I Hacked My Professor?s Website
I?m taking a class on databases, and the final part of the class is on using PHP and MySQL to make a database-driven website. The professor gave the class some simple instructions on security for our own websites - namely, he described a method for protecting our passwords to the DB server so that other users on the university?s machine couldn?t read them. Unfortunately, his method isn?t very good. He admitted that fact himself as he explained his security procedure, but I was able to get his password in only about half an hour of trying, and I?m really not much of a hacker. Here?s a page showing his DB connection information, it?s on my site, but the data is coming out of my professor?s home directory, to which I?m not supposed to have access. Don?t worry, you can?t actually do anything destructive with the password in that file. However, he wants students to protect their passwords the same way. I hope no one is using the same password for their database accounts at school as they are for their email or their bank accounts. I?ll discuss this with my professor tomorrow. For what it?s worth, we talked about security concerns in class and I don?t think he?ll consider this to be malicious.