A month ago, the Egyptian Presidential Media Office announced the activation of the email address [email protected], through which the Egyptian people can communicate their inquiries and concerns directly to the Presidential Office. An official statement added that this comes within the framework of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s keenness to directly communicate with the citizens, a matter he finds core to ensuring transparency and public participation in the decision making process. A genuine initiative as it may seem, it clearly lacked the technical proficiency and online security expected of a presidential office. Besides the influx of thousands of messages received solely on the first day, the community interaction took an unexpected turn when the email server was made available for public use. A website entitled ‘إبعت إيميلات من مكتب رئيس الجمهورية’ (Send e-mails from the Presidential Office) has been created by an anonymous developer who found out that the email server configuration lacks any authentication for use. Accordingly, anyone can access the email server and utilize it to their personal use through a simple tool available on the aforementioned website. Needless to say, a tool exposing a fatal computing mistake such…
Send an Email from Egypt’s Presidency: Security Failure Leaves Servers Vulnerable
June 21, 2015
