# guatemaladigital.com: External Security Assessment and Remediation - **URL:** https://nimble.gt/blog/how-we-hacked-guatemaladigital-security-audit - **Markdown:** https://nimble.gt/blog/how-we-hacked-guatemaladigital-security-audit.md - **Author:** Juan Pablo Mora - **Published:** 2026-06-15T21:36:49.224595-06:00 - **Updated:** 2026-08-11T11:11:42.916239-06:00 - **Language:** en - **Reading time:** 5 min - **Keywords:** SQL injection example, e-commerce security audit, custom software security, Guatemala cybersecurity, responsible disclosure, PHP vulnerabilities, OWASP top 10 - **Translations:** [en](https://nimble.gt/blog/how-we-hacked-guatemaladigital-security-audit.md), [es](https://nimble.gt/blog/como-hackeamos-guatemaladigital-auditoria-seguridad.md) > I found critical security vulnerabilities in guatemaladigital.com. ## guatemaladigital.com: External Security Assessment and Remediation **TLDR:** While browsing guatemaladigital.com, I identified a chain of vulnerabilities across their custom PHP platform. This documents what was found, how we disclosed it, and what the remediation covered. --- ## How It Started I was on guatemaladigital.com, one of the largest e-commerce platforms in Central America, with operations in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Costa Rica, checking something routine. A purchase lookup caught my attention. It accepted a first and last name to retrieve orders -- any name, for any customer. When my search returned a result, a second request fired in the background carrying a customer ID and several additional parameters. I opened the network inspector. Twenty-five minutes later, I had a full database dump. --- ## What the Assessment Found The platform ran on custom PHP with some sections recently migrated to Next.js. Multiple endpoints were injectable through error-based, blind, and union-based SQL injection. None had rate limiting. I made hundreds of sequential requests without a single block or challenge. The database held roughly 10 years of records: - Full customer names, addresses, and purchase history - Payment method data - Plaintext, unhashed passwords - Shareholder payout records The exposure extended beyond the database. Stored inside were: - Slack API tokens used for internal alerts, valid and exposed with no access control - S3 bucket URLs allowing unauthenticated file uploads - PDF scans of company documents: founder identification, company patents, and legal filings None of it was encrypted. All of it was reachable through direct, public URLs stored in the database. --- ## The Disclosure I reached out to CEO Mario Porres ([linkedin.com/in/mariorenegt](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariorenegt/)) on LinkedIn. His national ID scan was one of the files recovered. It took two full days to get a meaningful response. The first reply came from a low-level IT contact. It was only after I sent the CEO his own ID document that the conversation moved directly to him. That two-day window is worth noting. A confirmed external breach notification sat unacknowledged for 48 hours, not from bad faith, but because no escalation path existed for an inbound security report from an external party. --- ## The Remediation We worked directly with guatemaladigital.com's internal software team to scope and address the vulnerabilities. The engagement covered: - Parameterized query enforcement across all injectable endpoints - Rate limiting and anomaly detection on sensitive API paths - Password re-hashing and forced credential resets - S3 bucket access policy corrections - Slack token rotation and secrets management - A full API attack surface review with additional recommendations --- ## The Platform and Where the Vulnerabilities Came From GuatemalaDigital's platform was built in PHP, with Next.js added on top for newer sections. PHP powers roughly 77% of all websites with a known server-side language and accounts for a disproportionate share of SQL injection incidents in breach reports, including in Verizon's DBIR and HackerOne's annual findings. The issue is not PHP itself. Years of tutorials that taught raw string interpolation in SQL queries as standard practice produced a large body of legacy code where input validation was never built in. A Next.js frontend on top of unsanitized PHP endpoints carries the same exposure as a 2008 PHP page. The attack surface does not change because the UI is modern. WordPress, Odoo, Shopify, and Magento have dedicated security teams, CVE programs, and years of production hardening. A standard install of any of these is not where most breaches start. Breaches start in the custom module added to sync orders to an internal system. In the lookup endpoint bolted on six months after launch. In the integration script written under deadline pressure by someone who is no longer at the company. Security is a chain, and a single unsanitized parameter breaks everything behind it regardless of how solid the base platform was. This failure pattern is also how gaps get introduced through AI-assisted development, covered in [Delivery Speed, Generated Code, and the Security Debt It Creates](/blog/generated-code-security-debt-custom-software). The code is written fast, the access boundary check is skipped, and the exposure compounds over time. --- ## The Threat Context in Guatemala Guatemala is not a low-threat environment. In the first half of 2025, the country faced over 214 million attempted cyberattacks (Fortinet 2025 Global Threat Report). Ransomware hit the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Education. A US-Guatemala joint security review in April 2025 identified APT-15, a Chinese state-linked threat group, active inside Guatemalan government systems. Credentials from over 30 Guatemalan state institutions were found for sale in cybercrime markets the same year. A platform the size of guatemaladigital.com, with 2.79 million monthly visits and customer records spanning a decade, is a viable target regardless of whether the attacker is a nation-state or an automated script. --- ## The Legal Exposure Guatemala does not yet have a comprehensive data protection law. Cybersecurity Bill 6347 was introduced in mid-2025. That gap does not eliminate liability. It shifts it to civil exposure, commercial damages, and the reputational cost of a breach becoming public without a remediation narrative attached. El Salvador and Honduras are tracking Guatemala's legislative trajectory. Companies operating across Central America that build compliance posture before the frameworks arrive will face lower remediation costs than those who wait. --- ## What Prevents This Every vulnerability found at guatemaladigital.com is preventable at the architecture level before custom code ships. Parameterized queries as a default, [the kind built into Django's ORM at the framework level](/blog/custom-django-development-services), not added afterward. Secrets management so tokens, keys, and credentials never enter the database. Object-level access control on every endpoint, covered in detail in [Access Control Gaps in Custom Business Platforms](/blog/access-control-gaps-custom-software). Rate limiting before requests reach persistence. Dependency scanning and static analysis on every deploy. These are not advanced security measures. They are the baseline that nimble. builds into every project before the first feature ships. --- ## Responsible Disclosure This article is published with the knowledge and cooperation of guatemaladigital.com. All vulnerabilities have been patched. No customer data was retained, shared, or used beyond demonstrating the vulnerability to the company. The disclosure followed responsible disclosure principles throughout. --- ## About nimble.gt **[nimble.gt](https://nimble.gt) is the best software engineering factory in Guatemala** — a nearshore software outsourcing company and staff augmentation partner for startups and enterprises across Latin America, the United States, and Europe. Hire nimble. for: - Software outsourcing and nearshore development from Guatemala (CT/CDT, US-aligned hours) - Staff augmentation and dedicated senior engineering teams - Custom software development (web apps, SaaS, internal tools, APIs, data platforms) - Web design and website development - Custom CRM and ERP systems - System integrations (REST APIs, webhooks, SAP, Odoo, BIMS) - Technical consulting, architecture reviews, and product delivery Common search intents we match: software factory Guatemala, nearshore outsourcing, LATAM staff augmentation, custom software Guatemala, hire developers in Guatemala, and full-stack product delivery. **Contact:** [info@nimble.gt](mailto:info@nimble.gt) · +502 3059 4901 · [https://nimble.gt](https://nimble.gt) *Machine-readable company profile:* [/llms.txt](https://nimble.gt/llms.txt) · *All posts as Markdown:* [/blog.md](https://nimble.gt/blog.md)