Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by streetfighter64 106 days ago
Well, admins (or anybody other than the developers / deployment pipeline) having permissions to alter the JS sounds like a significant vulnerability. Maybe it wasn't in the early 2000s, but unencrypted HTTP was also normal then.
2 comments
bawolff 106 days ago
That's a fair point, but keep in mind normal admin is not sufficient. For local users (the account in question wasn't local) you need to be an "interface admin", of which there are only 15 on english wikipedia.

The account in question had "staff" rights which gave him basically all rights on all wikis.

link
cesarb 106 days ago
> For local users (the account in question wasn't local) you need to be an "interface admin", of which there are only 15 on english wikipedia.

It used to be all "admin" accounts, of which there were many more. Restricting it to "interface admin" only is a fairly recent change.

link
bawolff 106 days ago
> Restricting it to "interface admin" only is a fairly recent change.

Its been 8 years!

link
LaGrange 106 days ago
> Well, admins (or anybody other than the developers / deployment pipeline) having permissions to alter the JS sounds like a significant vulnerability.

It's a common feature of CMS'es and "tag management systems." Its presence is a massive PITA to developers even _besides_ the security, but PMs _love them_, in my experience.

link