🚨 critical 🔐 Cryptographic Nightmares

ashfordwebservices.co.uk

Chunked a massive private key across three TXT records

$ dig TXT ashfordwebservices.co.uk

;; QUESTION SECTION:

;ashfordwebservices.co.uk. IN TXT


;; ANSWER SECTION:

ashfordwebservices.co.uk. 3600 IN TXT "MIIEpQIBAAKCAQEA3b0/m4FyrR4GYUA1D3cZN2g9yuqFfnNL7kFBkfa/tI7MENvc... [Record 2]: 7XZni4jWoUXYMRafxZ2tXNcLeHi/h8kSidP5AxUUZbfS79B8N5qgzqH27IGDK05Z... [Record 3]: DbvZ0xyqBOms3D70lSyzxTqkhul/8g6FznhZNjiM…"

What Happened

DNS has a 255-character limit per TXT string, so this admin chunked what appears to be a massive raw base64 private key across three separate TXT records. Three queries, one complete private key. The internet is a fascinating place.

Full TXT Record Value
MIIEpQIBAAKCAQEA3b0/m4FyrR4GYUA1D3cZN2g9yuqFfnNL7kFBkfa/tI7MENvc... [Record 2]: 7XZni4jWoUXYMRafxZ2tXNcLeHi/h8kSidP5AxUUZbfS79B8N5qgzqH27IGDK05Z... [Record 3]: DbvZ0xyqBOms3D70lSyzxTqkhul/8g6FznhZNjiMTmWkgmB4cV3... [REDACTED — private key material]