Missouri Governor Mike Parson may need to study up at the variations among disclosing and exploiting protection flaws. According to The Missouri Independent, Parson accused a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter of being a “hacker” for having the audacity to… file protection holes. The journalist disclosed a Department of Elementary and Secondary Education net app flaw that permit all of us see over 100,000 teachers’ Social Security numbers in web website online supply code, and Parson interpreted this as a “political game” supposed to “embarrass the state” — that is, a malicious hack.
The governor has already referred the case to the Cole County Prosecutor, or even has the Missouri Highway State Patrol investigating. An lawyer for The Post-Dispatch maintained that the reporter “did the accountable thing” with the aid of using sharing the flaw with the authorities to get it fixed. The attorney additionally helpfully refreshed Parson on his net lingo. A hacker is a person who “subverts” protection with sinister intent, now no longer a reporter seeking to bolster protection with the aid of using sharing publicly to be had information.
This flaw wasn’t recent, either. University of Missouri-St. Louis professor Shaji Khan instructed The Post-Dispatch that this form of vulnerability were recognized for “at least” 10 years, and that it was “thoughts boggling” the Department might allow those troubles linger. Audits in 2015 and 2016 had highlighted records series problems at each the Department and faculty districts.
No, prosecutors probable may not document charges. It’s a piece tough to convict a person whose ‘hack’ correctly amounted to clicking “view web page supply” of their browser. However, this highlights an all-too-acquainted trouble with politicians that do not apprehend tech. It does not simply result in embarrassments, consisting of letters to long-long gone CEOs — it could discourage accountable protection disclosures and placed hundreds of humans at risk.