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Login Forms Over HTTPS, Please

hacks.mozilla.org

21–30 of 121 posts

Re: Login Forms Over HTTPS, Please

#21
post #2

> If you’re submitting your login form over HTTPS, that’s good, but it’s not enough. You have to deliver* the form over HTTPS too.* I'm glad they mentioned it. Too many people think their sites are secure if logged in sessions use https and everything else is http. Their example is that an attacker could insert JavaScript to steal the password, however they could just as well change the form target from https to http…

For too long popular a lot of popular gambling sites such as betfair and skybet have done this. I think betfair now is all https, but I'm not sure of skybet (and I can't be checking while at work).

Re: Login Forms Over HTTPS, Please

#22
I have recently deployed Content Security Policy (CSP) on a website. When I first looked at violation reports, my jaw dropped. The amount of malware (rouge extensions, toolbars, viruses, ...) that is blocked is staggering.

If you really want to help your (clueless) users, never ever serve a login, registration or credit card form without CSP. It really helps - at least until the malware catches on (I already see "Kaspersky Labs" is injecting its domain into the CSP itself).

Re: Login Forms Over HTTPS, Please

#23
post #5

Wow, this is still even a thing. The form, all its js assets and form api endpoint all have to be secured. And https for everything that contains code. Deploying SRI for web pages over https is also another layer of defense against js tampering. Also, sending passwords across the wire in any reversible manner is really more dangerous than is necessary. Passwords/passphrases could be salted hashed by the browser in Ja…

The worst offender I interact with frequently is Hulu.com. This is a high-profile site with millions of users. It's one of those tell-tale signs as a consumer where I really can't say I trust them with my data. I really wonder, once they have a high-profile "hack" (I assume this will happen), if the state can charge them with criminal negligence?

Re: Login Forms Over HTTPS, Please

#24
post #5

Wow, this is still even a thing. The form, all its js assets and form api endpoint all have to be secured. And https for everything that contains code. Deploying SRI for web pages over https is also another layer of defense against js tampering. Also, sending passwords across the wire in any reversible manner is really more dangerous than is necessary. Passwords/passphrases could be salted hashed by the browser in Ja…

> Passwords/passphrases could be salted hashed by the browser in JavaScript using a PBKDF similar to scrypt or bcrypt, before being sent to the backend for constant-time comparison... it just takes a little more prudence and effort, but it's absolutely doable. This is not safe! Now an attacker just needs to intercept the hashed password and replay that, and he gets to login without knowing what the password is. Use h…

This doesn't make any sense to me. If attacker can intercept connections I'd rather he get the hash than the plaintext password. At least then actual password is still not compromised, which is good, given how many people share passwords accross services. If he can tamper with connections, there's nothing that can be done anyway.

It would be very nice if there was a feature in web browser that allowed user to opt in to something like this:

When there's a password input on a website: 1] automatically take website's domain concatenate it to plaintext password 2] generate a secure hash from 1] 3] Derive some reasonably portable text password (20-30 characters) from 2] 4] Make it so that original web page never has access to user's plaintext password 5] Submit result of 3]

Downsides:

1] Stupid websites enforcing password rules other than length (can be worked around mostly transparently). 2] Extra stupid websites limiting password length. (requires user interaction and configurable exceptions for such websites) 3] Can't login with browsers that don't implement this.

This would be very nice for people who share passwords between services. Also would make web service data leaks less valuable to attackers. User would not depend on service password handling quality and/or operator's morality.

I use different passwords for each and every service. But many people can't be bothered or don't get the risks of password sharing, so it would be at least some help to them.

Re: Login Forms Over HTTPS, Please

#25
post #14
post #4

I wish they outlined a plan to push this icon out to Stable. Even better the plan should call for the browser to eventually refuse to submit forms with password fields unless HTTPS was used for both loading the form and submitting it. I think that developers who are still using HTTP with passwords either don't understand the implications (and a tiny icon won't help), don't care, or don't have "management buy-in" to s…

Browser should display a scary warning popup when submitting form to http (either always, or maybe at least when there is input type=password in a form). This would be annoying enough to get management buy-in to implement https, if someone still maintains the app - better than a tiny icon. Breaking stuff is a last resort, nuclear option. There are many forgotten, old web apps that would totally stop working and peopl…

FWIW, 1Password will do this: https://15254b2dcaab7f5478ab-24461f391e20b7336331d5789078af5... (not my image)

1Password will also refuse to autofill passwords when it can't verify the application's signature (for example, if Chrome hasn't been updated in a while).

Re: Login Forms Over HTTPS, Please

#26
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just easier to have https everywhere. For what it's worth, this was not true ten (or maybe even five) years ago. I'd say it's true today, for most websites, but it's worth keeping in mind that it's a relatively recent phenomenon that HTTPS is now pretty easy to set up, use, and maintain. That wasn't always the case!

Five years ago was 2010. Other than Let's Encrypt, AFAIK, there hasn't been exactly leaps and bounds in terms of making https easier, at least for self-managed servers. It's still buy a certificate and set it up in nginx/apache/your favourite load balancer/etc.

> It's still buy a certificate and set it up in nginx/apache/your favourite load balancer/etc.

To a first order approximation, yes, and for small and medium sites, that's pretty accurate. But for very large sites, there can be additional complications and expenses, and that situation has improved over the last several years. Don't underestimate the effect that the downward price of bandwidth over the years has had - at very large scale, those pennies can really add up.

There's a reason why sites like Google, Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, etc. took so long to add SSL to everything Or why some sites like Comcast still don't provide it. It's not (always) that they simply don't care or don't have knowledgeable engineers; it's that the logistics of managing[0] SSL at that scale are non-trivial. Arguably worth it, yes, but it's not so straightforward.

[0] heck, the logistics of paying for - even with a CDN, the marginal cost of adding SSL is not cheap.

Re: Login Forms Over HTTPS, Please

#28

I have recently deployed Content Security Policy (CSP) on a website. When I first looked at violation reports, my jaw dropped. The amount of malware (rouge extensions, toolbars, viruses, ...) that is blocked is staggering. If you really want to help your (clueless) users, never ever serve a login, registration or credit card form without CSP. It really helps - at least until the malware catches on (I already see "Kas…

>rouge extensions

Man, World Of Warcraft flashbacks can be intense sometimes...

Re: Login Forms Over HTTPS, Please

#29
I don't know why sites don't just use HTTPS for everydamnedthing. It's 2016. SSL is not that computationally expensive and it's just easier to develop an entire site that way anyway (rather than making some pages secure and other non-secure). Just redirect everything to https and forget about it.

Re: Login Forms Over HTTPS, Please

#30
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browser should display a scary warning popup when submitting form to http (either always, or maybe at least when there is input type=password in a form). This would be annoying enough to get management buy-in to implement https, if someone still maintains the app - better than a tiny icon. Breaking stuff is a last resort, nuclear option. There are many forgotten, old web apps that would totally stop working and peopl…

FWIW, 1Password will do this: https://15254b2dcaab7f5478ab-24461f391e20b7336331d5789078af5... (not my image) 1Password will also refuse to autofill passwords when it can't verify the application's signature (for example, if Chrome hasn't been updated in a while).

That is not particularly scary though. That's the kind of thing a user will automatically press "next" on. This is the kind of warning that looks scary: http://i.stack.imgur.com/2kaXO.png
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