Digital Agency 9xb Uncovers A Massive Internet Flaw

Here at 9xb, Studio Manager Alex has noticed something very interesting in the World Wide Web that could be detrimental to many websites and their bank balances. Alex has uncovered a giant Internet flaw that could cause quite a stir, so we want to be the first to tell you about it…and give you the solution.

According to Alex, the problem is a mathematical one. As you know, the quantity box on most online stores takes a number as an input then stores this in the database until the basket is displayed on screen. The code goes through and multiplies the quantity by the price of each item and adds up the total cumulatively. However, with this Internet flaw that’s been discovered, this can all be changed very easily.

The problem comes when a customer types in -1 (minus one). Multiplying a value by -1 obviously gives you the negative version of that value, and when added to a total actually subtracts! So you can put an item in the basket, add another one with a quantity of -1 and essentially get the item for free.

Naturally, there are many online shopping sites up and running these days, so using the shopping basket and checkout system is relatively familiar to most. People are comfortable using the online shopping facilities and proceeding with payment. However, will this discovery of a significant Internet flaw make customers question the accuracy and function of their favourite websites? It must be mentioned that the problem doesn’t occur on all sites, but there are a few that we have come across that might encourage other businesses to check their shopping basket functions.

an example of the Internet flaw

Although we have discovered this Internet issue, we didn’t want to leave you without the solution, so here’s the way to solve the problem.

Webmasters:

1) You can restrict the database to only store unsigned (positive) integers

Or

2) You can clean the customer input properly so that if qty < 0 is then qty = 1, it will default any ‘dodgy’ values to a 1.

All it needs is a bit of website trickery to sort the problem out. So, if you have an online shopping basket function, it might be worth double-checking that customers can’t subtract an amount and get an item for free! And if you choose to have a website built by us, you can rest assured that we have these solutions already in place.