Thanks Nick,

That is a good read.

-Bryan

On 10/17/14, 9:54 AM, "Nick Owen" <[email protected]> wrote:

>This is similar to the technology developed by Passmark (acquired by
>RSA, i suspect b/c of the banking customers who in a panic deployed
>it) called Sitekey.   I blogged about it's weaknesses in 2009:
>https://www.wikidsystems.com/WiKIDBlog/sitekey-study-released.  google
>'sitekey' for more info.   It was designed to authenticate the server
>to the user but utterly fails.  While choosing one of many pictures is
>focused on the user, the analysis is the same.
>
>It doesn't raise the bar at all. Once the attacker is in the middle
>they can pass anything they want back to user.  Think of it this way:
>the server is sending the user an image.  How hard is that? It is like
>sending the user text.  It is what webservers do and is no stronger
>than what your webserver already does.
>
>As an example of how to do this with crypto, we added mutual
>authentication to our 2FA solution  We could do this for two reasons:
>we use asymmetric encryption instead of shared secrets like most OTP
>solutions and our tokens actually talk to the server. In brief, a hash
>of the targeted site's cert is stored on the wikid server and
>delivered with the OTP. Before the user sees the OTP, the token
>fetches the targeted site's cert, hashes it and compares it to the
>hash from the server.  If they match, the OTP is presented and the
>default browser launched to the url. If they do not match, an error is
>displayed.  
>https://www.wikidsystems.com/learn-more/technology/mutual_authentication.
>This only works for our PC tokens, but it does work in both the
>Enterprise and open-source versions.
>
>I don't know if bank of america still uses it or not.  I do know that
>Yodlee labs uses it still. To know what RSA thinks of it searh
>'sitekey site:rsasecurity.com'.
>
>Hope this provides some info that helps dissuade your Security Office.
>
>Nick
>
>
>
>
>On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 3:43 AM, Alberto Cabello Sánchez
><[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Thu, 16 Oct 2014 11:22:59 -0700 (PDT)
>> Andrew Morgan <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> The pictures would be displayed after the user has entered their
>>>username
>>> and password (if I understand this correctly).
>>
>> I don't think so: quoting Bryan, "will be presented with multiple
>>pictures and
>> must select the correct one before being prompted for their password".
>>
>> I think it tries to stop automated abuse with phished credentials
>>rather than
>> prevent MITM attacks.
>>
>> --
>> Alberto Cabello Sánchez
>> <[email protected]>
>>
>> --
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>
>
>
>-- 
>--
>Nick Owen
>WiKID Systems, Inc.
>http://www.wikidsystems.com
>Commercial/Open Source Two-Factor Authentication
>
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