KeePass – questionable security • Hacker News Board

Re: KeePass – questionable security

#131

Post by sdrapkin » Tue, Jun 16, 2015, 9:20 PM UTC

eridius wrote: post #123

sdrapkin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. I do note that the very blog you linked mentions that there are two 1Password formats: 1. The "Agile Keychain Format" (versions 2 and 3, which lack integrity). 2. The "Cloud Keychain Format" (versions 4+, which have integrity). You didn't specify which version you use & like. I also note that the 1Password team had been selling security software which was not designed well - see (1) above. And it's not l…

Just to note, in the 1Password 4 Cloud Keychain design page[1], he specifically says > When the Agile Keychain format was developed, chosen ciphertext attacks (CCA) were seen as theoretical. Furthermore the primary threat to 1Password users was thought to be from an attacker stealing the data once and pursuing an off-line attack. It did not anticipate an attacker who could tamper with user data that would be subseque…

I don't buy this "explanation" for the following reason:

Even if they could not anticipate an attacker tampering with user data, surely they should've been able to anticipate filesystem corruption?

Let's not pretend that MACs and secure integrity checks were a modern marvel just because CCA attacks were seen as theoretical back then.

Re: KeePass – questionable security

#132

Post by benoliver999 » Tue, Jun 16, 2015, 9:21 PM UTC

ntnn wrote: post #130

thomp wrote: post #99

What about pass ( http://www.passwordstore.org/ )? No "funky file formats" -- just GPG and a convenient CLI.

"It's capable of temporarily putting passwords on your clipboard and tracking password changes using git." Holy moly, thats awesome. I think I'm gonna drop keepass for that.

Been using it for a month now, it's fantastic.

Re: KeePass – questionable security

#133

Post by TimWolla » Tue, Jun 16, 2015, 9:22 PM UTC

Apparently someone reported this thread to the author. You might want to follow the SourceForge issue: http://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329220/thread/2e...

Re: KeePass – questionable security

#134

Post by freehunter » Tue, Jun 16, 2015, 9:27 PM UTC

nycticorax wrote: post #98

freehunter wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well LastPass has had a breach now twice but the integrity of their password database is still holding strong. If you're using Dropbox to share your password database, LastPass having a breach shouldn't be of any concern. I'm fairly certain Dropbox has been broken into more times than LastPass ever will be. As someone who works in the security industry, I use LastPass and recommend it to everyone. It's no less safe t…

"I'm fairly certain Dropbox has been broken into more times than LastPass ever will be." Really? Why is that?

Well for one, they already have been broken into. Also they have a member of the board who strongly supports the NSA wiretap program and has very close ties to the highest levels of government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condoleezza_Rice#Criticism_of_...

Re: KeePass – questionable security

#135

Post by throwaway55512 » Tue, Jun 16, 2015, 9:27 PM UTC

tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #77

jgrowl wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not be as polished as some of the other options out there, but it is what I use. I am mostly happy with it. I just wish there was a built in way to encrypt the folder structure to hide what sites I have credentials for.

not built in but if you're on linux you can always overlay ecryptfs on your password safe directory, or just have your passwords in a separate vm entirely that is used only for that

ecryptfs doesn't obfuscate filenames (it is a "stacked" filesystem) so that's not going to do any good. You'll need block-level encryption such as LUKS and a loopback mount if you want to keep that hidden, at least when that partition isn't mounted.

Re: KeePass – questionable security

#136

Post by eridius » Tue, Jun 16, 2015, 9:28 PM UTC

sdrapkin wrote: post #131

eridius wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to note, in the 1Password 4 Cloud Keychain design page[1], he specifically says > When the Agile Keychain format was developed, chosen ciphertext attacks (CCA) were seen as theoretical. Furthermore the primary threat to 1Password users was thought to be from an attacker stealing the data once and pursuing an off-line attack. It did not anticipate an attacker who could tamper with user data that would be subseque…

I don't buy this "explanation" for the following reason: Even if they could not anticipate an attacker tampering with user data, surely they should've been able to anticipate filesystem corruption? Let's not pretend that MACs and secure integrity checks were a modern marvel just because CCA attacks were seen as theoretical back then.

The Agile Keychain format has a field called "contentsHash" (which looks to contain 32 bits of data). I'm assuming that's some sort of hash (perhaps crc32) of the encrypted contents, used to protect against corruption (but not against malicious attackers).

Re: KeePass – questionable security

#137

Post by debfx » Tue, Jun 16, 2015, 9:31 PM UTC

xenophonf wrote: post #36

negus wrote: post #4

Ok, your password database was affected by malicious modification. So what? How it can break the confidentiality of your data? Update: By the way, what's wrong with the bytearray compare code snippet?

Confidentiality isn't your only concern. You should also be worried about integrity and availability. From "On The Security of Password Manager Database Formats": Unfortunately, [KDBX4] introduces new vulnerabilities. Similarly to KDB, the main problem of this format is the lack of authentication of *hdr*. As such, is it susceptible to modifications... This modification is not detectable by the password manager... if…

This isn't true anymore.

Newer versions store a SHA-256 hash of the header inside the encrypted XML.

At least KeePass >= 2.20 and KeePassX 2.0 >= alpha3 support this. I haven't checked other implementations.

Re: KeePass – questionable security

#138

Post by emsy » Tue, Jun 16, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

vixsomnis wrote: post #122

For anyone who has wanted to switch to KeePassX (to avoid mono dependencies, for instance), but needed the integration with keepasshttp, this project is active: https://github.com/Ivan0xFF/keepassx I haven't switched yet to Ivan0xFF's port yet (I've been using the auto-type based on window title). I may not actually switch, as the Pass project some others have posted here looks very good as a cross-platform solution…

I love KeepassX, but the time it takes to add features and make releases is disencouraging. I don't like that I have to use a fork for months or years because the author is to proud to let in other main contributors (this concerns open source in general, but KeepassX is a great example for this).

Re: KeePass – questionable security

#139

Post by vially » Tue, Jun 16, 2015, 9:50 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #76

mey wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering your background and experience, do you have a recommendation for personal level password management?

I use and like 1Password.

What do you think about pass [1]?

[1] - http://www.passwordstore.org/

Re: KeePass – questionable security

#140

Post by hackuser » Tue, Jun 16, 2015, 9:55 PM UTC

xenophonf wrote: post #12

"On The Security of Password Manager Database Formats" ( https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/6487/pwvault.pdf ) was a good review of KeePass, Password Safe, and others. As I understood it, only Password Safe provided both secrecy and data authenticity.

Thank you! Also, I found a slightly better link, not directly to the PDF but to a page with the abstract and other info:

http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/publications/publication7166-abstract...