Be part of JetBrains PHPverse 2026 on June 9 – a free online event bringing PHP devs worldwide together.

billy_eilish_avacado's avatar

What to do when u see vulnerebility?

Today i found one Laravel website having serious vulnerability. The website was leaking personal data in one api endpoint and was publicly accessible to other user. Its like the end point needs authentication but they forgot to add authorization. Like I can download other's user passport etc.

I sent them emails, messaged but they never really cares. What would be good solution? And would I be in trouble in future because i reported it to them?

Thanks.

0 likes
8 replies
billy_eilish_avacado's avatar

@maximilien its not an open source project and I have not found any security.txt . Its a big website and I reported it like 4 days ago from message, emails. I sent them detailed report. Even 6 month ago i reported them their website has too many security flaws but they don't even reply or give a shit.

Is there any law stuff we need to know? Because lets say other hacker found it and I am going to be primary suspects right?

The vulnerability looks like they provide service to download passport via xyz.com/passport/1

So but they forgot to protect routes for xyz.com/passport/2 so now user 1 can download user 2.

I am mostly worried about those people data they collected. Now if i publish report other people may misuse till the company fix the issue. But I am just a simple dev and if i can find it there is high probability other has already found it or will find it. Before damage is done I would like to fix it.

The worst thing is like they still run on php 5.3.3. And the company has like 1 million subscriber. I don't understand a big company probably paying less salary probably because in our country Software is usually never given value by most companies.

This is such a frustrating situation and I dont even know what should I do.

Snapey's avatar

are they based in a country that has an information commissioner, or some government department that cares about citizen privacy?

shez1983's avatar

if they have twitter/facebook, shaming them on it should get them to do something.. otherwise if you can see/download users list, u could email them all (or at least some).. what site is this?

jlrdw's avatar

Laravel is secure when RBAC is setup right.

But I'm just afraid this happens often due to new folks not properly learning RBAC.

I see where many here think authentication is enough, but they never learn how to properly verify an id in the url does indeed match the Auth::id().

They set up their routes and think they are good to go.

RBAC takes time to properly setup. Any framework (including just php) is insecure when a new to programming person is suddenly (in their mind) an expert in a week.

But contact site owner and let them know.

shez1983's avatar

I am not sure what your reply has to do with what OP is trying to do?

Maximilien's avatar

HI,

If they Play deaf, I understand your frustration.

Another tip I can give you, as there is some national identity documents involved, is to contact local CERT here an example for Nepalese CERT.

Please or to participate in this conversation.