redacted (i.e., your SIN and other information they have would be in the document), but when you request it about someone/something else information is redacted to protect their privacy.

They were serving these documents using a system with URLs like “https://foipop.novascotia.ca/foia/views/_AttachmentDownload.jsp?attachmentRSN=1234”, where the last number was the document. Which is fine until they decided to use this for both the sensitive and non-sensitive one, with no log-in or password checks. To a point, these documents were automatically indexed by Google and other services, as they didn’t even put a ROBOTS.txt is seems.

Evan D’Entremont has a great write-up, so I’ll just refer you there for details.

While somebody downloaded documents they “weren’t supposed to”, and they are now claiming he is a hacker. Note most of the documents accessed were public, and there was no way to tell them apart based on URL (so it’s not even an attempt at hacking). The following is my open letter to the province regarding this silliness:


April 17, 2018

The Honourable Stephen McNeil, Premier of Nova Scotia

Re: Nova Scotia handling of FOIPOP information leak

I’m writing to you with considerable alarm regarding the response to the exposure of confidential information via the FOIPOP portal. In particular, I am greatly alarmed by the handling of an individual accessing a public government website.

It is clear the document storage and display system was designed for public documents only, as no attempt was made to authorize or validate the user. I can only assume this was a miscommunication about the intended use of this particular document storage system, as many of the documents appear on Google and other archives. Notably, even the most basic web configurations have a list of non-public directories which search engines such as Google will not access out of courtesy. There is no authentication or lock on these pages eith­er, but the fact that no attempt was made to prevent such access clearly points to this being a publicly accessible document repository.

Attempts to claim this was somehow a “hack” or even “vulnerability exploitation” do not pass muster. Neither do explanations make sense that this is a case of someone stealing an unlocked bicycle, and thus they have still done something wrong. Rather this is a case of someone (hint – not the person that had their house stormed) leaving sensitive documents in the library stacks, and someone else finding them while looking through the books. They were placed in a public location without any access control – the “attacker” simply picked them up from this public space. In fact, in this case the sensitive documents even had the same labeling and numbering system as the public books on the shelf. They are completely indistinguishable until you look at the contents.

Despite this, the person finding the documents is being aggressively handled, and a story being created that is attempting to spin them into the antagonist. Heavy-handed attempts at pursuing “computer crime” have been widely recognized as being counter-productive of achieving a more productive and secure society – even when some actual crime may have occurred (which in itself appears questionable for the case at hand).

On one hand, the government is claiming they want to encourage investment and growth of technology in Nova Scotia. Cyber-security in particular has been recognized as a particular growth area of importance to Canada, with the latest federal budget spending $1 billion on cybersecurity. But the handling of this case sends a crystal-clear message to potential researchers and entrepreneurs that Nova Scotia is not somewhere you want to be, as they are still working under long disproven and outdated cyber-security enforcement tactics.

I do not believe the current outcome was malicious, but the result of many levels of confusion, miscommunication, and attempts to divert blame. Ultimately this miscommunication resulted in Halifax Regional Police conducting a raid under the pretense that a computer crime occurred.

There is still some hope of salvaging Nova Scotia’s reputation and future ability to attract critical cyber-security talent from across Canada and the world. This would require a frank admission of the failures within the government (this does not require scapegoating any specific employee), while also outlining remediation steps to provide justice for the “hacker”, and a plan to prevent such heavy-handed reactions from occurring in the future (such as some level of expert validation of computer crime complaints). Regaining public trust regarding handling of sensitive data involves additional work, but I believe the first three items outlined are the most time-critical for the matter at hand.

Respectfully,

Colin O’Flynn, Ph.D.

C.T.O., NewAE Technology Inc.


 

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