The Postman: A Journey of Ethical Hacking in PosteID/SPID Borderland

TL;DR

This paper details an ethical hacking case study on PosteID, revealing a critical privilege escalation vulnerability in Italy's digital identity system, and discusses the technical and disclosure process involved.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive case study of vulnerability assessment and responsible disclosure in a national digital identity platform.

Findings

Discovered a critical privilege escalation vulnerability in PosteID

Vulnerability was successfully patched after disclosure

Provides technical details and ethical hacking methodology

Abstract

This paper presents a vulnerability assessment activity that we carried out on PosteID, the implementation of the Italian Public Digital Identity System (SPID) by Poste Italiane. The activity led to the discovery of a critical privilege escalation vulnerability, which was eventually patched. The overall analysis and disclosure process represents a valuable case study for the community of ethical hackers. In this work, we present both the technical steps and the details of the disclosure process.