Link: What rails security means for your startup

If you hadn't already heard, Rails has a security vulnerability that affects all versions of Rails. This one is about XML-parsing of YAML strings.

This was followed by a second vulnerability in the JSON parser - again of YAML-parsed code.

So what does this all mean for all of us running Rails-based systems? Is this just a flash-in-the-pan issue that will fade away the moment it's out of the public eye? or is it a herald of the coming apocalypse?

A really cogent overview of what the rails security issue means for your startup has been written by Patrick, and I strongly recommend you read it, and pass it on.

Amongst a number of useful overviews, it covers such things as "yeah, but we're not a high-profile site, nobody's going to attack us right?" and concludes that the worst may not yet be past, and that:

You Should Be At Defcon 2 For Most Of February