[db-wg] Disallowing MD5 passwords in e-mail updates, was MD5 Hashes in the database

Hello David &Shane,

I agree the fact that grabbing all the existing maintainers hashes is
completely feasible since I did it during previous days  (in order to
assess their strength, not to disclose them). I made some tests with the
help of a friend of mine, and we recovered at least 4% of these passwords
only by testing a very popular wordlist (rockyou), and the recovery process
is still running.

We were amazed to see how many maintainers use weak passwords to protect
their datas, sometimes using their alias as a password. Therefore, I
totally agree with David and would ask that some constraints should be
added while creating MD5(UNIX) hashes through RIPE's website dedicated page
(https://apps.db.ripe.net/crypt/). This webpage is also recommended by ARIN
and modifying the way passwords are hashed (and checked ?) should be better
for both RIPE NCC and ARIN.

Telling people not to use twice a generated hash could also help a bit more
;)

My goal is not to recover every possible password from public hashes but
just demonstrate that it does not follow currently best-practices in term
of security.


Damien

On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 12:58 PM, David Freedman <david.freedman at uk.clara.net
> wrote:

> I don't mind it continuing to be used over encrypted channels,
> as long as the hashes are not available to the general public (as per your
> previous mail)
>
> I would support a warning phase
>
> Dave.
>
>
>
> On 08/11/2011 11:56, "Shane Kerr" <shane at time-travellers.org> wrote:
>
> >David,
> >
> >On Tue, 2011-11-08 at 09:38 +0000, David Freedman wrote:
> >> I'd like to see auth: MD5-PW deprecated , even though it seems to be
> >> widely used (for various reasons)
> >> according to the report by DB presented to us.
> >
> >I propose that we deprecate  passwords over unencrypted channels. AFAIK
> >this just means e-mail today, although the web API stuff may also
> >provide an non-TLS option (I don't know).
> >
> >Unlike hiding MD5, this is a major change for users, and would need to
> >be done with the same caution and preparation as similar large changes
> >in the past. We could have a warning phase, where anyone using a
> >password in email would get a scary warning in the reply telling them to
> >use a more secure scheme (PGP, X.509, webupdates, or database web API).
> >The RIPE NCC could identify heavy users and help them convert their
> >tools. And eventually we could flip the switch and turn off plain text
> >passwords.
> >
> >--
> >Shane
> >
> >
>
>
>
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