Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-29 Thread Joe Abley


On 28 May 2015, at 22:18, Rich Kulawiec wrote:


On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 03:13:37PM -0400, William Herrin wrote:

My first dog's name was a random and unpronounceable 30-character 
string.


I think this (Bill's) is a very good practice.


That's what I should do. Instead, I pull down the list of candidate 
questions and think to myself...


 - I didn't go to a high school
 - I don't understand this other high school reference
 - I don't watch sports
 - I don't have a favourite sports team
 - I wonder vaguely whether that question actually had anything to do 
with sports

 - I don't have a favourite pet
 - I don't know my grandmother's middle name, and never did
 - I don't have a favourite colour
 - I've never owned a dog
 - Are pets ever really owned?
 - Doesn't that speak to the denegration of others based on species?
 - Aren't we against that?

and around this point, I start to think

 - I've had enough of this
 - this is too hard
 - I don't even remember what I am signing up for at this point
 - I am going to look for amusing cats on youtube


Joe


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-29 Thread Jimmy Hess
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 8:42 AM, Joel Maslak jmas...@antelope.net wrote:
 I also suspect not every telco validates number porting requests against
 social engineering properly.

What national wireless provider _does_  validate porting requests
against social engineering?

As far as I knew,  as soon as the gaining provider receives the filled
out online form or written form,  with the billing address,  Or  copy
of a bill  from the old provider printed off from the losing
provider's  web portal  signed off with a forged signature from the
scammer (All information that can be derived through pre-texting or
social engineering),   The gaining wireless carrier can proceed,  and
will proceed with a simple port  without having to call the number for
approval.

The sufficiently evil scammer will have the wireless number ported to
their pre-paid cell phone within 48 hours,   and be ready to receive
insecure SMS message from the target's  online banking service  to
confirm the second factor for login.

--
-JH


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-29 Thread Sander Steffann

 Op 29 mei 2015, om 08:42 heeft Joe Abley jab...@hopcount.ca het volgende 
 geschreven:
 
 [...]
 and around this point, I start to think
 
 - I've had enough of this
 - this is too hard
 - I don't even remember what I am signing up for at this point
 - I am going to look for amusing cats on youtube

Good plan,
Sander



Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-29 Thread Justin M. Streiner

On Thu, 28 May 2015, Rich Kulawiec wrote:


I think this (Bill's) is a very good practice.  It's not that difficult
to enumerate the name of every pro sports team in the US, the 100 most
popular dog names, the 200 most common street names, etc.  This attack
can be mitigated by limiting attempts...but of course if that's done,
then it's possible for an attacker to lock out the real owner by just
hammering away constantly using assorted botnet hosts.


There are providers (banks, etc) who will disable an online account that
has had X failed login attempts.  While that's good for preventing 
$bad_guy from continuing to try to brute-force-guess the password, it 
creates a nominal DoS condition for the legitimate owner who then has to 
contact the provider and go through their password reset procedure.


In most of the cases I've seen, the provider is not well equipped to block 
login attempts for $legit_user from whatever address range is doing the 
brute-forcing (possibly spoofed / botted anyway).


jms


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-29 Thread Richo Healey

On 29/05/15 10:35 -0400, Peter Beckman wrote:

I use completely random strings for security questions. The company doesn't
care what my answer is, so instead of knowing that my favorite sports team
is [REDACTED] they can see that it is WheF7?ydk/cBG8MgZf7w

Go WheF7?ydk/cBG8MgZf7w!

I store all of the security questions in my password manager (1Password),
and though annoying if prompted for them often, my account is more secure
as a result. It's also a lot of fun when you call in and they ask you the
answer to your security question.

Just because someone asks you a question it does not require you to give an
answer they expect. (Or any answer)

Beckman


Good in principle, however I'll bet you 20$ that with this state, if I get on
the phone with support, and they ask for the answer to the security question,
simply replying

   Is it a bunch of gharbled chracters, about 20 of em?

Will be more than enough to get me in. Use 3-4 dictionary words.


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-29 Thread Barry Shein

I can't write my autobiography because it'd contain the answers to too
many security questions!

-- 
-Barry Shein

The World  | b...@theworld.com   | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD| Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada
Software Tool  Die| Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-29 Thread Owen DeLong
Use a ghost writer. ;-)

Owen

 On May 29, 2015, at 10:42 AM, Barry Shein b...@world.std.com wrote:
 
 
 I can't write my autobiography because it'd contain the answers to too
 many security questions!
 
 -- 
-Barry Shein
 
 The World  | b...@theworld.com   | http://www.TheWorld.com
 Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD| Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada
 Software Tool  Die| Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*



Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-29 Thread Jimmy Hess
On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 1:42 AM, Joe Abley jab...@hopcount.ca wrote:
 That's what I should do. Instead, I pull down the list of candidate
 questions and think to myself...
...
  - I don't have a favourite colour

My favourite color is Red,  but the answer is rejected because it's
less than 6 characters long;   it turns out your favorite color can be
Yellow, Orange, or Purple,  but not Blue, Green, Gray, or Pink.

 and around this point, I start to think
  - I am going to look for amusing cats on youtube

After finding one,  now you have a favorite pet


I suggest generating a random string for secret answer questions,
just as if it was another password.

Write down the answers;  stick them in a lockbox.

Some  websites will prompt for the answers during normal login later
as if answering personal questions was some legitimate way to confirm
a login from an untrusted computer...in that case,  save a
copy as secure notes in the password vault, Or put  the answers to
a .txt  file encrypt - using GPG.


It is a bit bogus:   the whole notion of asking  in a  format where
the response can easily be automatically entered, for authentication
purposes, the sort of   questions about you that would be easily
looked up using public records,   or   that distant acquaintenances
and former schoolmates would know the
answers to...


There is an improvement in use cases where the traditional response is
just to accept the request and e-mail a new temporary password.

In cases where the answer is used as if it was a second factor,
that's fairly obnoxious and generating a false sense of security in
the process.

In cases where it can be used  to reset password directly or call in
over the phone and reset a password or change the account --- the
strength of the password is weakened to the strength of the weakest
security answer.


 Joe
--
-JH


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-29 Thread Rich Kulawiec
On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 12:32:34PM -0400, Justin M. Streiner wrote:
 There are providers (banks, etc) who will disable an online account that
 has had X failed login attempts.  While that's good for preventing
 $bad_guy from continuing to try to brute-force-guess the password,
 it creates a nominal DoS condition for the legitimate owner who then
 has to contact the provider and go through their password reset
 procedure.

This is why automatic lockout procedures are a problem for some
operations, particularly those which are known to create user account
names based on algorithms like first initial + last name, truncated to
8 characters.  It's not at all difficult to construct a list of valid
(or probably-valid) usernames at such sites, hit them all repeatedly
from distributed botnets (N-1 times from any one address, where N times
would trigger IP-based blocking methods) and thus effectively DoS a decent
fraction of the users.

---rsk



Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-29 Thread Valdis . Kletnieks
On Fri, 29 May 2015 13:42:55 -0400, Barry Shein said:

 I can't write my autobiography because it'd contain the answers to too
 many security questions!

 --
 -Barry Shein

Congrats.  The best .sig fodder I've seen in quite some time.


pgpmFlE_Cj2qM.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-29 Thread Peter Beckman

I use completely random strings for security questions. The company doesn't
care what my answer is, so instead of knowing that my favorite sports team
is [REDACTED] they can see that it is WheF7?ydk/cBG8MgZf7w

Go WheF7?ydk/cBG8MgZf7w!

I store all of the security questions in my password manager (1Password),
and though annoying if prompted for them often, my account is more secure
as a result. It's also a lot of fun when you call in and they ask you the
answer to your security question.

Just because someone asks you a question it does not require you to give an
answer they expect. (Or any answer)

Beckman

On Fri, 29 May 2015, Joe Abley wrote:


On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 03:13:37PM -0400, William Herrin wrote:


My first dog's name was a random and unpronounceable 30-character string.


That's what I should do. Instead, I pull down the list of candidate questions 
and think to myself...


- I didn't go to a high school
- I don't understand this other high school reference
- I don't watch sports
- I don't have a favourite sports team
- I wonder vaguely whether that question actually had anything to do with 
sports

- I don't have a favourite pet
- I don't know my grandmother's middle name, and never did
- I don't have a favourite colour
- I've never owned a dog
- Are pets ever really owned?
- Doesn't that speak to the denegration of others based on species?
- Aren't we against that?

and around this point, I start to think

- I've had enough of this
- this is too hard
- I don't even remember what I am signing up for at this point
- I am going to look for amusing cats on youtube


---
Peter Beckman  Internet Guy
beck...@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/
---


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-28 Thread Rich Kulawiec
On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 03:13:37PM -0400, William Herrin wrote:
 On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 1:16 AM, Octavio Alvarez
 octalna...@alvarezp.org wrote:
  I would definitely opt-out from any kind of secret questions that I
  couldn't type by myself.
 
  Many many sites still think this is a good idea.
 
 My first dog's name was a random and unpronounceable 30-character string.

I think this (Bill's) is a very good practice.  It's not that difficult
to enumerate the name of every pro sports team in the US, the 100 most
popular dog names, the 200 most common street names, etc.  This attack
can be mitigated by limiting attempts...but of course if that's done,
then it's possible for an attacker to lock out the real owner by just
hammering away constantly using assorted botnet hosts.

---rsk


Re: Password storage (was Re: gmail security is a joke)

2015-05-28 Thread shawn wilson
On May 28, 2015 10:11 AM, Christopher Morrow morrowc.li...@gmail.com
wrote:

 On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 5:29 AM, Robert Kisteleki rob...@ripe.net wrote:
 
  Bcrypt or PBKDF2 with random salts per password is really what anyone
  storing passwords should be using today.
 

One thing to remember is the hardware determines number of rounds. So while
my LUKS (PBKDF2) pass on my laptop or servers have a few 10k rounds, that
same pass on a Pi or so would only have 1k rounds (minimum rec).


 I get the feeling that, along with things like 'email address
 verification' in javascript form things, passwd storage and management
 is something done via a few (or a bunch of crappy home-grown) code
 bases.

Not generally passwords per se but session tokens and the like, sure
(almost as bad).


 Seems like 'find the common/most-used' ones and fix them would get
 some mileage? I don't imagine that 'dlink' (for example) is big on
 following rfc stuff for their web-interface programming? (well, at
 least for things like 'how should we store passwds?')

Heh, I started on a fuzzer that'd take a few strings and run them through
recipes (base 32/64, rot, xor 1 or 0, etc) and try to find human strings
along the way. If multiple strings match a recipe, you can generate your
own sessions.


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-28 Thread Blair Trosper
Somewhat in the weeds here, but I still find it odd/curious that Google is
still using SHA-1 fingerprinted SSL certificates.

Weren't they making a big deal of pushing SHA-2 fingerprinted SSL certs a
while back?

On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:16 AM, Octavio Alvarez octalna...@alvarezp.org
wrote:

 On 05/26/2015 08:44 AM, Owen DeLong wrote:

 I think opt-out of password recovery choices on a line-item basis is
 not a bad concept.

 For example, I’d want to opt out of recovery with account creation
 date. If anyone knows the date my gmail account was created, they
 most certainly aren’t me.

 OTOH, recovery by receiving a token at a previously registered
 alternate email address seems relatively secure to me and I wouldn’t
 want to opt out of that.

 (( many more snipped ))


 I would definitely opt-out from any kind of secret questions that I
 couldn't type by myself.

 Many many sites still think this is a good idea.

 Best regards.




-- 
Blair Trosper p.g.a.
S2 Entertainment Partners
Desk:  469-333-8008
Cell:  512-619-8133
Agent/Rep:  WME (Los Angeles, CA) - 310-248-2000
PR/Manager:  BORG (Dallas, TX) - 844-THE-BORG


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-28 Thread Octavio Alvarez

On 05/26/2015 08:44 AM, Owen DeLong wrote:

I think opt-out of password recovery choices on a line-item basis is
not a bad concept.

For example, I’d want to opt out of recovery with account creation
date. If anyone knows the date my gmail account was created, they
most certainly aren’t me.

OTOH, recovery by receiving a token at a previously registered
alternate email address seems relatively secure to me and I wouldn’t
want to opt out of that.

(( many more snipped ))


I would definitely opt-out from any kind of secret questions that I
couldn't type by myself.

Many many sites still think this is a good idea.

Best regards.


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-28 Thread William Herrin
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 1:16 AM, Octavio Alvarez
octalna...@alvarezp.org wrote:
 I would definitely opt-out from any kind of secret questions that I
 couldn't type by myself.

 Many many sites still think this is a good idea.

My first dog's name was a random and unpronounceable 30-character string.

-Bill



-- 
William Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: http://www.dirtside.com/


Password storage (was Re: gmail security is a joke)

2015-05-28 Thread Robert Kisteleki

 Bcrypt or PBKDF2 with random salts per password is really what anyone
 storing passwords should be using today.

Indeed. A while ago I had a brainfart and presented it in a draft:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-kistel-encrypted-password-storage-00

It seemed like a good idea at the time :-) It didn't gain much traction though.

Robert



Re: Password storage (was Re: gmail security is a joke)

2015-05-28 Thread Christopher Morrow
On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 5:29 AM, Robert Kisteleki rob...@ripe.net wrote:

 Bcrypt or PBKDF2 with random salts per password is really what anyone
 storing passwords should be using today.

 Indeed. A while ago I had a brainfart and presented it in a draft:
 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-kistel-encrypted-password-storage-00

 It seemed like a good idea at the time :-) It didn't gain much traction 
 though.

I get the feeling that, along with things like 'email address
verification' in javascript form things, passwd storage and management
is something done via a few (or a bunch of crappy home-grown) code
bases.

Seems like 'find the common/most-used' ones and fix them would get
some mileage? I don't imagine that 'dlink' (for example) is big on
following rfc stuff for their web-interface programming? (well, at
least for things like 'how should we store passwds?')


Re: Password storage (was Re: gmail security is a joke)

2015-05-28 Thread Michael Thomas

On 05/28/2015 02:29 AM, Robert Kisteleki wrote:

Bcrypt or PBKDF2 with random salts per password is really what anyone
storing passwords should be using today.

Indeed. A while ago I had a brainfart and presented it in a draft:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-kistel-encrypted-password-storage-00

It seemed like a good idea at the time :-) It didn't gain much traction though.




Or you could choose to not store any form of password at all on the server:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc7486/

Mike


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Valdis . Kletnieks
On Wed, 27 May 2015 09:13:47 +0530, Anil Kumar said:
 that link, since I have two-step verification set up, I was presented
 with a demand for a number provided by the Google Authenticator
 app on my phone. I provided that number and only then was I allowed
 to reset the password.

And you have to pre-register the phone number.

Sounds about as secure as you're going to get when trying to scale to 10
digits of users

And as I said earlier - if your threat model involves needing more security
than that, you have bigger problems.. :)


pgpru2moccYdQ.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Larry Sheldon

On 5/27/2015 03:17, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:

On Wed, 27 May 2015 09:13:47 +0530, Anil Kumar said:

that link, since I have two-step verification set up, I was presented
with a demand for a number provided by the Google Authenticator
app on my phone. I provided that number and only then was I allowed
to reset the password.


And you have to pre-register the phone number.

Sounds about as secure as you're going to get when trying to scale to 10
digits of users

And as I said earlier - if your threat model involves needing more security
than that, you have bigger problems.. :)


As they say, I no longer have a dog in this fight beyond myself and to 
an extent (advisory capacity) my wife, but I have been having trouble 
understanding the concept of organizations (network operators) with 
large and legitimate concerns for security issues, using gmail.



--
sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Juvenal)


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Saku Ytti
On (2015-05-27 14:19 +0200), Owen DeLong wrote:

Hey,

 If someone has the ability to hijack your BGP, then you???ve got bigger 
 problems than
 having them take over your Gmail account.

This is second reply to this notion. I don't understand what is attempted to
communicate. I'm sure no one on nanog thinks BGP hijacks are rare, difficult
or yield to consequences when called out.

 That???s interesting??? Why do you choose to give access to your personal SMS 
 messages
 to so many of your coworkers?

I don't, but they can provision my number to any SIM they want to.

-- 
  ++ytti


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Joe Abley



On 27 May 2015, at 13:19, Owen DeLong wrote:

If someone has the ability to hijack your BGP, then you’ve got 
bigger problems than

having them take over your Gmail account.


Could we perhaps summarise this entire thread with if you have tighter 
security requirements for your e-mail than a particular e-mail provider 
can give you, host your e-mail somewhere else?


Also, if you get a stabbing pain in your eye every time you drink tea, 
take the spoon out of the cup.



Joe


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Rafael Possamai
Security is an illusion - Confucius probably

On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 8:42 AM, Joel Maslak jmas...@antelope.net wrote:

 I also suspect not every telco validates number porting requests against
 social engineering properly.

 A telephone number isn't something you have, it is something your provider
 has.

 On Wednesday, May 27, 2015, Saku Ytti s...@ytti.fi wrote:

  On (2015-05-27 14:19 +0200), Owen DeLong wrote:
 
  Hey,
 
   If someone has the ability to hijack your BGP, then you???ve got bigger
  problems than
   having them take over your Gmail account.
 
  This is second reply to this notion. I don't understand what is attempted
  to
  communicate. I'm sure no one on nanog thinks BGP hijacks are rare,
  difficult
  or yield to consequences when called out.
 
   That???s interesting??? Why do you choose to give access to your
  personal SMS messages
   to so many of your coworkers?
 
  I don't, but they can provision my number to any SIM they want to.
 
  --
++ytti
 



Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Owen DeLong

 On May 26, 2015, at 6:11 PM, Saku Ytti s...@ytti.fi wrote:
 
 On (2015-05-26 17:44 +0200), Owen DeLong wrote:
 
 Hey,
 
 I think opt-out of password recovery choices on a line-item basis is not a 
 bad concept.
 
 This sounds reasonable. At least then you could decide which balance of
 risk/convenience fits their use-case for given service.
 
 OTOH, recovery by receiving a token at a previously registered alternate 
 email address
 seems relatively secure to me and I wouldn???t want to opt out of that.
 
 It's probably machine sent in seconds or minute after request, so doing
 short-lived BGP hijack of MX might be reasonably easy way to get the email.

If someone has the ability to hijack your BGP, then you’ve got bigger problems 
than
having them take over your Gmail account.

 
 Recovery by SMS to a previously registered phone likewise seems reasonably 
 secure
 and I wouldn???t want to opt out of that, either.
 
 I have tens of coworkers who could read my SMS.

That’s interesting… Why do you choose to give access to your personal SMS 
messages
to so many of your coworkers?

 
 Really, you don???t need to strongly authenticate a particular person for 
 these accounts.
 You need, instead, to authenticate that the person attempting recovery is 
 reasonably
 likely to be the person who set up the account originally, whether or not 
 they are who
 they claimed to be at that time.
 
 As long as user has the power to choose which risks are worth carrying, I
 think it's fine.
 For my examples, I wouldn't care about email/SMS risk if it's
 linkedin/twitter/facebook account. But if it's my domain hoster, I probably
 wouldn't want to carry either risk, as the whole deck of cards collapses if
 you control my domains (all email recoveries compromised)

We agree that different risks are appropriate for different levels of 
sensitivity.

Owen



Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Rafael Possamai
You can also register a U2F key.

On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 3:17 AM, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:

 On Wed, 27 May 2015 09:13:47 +0530, Anil Kumar said:
  that link, since I have two-step verification set up, I was presented
  with a demand for a number provided by the Google Authenticator
  app on my phone. I provided that number and only then was I allowed
  to reset the password.

 And you have to pre-register the phone number.

 Sounds about as secure as you're going to get when trying to scale to 10
 digits of users

 And as I said earlier - if your threat model involves needing more security
 than that, you have bigger problems.. :)



Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Joel Maslak
I also suspect not every telco validates number porting requests against
social engineering properly.

A telephone number isn't something you have, it is something your provider
has.

On Wednesday, May 27, 2015, Saku Ytti s...@ytti.fi wrote:

 On (2015-05-27 14:19 +0200), Owen DeLong wrote:

 Hey,

  If someone has the ability to hijack your BGP, then you???ve got bigger
 problems than
  having them take over your Gmail account.

 This is second reply to this notion. I don't understand what is attempted
 to
 communicate. I'm sure no one on nanog thinks BGP hijacks are rare,
 difficult
 or yield to consequences when called out.

  That???s interesting??? Why do you choose to give access to your
 personal SMS messages
  to so many of your coworkers?

 I don't, but they can provision my number to any SIM they want to.

 --
   ++ytti



Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread John R. Levine

The OP was correct, if they can send you your cleartext password then
their security practices are inadequate, period.

Unless I misunderstand what you're saying (I sort of hope I do) this
is Security 101.


As I've said a couple of times already, but perhaps without the capital 
letters, from a security point of view, generating a NEW PASSWORD and 
sending it in cleartext is no worse than sending you a one time reset 
link.  Either way, if a bad guy can intercept your mail, you lose.


A few moments' thought will confirm this has nothing to do with the way 
passwords are stored within the mail system's database.


R's,
John


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread James Downs

 On May 27, 2015, at 11:22, John R. Levine jo...@iecc.com wrote:

 As I've said a couple of times already, but perhaps without the capital 
 letters, from a security point of view, generating a NEW PASSWORD and sending 
 it in cleartext is no worse than sending you a one time reset link.  Either 
 way, if a bad guy can intercept your mail, you lose.

Well, no… a one time reset link is infinitely better than sending a cleartext 
password, assuming you don’t have to immediately change the password.

A reset link, being usable once, means that you can detect if an attacker has 
already used it. If you use it first, the attacker has a useless link. If an 
attacker gets a cleartext password, you probably can’t detect interception.

Cheers,
-j

Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Barry Shein

On May 27, 2015 at 14:22 jo...@iecc.com (John R. Levine) wrote:
   The OP was correct, if they can send you your cleartext password then
   their security practices are inadequate, period.
  
   Unless I misunderstand what you're saying (I sort of hope I do) this
   is Security 101.
  
  As I've said a couple of times already, but perhaps without the capital 
  letters, from a security point of view, generating a NEW PASSWORD and 
  sending it in cleartext is no worse than sending you a one time reset 
  link.  Either way, if a bad guy can intercept your mail, you lose.
  
  A few moments' thought will confirm this has nothing to do with the way 
  passwords are stored within the mail system's database.

Sure, I agree, but that's not what the post I was responding to was
discussing so caps wouldn't make much difference.

But only the link can be secured by asking a security question before
first use.

For the cleartext password an attacker only has to wait for you to
answer the question and hope you don't immediately change the
password.

I suppose asking a question on first use of a new cleartext password
AND forcing you to change that password immediately is about the same
as the link, particularly if it doesn't let you use that same
password.

But storing cleartext passwords, encrypted or not, is a bad and
indefensible practice.

I remember a common dial-up login protocol which required the server
to encrypt initial interaction with the customer's password so you
absolutely had to have their cleartext password if they were ever to
log in again. What was it, PAP or CHAP or something like that. Ugh, we
resisted that.

-- 
-Barry Shein

The World  | b...@theworld.com   | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD| Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada
Software Tool  Die| Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Barry Shein

One weakness with sending a new cleartext password rather than a link
is that a cleartext password (probably) has to be engineered to be
easy to type in and maybe even remembered.

Typically one uses some concatenation of CVC
(consonant-vowel-consonant) with common punctuations and/or digits
otherwise chosen randomly so something like pom%mur or kiv_ler for 7
chars anyhow, maybe add a digit or two, pom%mur87.

A link can be much more random, just some long (64 char or more)
string of hexified nonsense for example since the user presumably just
clicks it and doesn't have to read it or type it in or worse remember
it.

SOO...an attacker could study your cleartext password generation
algorithm which for a shorter, simpler, already structured cleartext
password will be more likely to be predictable all else being
equal. Perhaps the algorithm itself is is even available if you use
some identifiable software package such as an e-commerce suite, I
can't imagine every person selling paisley socks writes their own
password generation algorithm. Or by studying the passwords it
generates (create an acct, send yourself a few hundred or thousand.)

I'm not just a-whistlin' dixie (I never a-whistle dixie! :-), I'd
consider that a serious potential weakness adding more concern to
choice of algorithms.

-- 
-Barry Shein

The World  | b...@theworld.com   | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD| Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada
Software Tool  Die| Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Barry Shein

On May 27, 2015 at 10:28 b...@herrin.us (William Herrin) wrote:
  On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 4:10 PM, Scott Howard sc...@doc.net.au wrote:
   On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 12:28 PM, Aaron C. de Bruyn aa...@heyaaron.com
   wrote:
   If they can e-mail you your existing password (*cough*Netgear*cough*),
   it means they are storing your credentials in the database
   un-encrypted.
  
   No, it doesn't mean that at all.  It means they are storing it unhashed
   which is probably what you mean.
  
  Hi Scott,
  
  It means they're storing it in a form that reduces to plain text
  without human intervention. Same difference. Encrypted at rest matters
  not, if all the likely attack vectors go after the data in transit.

It matters a lot. It means their entire username/password collection
can be compromised by various means including by an insider.

The usual practice is to store a hash which cannot be reversed (at
least not without astronomical computation.)

Then when a password is presented (e.g., for login) the hash is
computed on that cleartext password and the hashes are compared.

Getting a copy of the database of hashes and login names is basically
useless to an attacker.

It's not encrypted in this case, it's hashed and only the hash is
stored. The hash cannot be reversed, only compared to a re-hash of the
cleartext password when entered.

The OP was correct, if they can send you your cleartext password then
their security practices are inadequate, period.

Unless I misunderstand what you're saying (I sort of hope I do) this
is Security 101.

-- 
-Barry Shein

The World  | b...@theworld.com   | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD| Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada
Software Tool  Die| Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread William Herrin
On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 4:10 PM, Scott Howard sc...@doc.net.au wrote:
 On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 12:28 PM, Aaron C. de Bruyn aa...@heyaaron.com
 wrote:
 If they can e-mail you your existing password (*cough*Netgear*cough*),
 it means they are storing your credentials in the database
 un-encrypted.

 No, it doesn't mean that at all.  It means they are storing it unhashed
 which is probably what you mean.

Hi Scott,

It means they're storing it in a form that reduces to plain text
without human intervention. Same difference. Encrypted at rest matters
not, if all the likely attack vectors go after the data in transit.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
William Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: http://www.dirtside.com/


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Valdis . Kletnieks
On Wed, 27 May 2015 16:11:19 +0300, Saku Ytti said:

 This is second reply to this notion. I don't understand what is attempted to
 communicate. I'm sure no one on nanog thinks BGP hijacks are rare, difficult
 or yield to consequences when called out.

What *is* rare is a BGP hijack done solely to intercept a confirmation e-mail
sent to Joe Sixpack when he's trying to get his Gmail account back. Can anybody
provide a *single* example of that being done?

Now, if it's Joe CEO or Joe Prime Minister, the calculus changes a bit. But
as I said - at that point, you have bigger things to worry about.


pgplHWQjhcdLU.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread William Herrin
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 1:51 PM, Barry Shein b...@world.std.com wrote:
 On May 27, 2015 at 10:28 b...@herrin.us (William Herrin) wrote:
   On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 4:10 PM, Scott Howard sc...@doc.net.au wrote:
It means they are storing it unhashed
which is probably what you mean.
  
   It means they're storing it in a form that reduces to plain text
   without human intervention. Same difference. Encrypted at rest matters
   not, if all the likely attack vectors go after the data in transit.

 It matters a lot. [...]
 The OP was correct, if they can send you your cleartext password then
 their security practices are inadequate, period.

Am I speaking English? I thought I was speaking English.


 Unless I misunderstand what you're saying (I sort of hope I do)

Yeah, I think you probably did since I was largely agreeing with you.
What I was trying to say was that there wasn't a heck of a lot of
difference between storing a user's password with reversible
encryption and storing it in plain text. Both are supremely
unsatisfactory. Reasonable security starts by not retaining the user's
password at all. Keep only the non-reversible hash.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: http://www.dirtside.com/


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Rich Kulawiec
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 01:51:35PM -0400, Barry Shein wrote:
 Getting a copy of the database of hashes and login names is basically
 useless to an attacker.

Not any more, if the hash algorithm isn't sufficiently strong:

25-GPU cluster cracks every standard Windows password in 6 hours

http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/12/25-gpu-cluster-cracks-every-standard-windows-password-in-6-hours/

Quoting:

Gosney used the machine to crack 90 percent of the 6.5 million
password hashes belonging to users of LinkedIn.

Consider as well that not all attackers are interested in all accounts:
imagine what this system (or a newer one, this is 2.5 years old) could
do if focused on only one account.

And of course epidemic password reuse means that cracked passwords
are reasonably likely to work at multiple sites.

And even if passwords aren't reused, there have now been so many
breaches at so many places resulting in so many disclosed passwords
that a discerning attacker could likely glean useful intelligence
by studying multiple password choices made by a target.  (We're all
creatures of habit.)

---rsk


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Harald Koch
On 26 May 2015 at 23:43, Anil Kumar aku...@anilkumar.com wrote:


 According to this page, the 2-factor authentication does kick in when you
 finally try to reset the password.


 http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/27258/is-there-a-way-of-disabling-googles-password-recovery-feature

 “… I was presented with an emailed link to a reset page. When I clicked
 that link, since I have two-step verification set up, I was presented
 with a demand for a number provided by the Google Authenticator
 app on my phone. I provided that number and only then was I allowed
 to reset the password.”


Y'all are way too trusting ;)

If I recall from a brief experiment yesterday, three of the four options on
that page are variations on I'd like to bypass 2-factor authentication.
There is really no point in any of Google's fancy account security if I can
bypass all of it using Google's Identity Verification process, especially
if that process is based on PII that isn't terribly difficult to obtain.

This is just a variation on Apple's give us the last four digits of your
credit card to reset your password gigantic security failure, and frankly
I expected better from Google. Silly me.

-- 
Harald (who once upon a time worked in the IAM space ;)


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Jim Popovitch
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 4:52 PM, Harald Koch c...@pobox.com wrote:

 Y'all are way too trusting ;)

Or we are much more comfortable with our knowledge.  Six in one,

 If I recall from a brief experiment yesterday, three of the four options on
 that page are variations on I'd like to bypass 2-factor authentication.
 There is really no point in any of Google's fancy account security if I can
 bypass all of it using Google's Identity Verification process, especially
 if that process is based on PII that isn't terribly difficult to obtain.

I think you are overly simplifying a piece of a very large, very
complicated, highly dynamic, and daily reviewed, security pipeline.
Google's Account security is not a 1 man in the basement operation.

You tell me the Sender, time, last Received line, and byte size, of
all the emails I received on 1-Jan-2015 and I will give you $100 per
email or this thread can just die a miserable hypothetical death
that it deserves.

-Jim P.


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Jimmy Hess
On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 6:04 PM, Peter Beckman beck...@angryox.com wrote:
[snip]

 I was thinking about using the last 2 digits of the year as the cost
 factor, but that might not scale with hardware linearly.

It is strongly recommended that when used for password storage, the
work factor for BCRYPT, SCRYPT, or PBKDF2 be hand-tuned   based on the
current best available consumer desktop computing hardware.

Whenever it is manually adjusted; it should be tuned so that 1
password hash generation on a newly generated hash takes  a minimum
500 milliseconds average at full throughput on the best current
generally available consumer hardware.

Or for an application where performance is more critical than
security  no less than 100ms
on the server hardware.

Today; I believe the baseline would be a workstation with  4   5th
generation Intel i7 3.1GHz  Quad-Core procs.


And I would suggest  SCrypt() with a hefty selection for required
amount of RAM to compute the hash;  in order to help foil attempts to
accelerate a hash-breaking process  using  GPU  or FPGA technology.


 Bcrypt or PBKDF2 with random salts per password is really what anyone
 storing passwords should be using today.

 Beckman
--
-JH


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Peter Beckman

LinkedIn used SHA-1, a fast algorithm. At 350-billion guesses per second on
the mentioned rig for fast algorithms, yeah, you can get through a lot of
passwords quickly. Hopefully LinkedIn has changed their ways.

In that same article:

...functions such as Bcrypt, PBKDF2, and SHA512crypt are designed to
 expend considerably more time and computing resources to convert
 plaintext input into cryptographic hashes. As a result, the new
 cluster, even with its four-fold increase in speed, can make only
 71,000 guesses against Bcrypt...

And if you use a different salt for each password stored with Bcrypt, the
hacker must test each password separately -- no rainbow tables here.

Unfortunately they don't say how many iterations of Bcrypt equals 71,000,
since you can add more iterations of the algorithm. An example cipher text
from bcrypt:

$2a$13$Ejtc1pVjyLkZn4eU9FGCg.gOQ3QtbWOsUOvSUKbU2anywhoO04ESy

$2a$ indicates the blowfish algorithm, $13$ is the cost factor (number of
iterations), the first 22 chars after are the salt and the rest is the
cipher text. The higher the number of iterations, the harder
computationally it is to go from a password to the cipher text. As hardware
improves, the iterations should increase.

I was thinking about using the last 2 digits of the year as the cost
factor, but that might not scale with hardware linearly.

Bcrypt or PBKDF2 with random salts per password is really what anyone
storing passwords should be using today.

Beckman

On Wed, 27 May 2015, Rich Kulawiec wrote:


On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 01:51:35PM -0400, Barry Shein wrote:

Getting a copy of the database of hashes and login names is basically
useless to an attacker.


Not any more, if the hash algorithm isn't sufficiently strong:

25-GPU cluster cracks every standard Windows password in 6 hours

http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/12/25-gpu-cluster-cracks-every-standard-windows-password-in-6-hours/

Quoting:

Gosney used the machine to crack 90 percent of the 6.5 million
password hashes belonging to users of LinkedIn.

Consider as well that not all attackers are interested in all accounts:
imagine what this system (or a newer one, this is 2.5 years old) could
do if focused on only one account.

And of course epidemic password reuse means that cracked passwords
are reasonably likely to work at multiple sites.

And even if passwords aren't reused, there have now been so many
breaches at so many places resulting in so many disclosed passwords
that a discerning attacker could likely glean useful intelligence
by studying multiple password choices made by a target.  (We're all
creatures of habit.)

---rsk



---
Peter Beckman  Internet Guy
beck...@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/
---


RE: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread John Souvestre
  I was thinking about using the last 2 digits of the year as the 
  cost factor, but that might not scale with hardware linearly. 

How about:  2 ^ (last 2 digits of year / 2) 

This would track per Moore's Law. 

John 

John Souvestre - New Orleans LA 




Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Barry Shein

I am truly relieved that this was just a misunderstanding!

  -b

On May 27, 2015 at 16:05 b...@herrin.us (William Herrin) wrote:
  On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 1:51 PM, Barry Shein b...@world.std.com wrote:
   On May 27, 2015 at 10:28 b...@herrin.us (William Herrin) wrote:
 On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 4:10 PM, Scott Howard sc...@doc.net.au wrote:
  It means they are storing it unhashed
  which is probably what you mean.

 It means they're storing it in a form that reduces to plain text
 without human intervention. Same difference. Encrypted at rest matters
 not, if all the likely attack vectors go after the data in transit.
  
   It matters a lot. [...]
   The OP was correct, if they can send you your cleartext password then
   their security practices are inadequate, period.
  
  Am I speaking English? I thought I was speaking English.
  
  
   Unless I misunderstand what you're saying (I sort of hope I do)
  
  Yeah, I think you probably did since I was largely agreeing with you.
  What I was trying to say was that there wasn't a heck of a lot of
  difference between storing a user's password with reversible
  encryption and storing it in plain text. Both are supremely
  unsatisfactory. Reasonable security starts by not retaining the user's
  password at all. Keep only the non-reversible hash.
  
  Regards,
  Bill Herrin
  
  -- 
  William Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
  Owner, Dirtside Systems . Web: http://www.dirtside.com/


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-27 Thread Barry Shein

  Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
  Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
  Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
  'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
  But he that filches from me my good name
  Robs me of that which not enriches him,
  And makes me poor indeed.

 --Othello Act 3, Scene 3

-- 
-Barry Shein

The World  | b...@theworld.com   | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD| Dial-Up: US, PR, Canada
Software Tool  Die| Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Mark Andrews

In message 20150526161151.ga14...@pob.ytti.fi, Saku Ytti writes:
 On (2015-05-26 17:44 +0200), Owen DeLong wrote:
 
 Hey,
 
  I think opt-out of password recovery choices on a line-item basis is not a
  bad concept.
 
 This sounds reasonable. At least then you could decide which balance of
 risk/convenience fits their use-case for given service.
 
  OTOH, recovery by receiving a token at a previously registered alternate e
  mail address
  seems relatively secure to me and I wouldn???t want to opt out of that.
 
 It's probably machine sent in seconds or minute after request, so doing
 short-lived BGP hijack of MX might be reasonably easy way to get the email.

Which is easily prevented by authenticating the MX when connecting.
Something which as been recommended practice for as long as SMTP
has existed. HELO provided weak authentication.  We now know and
documented how to do this securely on a global scale, we just need
to do it.  See draft-ietf-dane-smtp-with-dane.

You have added the TLSA records for you MTA and signed your zones?
You have updated your MTA to support DANE?

[ Need to nag ops to add TLSA records for the MX's.  We have them
for www.isc.org. ]

Mark

-- 
Mark Andrews, ISC
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742 INTERNET: ma...@isc.org


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Harald Koch
On 26 May 2015 at 11:32, Alex Brooks askoorb+na...@gmail.com wrote:


 Can you not set account recory options which change the way password
 reset requests are handled.
 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/183723 Gives some guidance?

 Alex


Unfortunately, setting these options does not disable the separate account
recovery form listed at the bottom of the page, and it is this form that
allows you to login with any previous password and to bypass 2-factor auth.

I must admit I was surprised by this when I tried it just now. I guess it's
time to rethink using Google as a primary account...


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Anil Kumar

 On May 27, 2015, at 8:09 AM, Harald Koch c...@pobox.com wrote:
 
 On 26 May 2015 at 11:32, Alex Brooks askoorb+na...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 
 Can you not set account recory options which change the way password
 reset requests are handled.
 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/183723 Gives some guidance?
 
 Alex
 
 
 Unfortunately, setting these options does not disable the separate account
 recovery form listed at the bottom of the page, and it is this form that
 allows you to login with any previous password and to bypass 2-factor auth.
 
 I must admit I was surprised by this when I tried it just now. I guess it's
 time to rethink using Google as a primary account...



According to this page, the 2-factor authentication does kick in when you 
finally try to reset the password.

http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/27258/is-there-a-way-of-disabling-googles-password-recovery-feature
 
http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/27258/is-there-a-way-of-disabling-googles-password-recovery-feature

“… I was presented with an emailed link to a reset page. When I clicked 
that link, since I have two-step verification set up, I was presented 
with a demand for a number provided by the Google Authenticator 
app on my phone. I provided that number and only then was I allowed 
to reset the password.”

AK

smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Christopher Morrow
On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 2:15 PM,  valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:
 On Tue, 26 May 2015 19:11:51 +0300, Saku Ytti said:

  OTOH, recovery by receiving a token at a previously registered alternate 
  email address
  seems relatively secure to me and I wouldn???t want to opt out of that.

 It's probably machine sent in seconds or minute after request, so doing
 short-lived BGP hijack of MX might be reasonably easy way to get the email.

 To be fair, if your e-mail address is high enough value that somebody is
 willing to risk getting caught doing a BGP hijack, maybe you have bigger
 problems to worry about.


I suppose the meta of this whole conversation is for the OP:
 Sure, there are issues with just about every account-recovery setup
out there. Where you have X-hundreds of millions of 'not nanog' level
users interacting and needing passwd recovery to work reliably and
somewhat securely, how would you accomplish this?

Tossing grenades in the crowded room is cool and all, but ... you
clearly have some thoughts about options/improvements/etc you might
get more useful traction by proposing them.


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Valdis . Kletnieks
On Tue, 26 May 2015 19:11:51 +0300, Saku Ytti said:

  OTOH, recovery by receiving a token at a previously registered alternate 
  email address
  seems relatively secure to me and I wouldn???t want to opt out of that.

 It's probably machine sent in seconds or minute after request, so doing
 short-lived BGP hijack of MX might be reasonably easy way to get the email.

To be fair, if your e-mail address is high enough value that somebody is
willing to risk getting caught doing a BGP hijack, maybe you have bigger
problems to worry about.


pgpbC5pK9cIWR.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Alex Brooks
Hi,

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 3:26 PM, Markus unive...@truemetal.org wrote:
 Did you know that anyone, anywhere in the world can get into a gmail account
 merely by knowing its creation date (month and year is sufficient) and the
 last login date (try today)? What a joke.

Can you not set account recory options which change the way password
reset requests are handled.
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/183723 Gives some guidance?

Alex


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread chris
Haha I cringe when I do a password recovery at a site and they either email
the current pw to me in plain text or just as bad reset it then email it in
plain text. Its really sad that stuff this bad is still so common.

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 11:44 AM, Owen DeLong o...@delong.com wrote:


  On May 26, 2015, at 5:22 PM, Saku Ytti s...@ytti.fi wrote:
 
  On (2015-05-26 16:26 +0200), Markus wrote:
 
  Hey,
 
  Did you know that anyone, anywhere in the world can get into a gmail
 account
  merely by knowing its creation date (month and year is sufficient) and
 the
 
  Without any comment on what gmail is or is not doing, the topic
 interests me.
 
  How should recovery be done in scalable manner? Almost invariably when
 the
  accounts were initially created there is no strong authentication used,
 how
  would, even in theory, it be possible to reauthenticate strongly after
  password was lost?

 I think opt-out of password recovery choices on a line-item basis is not a
 bad concept.

 For example, I’d want to opt out of recovery with account creation date.
 If anyone knows
 the date my gmail account was created, they most certainly aren’t me.

 OTOH, recovery by receiving a token at a previously registered alternate
 email address
 seems relatively secure to me and I wouldn’t want to opt out of that.

 Recovery by SMS to a previously registered phone likewise seems reasonably
 secure
 and I wouldn’t want to opt out of that, either.

 Recovery by SMS to a phone number provided with the recovery request I
 would
 most certainly want to disable. (yes, some sites do this).

 Recovery by having my password plain-text emailed to me at my alternate
 address
 (or worse, an address I supply at the time of recovery request), not so
 much.
 (yes, many sites actually do this)

 Really, you don’t need to strongly authenticate a particular person for
 these accounts.
 You need, instead, to authenticate that the person attempting recovery is
 reasonably
 likely to be the person who set up the account originally, whether or not
 they are who
 they claimed to be at that time.

  Perhaps some people would trust, if they could opt-in for
 reauthentication via
  some legal entity procuring such services. Then during account creation,
 you'd
  need to go through same authentication phase, perhaps tied to nationalID
 or
  comparable. This might be reasonable, most people probably already trust
 one
  of these for much more important authentication than email, but
 supporting all
  of them globally seems like very expensive proposal.

 This also would take away from the benefits of having some level of
 anonymity
 in the account creation process, so I think this isn’t such a great idea
 on multiple
 levels.

 YMMV.

 Owen




Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Saku Ytti
On (2015-05-26 17:44 +0200), Owen DeLong wrote:

Hey,

 I think opt-out of password recovery choices on a line-item basis is not a 
 bad concept.

This sounds reasonable. At least then you could decide which balance of
risk/convenience fits their use-case for given service.

 OTOH, recovery by receiving a token at a previously registered alternate 
 email address
 seems relatively secure to me and I wouldn???t want to opt out of that.

It's probably machine sent in seconds or minute after request, so doing
short-lived BGP hijack of MX might be reasonably easy way to get the email.

 Recovery by SMS to a previously registered phone likewise seems reasonably 
 secure
 and I wouldn???t want to opt out of that, either.

I have tens of coworkers who could read my SMS.

 Really, you don???t need to strongly authenticate a particular person for 
 these accounts.
 You need, instead, to authenticate that the person attempting recovery is 
 reasonably
 likely to be the person who set up the account originally, whether or not 
 they are who
 they claimed to be at that time.

As long as user has the power to choose which risks are worth carrying, I
think it's fine.
For my examples, I wouldn't care about email/SMS risk if it's
linkedin/twitter/facebook account. But if it's my domain hoster, I probably
wouldn't want to carry either risk, as the whole deck of cards collapses if
you control my domains (all email recoveries compromised)

-- 
  ++ytti


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread John R. Levine

I get what you are saying but my point was more about lack of crypto or
reversible crypto than stealing the account.


I am all in favor of using crypto when it improves security.  But I am 
also in favor of not obsessing about it in places where it makes no 
difference.


I like what Owen is describing, they should present all account recovery 
options and let the user toggle on/off which ones they want to be usable 
this way the user can make their own decisions and live with their own 
choices.


Unfortunately, we have learned over and over again that the nerd instinct 
to push the security policy decisions onto civilians never ends well. 
Some people will check every box because more security is better, right? 
And then they're locked out and make expensive phone calls to your support 
desk. Others will uncheck every box because they just want to be able to 
log into the fripping account and it's your fault when their account is 
stolen.


R's,
John


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Owen DeLong

 On May 26, 2015, at 5:22 PM, Saku Ytti s...@ytti.fi wrote:
 
 On (2015-05-26 16:26 +0200), Markus wrote:
 
 Hey,
 
 Did you know that anyone, anywhere in the world can get into a gmail account
 merely by knowing its creation date (month and year is sufficient) and the
 
 Without any comment on what gmail is or is not doing, the topic interests me.
 
 How should recovery be done in scalable manner? Almost invariably when the
 accounts were initially created there is no strong authentication used, how
 would, even in theory, it be possible to reauthenticate strongly after
 password was lost?

I think opt-out of password recovery choices on a line-item basis is not a bad 
concept.

For example, I’d want to opt out of recovery with account creation date. If 
anyone knows
the date my gmail account was created, they most certainly aren’t me. 

OTOH, recovery by receiving a token at a previously registered alternate email 
address
seems relatively secure to me and I wouldn’t want to opt out of that.

Recovery by SMS to a previously registered phone likewise seems reasonably 
secure
and I wouldn’t want to opt out of that, either.

Recovery by SMS to a phone number provided with the recovery request I would
most certainly want to disable. (yes, some sites do this).

Recovery by having my password plain-text emailed to me at my alternate address
(or worse, an address I supply at the time of recovery request), not so much.
(yes, many sites actually do this)

Really, you don’t need to strongly authenticate a particular person for these 
accounts.
You need, instead, to authenticate that the person attempting recovery is 
reasonably
likely to be the person who set up the account originally, whether or not they 
are who
they claimed to be at that time.

 Perhaps some people would trust, if they could opt-in for reauthentication via
 some legal entity procuring such services. Then during account creation, you'd
 need to go through same authentication phase, perhaps tied to nationalID or
 comparable. This might be reasonable, most people probably already trust one
 of these for much more important authentication than email, but supporting all
 of them globally seems like very expensive proposal.

This also would take away from the benefits of having some level of anonymity
in the account creation process, so I think this isn’t such a great idea on 
multiple
levels.

YMMV.

Owen



Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread John Levine
In article caknnfz_apy8khbxj0umgoq6ufcd640jtxe9a+2tqu-d761-...@mail.gmail.com 
you write:
Haha I cringe when I do a password recovery at a site and they either email
the current pw to me in plain text or just as bad reset it then email it in
plain text. Its really sad that stuff this bad is still so common.

If they do a reset, what difference does it make whether they send the
password in plain text or as a one-time link?  Either way, if a bad
guy can read the mail, he can steal the account.

Given the enormous scale of Gmail, I think they do a reasonable job of
account security.  If you want to make your account secure with an
external account or an external token (a physical one like a yubikey
or a software one like the authenticator app), you can.

Or if you consider your account to be low value, you can treat it that
way, too.

R's,
John


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Scott Howard
On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 12:28 PM, Aaron C. de Bruyn aa...@heyaaron.com
wrote:

 If they can e-mail you your existing password (*cough*Netgear*cough*),
 it means they are storing your credentials in the database
 un-encrypted.


No, it doesn't mean that at all.  It means they are storing it unhashed
which is probably what you mean.

It may well be that they are storing it unencrypted, but you can't outright
say that without extra knowledge.

  Scott


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Aaron C. de Bruyn
On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 9:06 AM, John Levine jo...@iecc.com wrote:
 If they do a reset, what difference does it make whether they send the
 password in plain text or as a one-time link?  Either way, if a bad
 guy can read the mail, he can steal the account.

If they can e-mail you your existing password (*cough*Netgear*cough*),
it means they are storing your credentials in the database
un-encrypted.

-A


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread John R. Levine

If they can e-mail you your existing password (*cough*Netgear*cough*),
it means they are storing your credentials in the database
un-encrypted.


What I had in mind was creating a new password and mailing you that.

R's,
John


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Aaron C. de Bruyn
*facepalm*

Right.  Sorry.
Forgot which group I was addressing.  ;)

I swear half of the United States forgot their passwords over the
three-day weekend.

-A

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 12:39 PM, John R. Levine jo...@iecc.com wrote:
 If they can e-mail you your existing password (*cough*Netgear*cough*),
 it means they are storing your credentials in the database
 un-encrypted.


 What I had in mind was creating a new password and mailing you that.

 R's,
 John


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Saku Ytti
On (2015-05-26 16:26 +0200), Markus wrote:

Hey,

 Did you know that anyone, anywhere in the world can get into a gmail account
 merely by knowing its creation date (month and year is sufficient) and the

Without any comment on what gmail is or is not doing, the topic interests me.

How should recovery be done in scalable manner? Almost invariably when the
accounts were initially created there is no strong authentication used, how
would, even in theory, it be possible to reauthenticate strongly after
password was lost?

One solution is, that you can opt-out from any password recovery process,
which also would mean opt-in for deletion of dormant accounts (no login for 2
years, candidate for deletion?). I personally would opt-in for this in every
service I have.
I recall gandi allows you to disable password recovery.

Perhaps some people would trust, if they could opt-in for reauthentication via
some legal entity procuring such services. Then during account creation, you'd
need to go through same authentication phase, perhaps tied to nationalID or
comparable. This might be reasonable, most people probably already trust one
of these for much more important authentication than email, but supporting all
of them globally seems like very expensive proposal.

-- 
  ++ytti


RE: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Thijs Stuurman
Perhaps this is still a void in the market? A business which operates small 
officers at which you can real-world verify your personal being using the most 
solid evidence available (perhaps in cooperation with governments) for that 
location/country which works together with the sorts of big-@random-webservice 
to help recover information?

That would remove the need for weak idea's. Either you setup and use a very 
solid recovery method or you present yourself (or perhaps a family member in 
case of (emergency/deceased/etc')). 


With kind regards,

Thijs Stuurman
Infrastructure  Solutions

IS (internedservices) Group
Wielingenstraat 8 | 1441 ZR Purmerend | The Netherlands
T: +31(0)299476185 | M: +31(0)624366778
W: http://www.is.nl | L: http://nl.linkedin.com/in/thijsstuurman

-Oorspronkelijk bericht-
Van: NANOG [mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org] Namens Alex Brooks
Verzonden: Tuesday, May 26, 2015 5:32 PM
Aan: Markus; nanog
Onderwerp: Re: gmail security is a joke

Hi,

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 3:26 PM, Markus unive...@truemetal.org wrote:
 Did you know that anyone, anywhere in the world can get into a gmail account
 merely by knowing its creation date (month and year is sufficient) and the
 last login date (try today)? What a joke.

Can you not set account recory options which change the way password
reset requests are handled.
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/183723 Gives some guidance?

Alex


Re: gmail security is a joke

2015-05-26 Thread Jim Popovitch
On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 10:26 AM, Markus unive...@truemetal.org wrote:
 Did you know that anyone, anywhere in the world can get into a gmail account
 merely by knowing its creation date (month and year is sufficient) and the
 last login date (try today)? What a joke.

We don't even know if this email originated by Markus himself.  :-)

As for security, the default access for mobile devices (which require
no further credentials for Mail, Web, SMS) is a swipe.

I too wish the world was bulletproof from birth, but it's not.

-Jim P.