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What Security Through Obscurity Is, and Why It's Evil

Kat Maddox on March 31, 2019

This article is an explanation of what security through obscurity is, why it's terrible if it's your only defense, and some ways in which you might...
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Adrián Norte

This should be mandatory reading for anyone in the industry.

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Kat Maddox

Thanks Adrián!! :)

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DrBearhands

I wanted to rebuke but your aside sums up everything I had to say. There's an interesting DEFCON video about obscurity to fuck with reverse engineers.

Great article! Style, pacing, length... perhaps the best article I've read on dev.to yet.

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Kat Maddox • Edited

I haven't seen that DEFCON video yet, I'll check it out.

perhaps the best article I've read on dev.to yet.

Awwww. Thanks so much!

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Max Antonucci

As someone whose been hit with security issues in the past (mostly social engineering), I definitely agree this is a useful read for everyone here. Thank you for posting it!

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Kat Maddox

(mostly social engineering)

Actually, that's a great idea for my next article!

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Max Antonucci

Haha that's a great topic. I was hit by a horrible social engineering scam in college and wound up writing my info security term paper on social engineering. People underestimate it so often and as a result it's the most dangerous for the most people.

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Spencer Alessi

Really good breakdown of some super important things to make note of if you're a security administrator or penetration tester. Nice!

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Kat Maddox

Thanks!! :)

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Max Ong Zong Bao

Awesome article there's not alot of good security articles on Dev.

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Kat Maddox

I'm doing my best to change that! :)

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Nijeesh Joshy

Great Article

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Kat Maddox

Thanks Nijeesh! :)

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Yaser Al-Najjar

Like Adrian said, I hope every developer would read this, understand it, and worship it.

As for rolling your own crypto, even if you SERIOUSLY know what you're doing... just don't 😆

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Kat Maddox

Hahaha. Just... yeah. Just don't.