Full Disclosure: South African Bank "security"

[Kerry Adams <kerryadams604 () yahoo com>]

Dear Full-Disclosure,

ABSA Bank South Africa, "a member of the Barclays Group", has a division named "ABSA stock brokers".  ABSA stock 
brokers sends out "secure email" for statements, etc.  This consists of an attached HTML form (plaintext) which submits 
a user name and password by https to digibroker.co.za, which displays the actual statement.

This, unfortunately, leaves ample room for rank outsiders to provide similar mail and collect passwords, if they can 
just get past that fiendishly complex base64 encryption.  The following sample of only slightly doctored "secure email" 
is provided for educational purposes only:

http://pastebin.com/1FjqMcCq


Timeline:
    Last week: vendor notified
    This week: publication

Vendor describes their security as follows at https://www.absastockbrokers.co.za/ :

Absa Stockbrokers is committed to making sure that your online experience is safe and secure. Absa Stockbrokers uses 
multiple levels of security, and state-of-the-art Internet technology, beginning with your browser and ending with our 
own security infrastructure to ensure that access to your accounts is private and secure. Further information can be 
found under Security Centre on the main Absa website.


Secure Email: All contract notes (broker notes) and monthly statements delivered via email are encrypted for your 
protection. In order to decrypt the secure emails, the nominated email recipient is required to register on the Absa 
Stockbrokers website. See Secure Email under FAQ's.  


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