The company's developers were careless with sensitive credentials and secret keys, a security consultant found. If you’re a company that makes its own websites and applications, make sure your developers don’t do what the Ashley Madison coders did: store sensitive credentials like database passwords, API secrets, authentication tokens or SSL private keys in source code repositories.Judging by the massive amount of data leaked last month by Impact Team from AshleyMadison.com’s owner Avid Life Media (ALM), the hackers gained extensive access to the Canadian company’s IT infrastructure.[ ALSO ON CSO: Ashley Madison still a top lure for scammers and crooks ]The ALM data dumps contained customer records and transaction details from the Ashley Madison infidelity website, but also the email database of the company’s now-former CEO and the source code for the company’s other online dating websites including CougarLife.com and EstablishedMen.com. A London-based security consultant named Gabor Szathmari has now found evidence that ALM’s developers were careless with sensitive credentials, which might have helped attackers once they gained a foothold on the company’s network.In the leaked ALM source code repositories Szathmari found hard-coded weak database passwords, API access credentials for a cloud-based storage bucket on Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3), Twitter OAuth tokens, secret tokens for other applications and private keys for SSL certificates. “The end result of sensitive data stored in the source code repos is a much more vulnerable infrastructure,” Szathmari said Monday in a blog post. “Database credentials, AWS tokens probably made the lateral movement easier for the Impact Team, leading to the full breach of Ashley.”Szathmari advises all companies to remove sensitive credentials from their source code or Wiki pages. Hard-coding such secrets makes it harder to later change them and potentially exposes them to unwanted people when the source code is committed to internal or external repositories.The problem is so common that Amazon Web Services (AWS) issued a warning about it last year after thousands of AWS secret keys were found in public source code repositories hosted on GitHub.Also last year, URL shortening service Bitly suffered a data breach after hackers used a compromised developer account to access the company’s source code repository and steal credentials for its offsite database backup that were stored there. Related content news UK government plans 2,500 new tech recruits by 2025 with focus on cybersecurity New apprenticeships and talent programmes will support recruitment for in-demand roles such as cybersecurity technologists and software developers By Michael Hill Sep 29, 2023 4 mins Education Industry Education Industry Education Industry news UK data regulator orders end to spreadsheet FOI requests after serious data breaches The Information Commissioner’s Office says alternative approaches should be used to publish freedom of information data to mitigate risks to personal information By Michael Hill Sep 29, 2023 3 mins Government Cybercrime Data and Information Security feature Cybersecurity startups to watch for in 2023 These startups are jumping in where most established security vendors have yet to go. By CSO Staff Sep 29, 2023 19 mins CSO and CISO Security news analysis Companies are already feeling the pressure from upcoming US SEC cyber rules New Securities and Exchange Commission cyber incident reporting rules don't kick in until December, but experts say they highlight the need for greater collaboration between CISOs and the C-suite By Cynthia Brumfield Sep 28, 2023 6 mins Regulation Data Breach Financial Services Industry Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe