"We are gathered here today because your thoughts and prayers did not secure our app"
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2026
558 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
87598 readers
4129 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Why does it need any personal details at all??
So that jesus can torture the bad persons.
For sharing between users, as I understand it.
Username, password is all they need for that. Idiots.
So they know what sins I’ve committed.
They don’t follow my mastodon feed. It’s much easier that way.
Historically? Abuse.
I’m sure they say it’s for security : blocking bots, etc and getting their newsletter or some shit.
They need the list of who's been naughty and who's been nice.
Or is that the other fella?
load more comments
(1 replies)
the API endpoint GET
[redacted]will return user data for any account - not just your own account - so long as you supply a valid, five-digit user ID. It doesn’t perform any authorization check or ownership validation. “Just increment the number and get someone else's data,” she wrote.This data includes users’ email addresses, first and last names, country, dates of birth, and whether the account has been deleted, and the API exposes all 719,517 accounts on the prayer site. “With sequential user IDs and no rate limiting, an attacker could enumerate every single account on the platform,” the hacker explained. “One GET request per user. for i in range(1, 719518): scrape(). That's it. That's the exploit.”
My God, that's horrific. Plus it doesn't even delete your data if you delete your account, it's still vulnerable.
I wonder of the vatican is part of the gdpr...
Would be funny to read about the church getting sued for that.
I don't know much about GDPR… is it illegal to have badly written software like this? Technically the user is bypassing normal usage and "hacking" the API
Negligence to delete the account data after termination is a reason to be fined.
They don't need to keep that data.
Afaik the only reason would be if MTX were offered (for book-keeping reasons)
It is illegal to keep deleted profiles
load more comments
(1 replies)
5 digit user ids, yet over 700k users? Im sure they must have gone up to 6 digits
I tried the endpoint. 5 digits always gives you a valid user, 6 stops working after some point.
They probably meant 6 digit and it was a typo. The rest of the article references 6 digits. If it's just an integer (highly likely) it would go up to 10 digits or roughly 2 billion max users. My old coworkers and I used to joke that hitting INTEGER.MAX_VALUE for your customer ID is a good problem to have
load more comments
(4 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
The Catholic Church is known for a lot of things. Keeping up with the times (or cyber security) isn't one of them.
Cyber security isn’t in the bible. Time for an update.
Cyprus 1:1
…. Copy pasta of NIST security standards circa May 2026 …
Nothing could go wrong with this.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Vatican Programmer: Oh, mighty Lord, sitting in the Sky, show me the way to this bug I seek and eliminate ineffectiveness. Amen.
Vatican Programmer: Contractor in India
load more comments
(1 replies)
So uh.. what does a prayer app even do?
It connects users across the globe to pray for the Holy Father’s intentions, and as of July 2026, it has 719,517 registered accounts
The only two screenshots they have on GPlay feature prayer scheduling and sharing your prayer.
Damn, with that many people praying these prayers are about to get real effective. I'm surprised we haven't heard of their effects and effectiveness yet.
I'd like to see the media mix modeling data to really assess the ROP of these prayers. Cross check that against miracle count and we'll really be cooking.
It leaks personal data.
Press F to pray respects
See, humans are smart. Praying and blessing things yourself? By hand, so to speak? Boooo! Pedestrian! Ain't nobody got time fo dat!
the Tibetans believe the prayers and mantras will be blown by the wind to spread the good will and compassion into all pervading space. Therefore, prayer flags are thought to bring benefit to all.
By hanging flags in high places the Lung ta will carry the blessings depicted on the flags to all beings. As wind passes over the surface of the flags, which are sensitive to the slightest movement of the wind, the air is purified and sanctified by the mantras.
I choose to believe that the prayer app is just a hip, new and with it innovation in prayer spreading.
It still works lmao
No email and some other stuff though.... maybe they just removed that from the endpoint?
From the source blog post, which has the update
The authorization check is there now: request your own user ID and you still get your email back, request someone else's and you get a public profile. Names are supposed to be public on a platform where you pray alongside other people, so what's left is what was always meant to be visible.
As it often is, the source has more information, and significantly so. I also find it much easier and more informative to read. Simple direct speech, headlines, more concrete on what is exposed, more technical details, etc.
They didn't just send one email to report the vulnerability.
and on January 3rd I emailed nine people: the general info address, six individual staff members at clicktopray.org, and two contacts at popesprayer.va (the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network). No response. From any of them.
For July they have three entries of 'reported to Journalist' ("Dark Reading"), journalist contacted the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, and 'still no response'.
They also posted an update about it being fixed on 2026-07-24 that it has been fixed.
The authorization check is there now: request your own user ID and you still get your email back, request someone else's and you get a public profile. Names are supposed to be public on a platform where you pray alongside other people, so what's left is what was always meant to be visible.
I also never got an email. Not an acknowledgment, not a thank you, not a "we've addressed this."
Given that The Register posted this article on 2026-07-24 22 UTC it must have been very unfortunate timing. Presumably they didn't check the source again before pressing publish? And also haven't noticed or bothered to include an information update.
“Pope sprayer .va” is how I’m choosing to read that.
Why not just give the app away and let people access the content without having them sign up? Oh right.... The people are the product.
There's a fucking official app for prayers?!
Was this vibe coded?
That would be rather ironic.
Is JD Vance in here? He's supposed to be Catholic right?
To borrow a tenet from another abrahamic religion, trust in God, but tie up your camel.
Why should they care about security user data? We’re all equal before God.
I’ve seen so many stories about leaks that I skip most of them. I’m glad I didn’t skip this one.
view more: next ›