Starbucks caught storing mobile passwords in clear text
computerworld.com
Starbucks caught storing mobile passwords in clear text
1–10 of 54 posts
Re: Starbucks caught storing mobile passwords in clear text
#2We use crashlytics as well but only an idiot would store username and password in the clear in their log. Geez, just store a randomized database ID if you have to. It's funny how people justify stupidity when they get caught.
Re: Starbucks caught storing mobile passwords in clear text
#3I don't get why not at least AES it.
Re: Starbucks caught storing mobile passwords in clear text
#4I sympathize with the developers because I face this maddening argument every day between convenience and security, but storing passwords in plaintext on local. Geez.
Make a token on the server after initial login and store that! Not much more secure, but then this story wouldn't be news.
Re: Starbucks caught storing mobile passwords in clear text
#5"If you grab someone's phone, you can effectively go through this log and see effectively where this person has been," Wood said. "It's a bad thing for user privacy"
Compared to what? The implicit assumption is that Starbucks gathering and storing geolocation data is not a potential invasion of privacy or a meaningful risk. The person who steals my iPhone is very unlikely to do so for the data it contains. Their goal is to flip it for cash and a datum ain't worth much to anyone other than the PI my wife hired to find out if I'm sleeping around or an attractive lab technician in CSI: Miami.
No the real risk to privacy is when Starbucks' servers are comprised. Today's Willy Suttons are still bank robbers not pickpockets. Spreading the data out spreads the risk and reduces or eliminates the probability of a catastrophic breach.
Of course it will be popular sport to pillory Starbucks for not following the conventional wisdom because it allows us to ignore the fact that passwords are broken. There's no technical fix for poor password hygiene among iPhone owners and an encrypted password will barely slow down a determined attacker with a couple of GPU's and physical possession of the phone.
Re: Starbucks caught storing mobile passwords in clear text
#6[deleted]
Re: Starbucks caught storing mobile passwords in clear text
#7I sympathize with the developers because I face this maddening argument every day between convenience and security, but storing passwords in plaintext on local. Geez. Make a token on the server after initial login and store that! Not much more secure, but then this story wouldn't be news.
[deleted]
Re: Starbucks caught storing mobile passwords in clear text
#8Storing a token isn't really much more secure than storing the password itself. (If I steal your token, I'm buying coffee with your account even though I don't know your password. A token that authenticates account access is a password.)
But it seems much more secure (which, it turns out, matters) and it does somewhat protect people who reuse the same password everywhere.
Re: Starbucks caught storing mobile passwords in clear text
#9I don't get why not at least AES it.
With a static key? I mean, sure... but that's just obfuscation.
Re: Starbucks caught storing mobile passwords in clear text
#10Only when adding money to the app is the password required.
This seems precisely backwards.