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When it comes to composition and length, passwords mostly don't matter

techcommunity.microsoft.com

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Re: When it comes to composition and length, passwords mostly don't matter

#131

Post by johndough »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #114
sxates wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best is typing that 20 character mixed-case-plus-numbers-and-symbols password for Netflix into your TV app using an on screen keyboard and directional arrows...

1Password lets you use dictionary words separated by spaces when generating random passwords. This can be really helpful on iOS/tvOS devices -- just use speech-to-text to type them in (not to mention being easier to remember).

With the recent controversy about Amazon and Google snooping in on smart speaker recordings, people should probably avoid reading out their passwords to human listeners.

Re: When it comes to composition and length, passwords mostly don't matter

#132

Post by codeulike »

mnm1 wrote: post #130

This kind of shit coming from Microsoft is fucking rich. Then why do I have to change my password constantly on outlook and get routed to at least two different types of password change servers, one with rules stupider than another? Especially when I'm trying to use a password manager with a strong, long, random password and they are preventing me from doing so with their shitty UX and their limitation on characters?…

Sounds like the place where you work has assigned some dumb password policies, and has a clumsy federation setup for password changes.

Re: When it comes to composition and length, passwords mostly don't matter

#133

Post by tialaramex »

DecoPerson wrote: post #5

If we start thinking passwords don't matter, we go back to single-factor authentication. What makes the "second" factor in 2FA more secure than the first? Is that it's usually a time-based generated key? Or is it that users usually use a physical device for this second key, hence removing a lot of internet-only attack vectors?

Quantity has a quality all of its own. For example in TOTP the secret is 160 bits. A whole swathe of those attacks vanish when "guessing" ceases to be a viable element of any strategy. Bad guys can plausibly guess a "password" but they can't guess a 160-bit value.

Beyond that, U2F / FIDO doesn't have a secret at all, a typical device uses symmetric ("secret key") crypto but it never actually tells anybody else that key, it's a baked-in private value for the device. This gets rid of all the attack vectors in which someone else learns your secret which you will see were many of the items in Microsoft's list.

Re: When it comes to composition and length, passwords mostly don't matter

#134

Post by tialaramex »

closeparen wrote: post #99
DecoPerson wrote: post #5

If we start thinking passwords don't matter, we go back to single-factor authentication. What makes the "second" factor in 2FA more secure than the first? Is that it's usually a time-based generated key? Or is it that users usually use a physical device for this second key, hence removing a lot of internet-only attack vectors?

TOTP and U2F both perform a single authentication from a captive secret, rather than revealing a reusable secret. U2F does even better, and ensures you are authenticating to the right website, not an intermediary. If we eliminated passwords in favor of onboard U2F chips, we'd be much better off than today, though not as amazing as U2F + passwords.

Arguably what's inside a U2F/ FIDO token isn't a secret but a private value.

The TOTP secret is known to the authenticator, they calculate the same TOTP value as you to verify that yours is correct.

In U2F / WebAuthn the device just proves it still knows a private asymmetric key that it can use to sign messages, the authenticator learns the _public_ key, but not the private one, it can authenticate these signatures but not produce its own.

To deliver pseudonymity the device doesn't use a single public/private pair for everything but instead generates them randomly from a seed or key it knows and _this_ private value is what makes your FIDO Security Key different from my FIDO Security Key so that you can be authenticated, whilst not making it possible to fingerprint you and see where else you use these credentials.

Single Factor FIDO is a thing, Microsoft offers it. The device takes a PIN (something you know) and incorporates that into the results, so that anyone who doesn't know the PIN now can't authenticate even if they've stolen your Security Key. You need a suitable device, the Yubikey Security Keys with a "2" emblazened are suitable.

Re: When it comes to composition and length, passwords mostly don't matter

#135

Post by tialaramex »

closeparen wrote: post #42
Someone1234 wrote: post #17

The number one reason I don't turn on MFA has nothing to do with the effort in entering the MFA code/pressing a confirm button. The lifecycle of MFA is the problem. The backup/recovery options are just terrible. You either print out a sheet of "one time codes" (which I need to not lose forever), my phone simply needs to never break, or I need to configure an insecure recovery account (creating a whole chicken/egg pro…

I hope a future version of U2F will support enrolling a not-physically-present token by public key.

Not practical.

The public key is different for each enrollment, on purpose to deliver pseuonymity. If you enable U2F for Facebook, and then I borrow your Security Key and also use it to enable U2F for Facebook, although obviously that key will now work for either of us for signing into Facebook, Facebook don't learn that it's the same device. If Microsoft compares the data from GitHub to their own U2F data, they don't learn anything about whether GitHub users are also live.com users from that data, none of it correlates.

Re: When it comes to composition and length, passwords mostly don't matter

#136

Post by Anonymous4C54D6 »

This article is slightly inconsistent.

All those arguments for why a password's strength doesn't matter because the attackers gets the exact one have one important conclusion: Don't reuse your password.

And then there are a bunch of arguments that the strength mostly doesn't matter but the password shouldn't be too weak.

So we end up with having to remember lot's of non-trivial passwords and now the conclusion should be to use a password manager and certainly not that your password "mostly doesn't matter".

What sadly mostly still doesn't matter is MFA because it is a site-specific pain to set up and use.

Re: When it comes to composition and length, passwords mostly don't matter

#137

Post by tialaramex »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #55
smacktoward wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the article is that many common attacks work just as well against completely random, unique passwords as they do against weak/reused ones. If you get phished, it doesn't matter if your password is strong. If your machine has a keylogger on it, it doesn't matter if your password is strong. Etc. Lots of attacks boil down to the attacker convincing you to unknowingly divulge your password, and if that passw…

> unknowingly divulge your password What's to keep you from unknowingly divulging your MFA token's current generated code? You're right that being phished/keylogged pwns a password-only account no matter how strong the password, but MFA isn't immune to phishing/keylogging/clipboard stealing either. Yes, the generated code will only give them access for 30 seconds (or whatever the algorithm's time window), but that's…

WebAuthn/ U2F are, in fact, immmune to phishing, keylogging, clipboard stealing etcetera. Google reports attacks on their employees are 0% effective for systems where they were able to deploy U2F.

If you try to phish it, you get credentials that are useless, because the credentials are bound to the FQDN, it will cheerfully hand over credentials for https://fakebank.example/ but they aren't the goodbank.example credentials, so it's futile for breaking into your goodbank account.

There is no keyboard entry, so nothing for a keyboard logger or clipboard thief. If you've completely taken over the user's hardware I guess all bets are off, but that's a big step up from what you're talking about.

Re: When it comes to composition and length, passwords mostly don't matter

#138

Post by tialaramex »

metildaa wrote: post #8
TimTheTinker wrote: post #6

Note this is from the perspective of a security decision maker, like an IT administrator. Policy-wise, users can't be forced or trusted to create excellent passwords on their own. But as an individual, your passwords do matter. It makes a world of a difference to use a password manager and long, completely random passwords - such passwords are immune to all sorts of cracking attempts, and using them can often make MF…

Rate-limiting & banning after repeat failed login attempts should be the baseline moat an IT admin or selfhosted infrastructure should have. Fail2ban rules like "after 5 failed logins, ban for 30min, 10 failed logins in a day (with no succesful login) is a permaban" will curtail most non-spear phishing attacks.

Use something like random token buckets not simple rate limiting.

If a user fails credential checks (e.g. password), track it, if their current failure rate is N, tell them they tried too many wrong credentials, come back later. Every random(1,T) seconds any failed users get their failure count reduced by one until it's zero and you stop tracking it for now.

By choosing N and T you can give users a relatively large number of "goes" to remember their password after a long period away, but not give attackers too many chances to guess a not-awful password by brute force.

For example if N is 10 and T is 7200 then a user can try ten passwords, then an average of 24 more attempts per day but exactly when they can make another attempt is random. This allows your good guys to have a fair chance against any bad guys smashing the "retry" button to try to lock them out. If the bad guys give up and go away, the user quickly returns to having ten attempts.

Re: When it comes to composition and length, passwords mostly don't matter

#139

Post by petjuh »

mehrdadn wrote: post #80
senectus1 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused... because the whole reason your twitter was able to be hacked was because the SMS option allowed it to be hacked.. They stole your SIM. SMS option was now in their control. SMS is not a secure 2FA option. sure its better than not having 2FA but only a little better.

> sure its better than not having 2FA but only a little better. I'm becoming convinced this is a pervasive fallacy (perhaps not for all users in all cases, but for many). Having SMS as your 2FA potentially makes your phone, phone line, and everything linked to it an attack target. So you might lose a heck of a lot more than you would if they were all unlinked. It depends kind of on what your current security practice…

Someone who steals your phone needs to have "physical access" to you. A random pickpocket is most likely to steal your phone and they're not interested in your phone.

Most hackers never have physical access to people. The intersection between the 2 sets - hackers and pickpockets - approaches zero.

Re: When it comes to composition and length, passwords mostly don't matter

#140

Post by mehrdadn »

petjuh wrote: post #139
mehrdadn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sure its better than not having 2FA but only a little better. I'm becoming convinced this is a pervasive fallacy (perhaps not for all users in all cases, but for many). Having SMS as your 2FA potentially makes your phone, phone line, and everything linked to it an attack target. So you might lose a heck of a lot more than you would if they were all unlinked. It depends kind of on what your current security practice…

Someone who steals your phone needs to have "physical access" to you. A random pickpocket is most likely to steal your phone and they're not interested in your phone. Most hackers never have physical access to people. The intersection between the 2 sets - hackers and pickpockets - approaches zero.

If the "phone," part bothers you then just focus on the rest of what I wrote. I was making a larger point.
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