How a Browser Card Game Found 31 Silent Security Bugs Automated Tests Missed

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During development of browser-based trading card game Prismwar, developers discovered that their automated test suite failed to catch 31 out of 70 deliberately introduced bugs. A key flaw was that the test harness shared defective code with the system it was meant to verify, causing tests to pass by mirroring the same bug rather than detecting it. Silent failures included an unsigned profile exploit that granted players 720 cards and a million wins, and a blocker-state bug that went undetected because replays reproduced the faulty behavior accurately. The team responded by centralizing input validation at a single state-machine entry point and replacing outcome-based checks with property assertions that verify specific mechanisms exist and are actively consulted. Their findings underscore that adversarial, mutation-driven testing is essential for catching security flaws that conventional automated suites routinely overlook.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

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