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LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised

bleepingcomputer.com

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Re: LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised

#141
post #31

LastPass has had a history of security incidents (no company can completely avoid incidents, but if security is literally a primary part of your value, you shouldn’t be having so many). Even worse, they have a history of doing hand-wavy corporate non-explanations for what actually happened in these incidents. The antithesis of being responsible and respecting users in the modern day.

To be fair to LastPass/LogMeIn, they're a company handling a lot of valuable information (passwords/form-fill data/card numbers/notes etc.) - and they're one of the biggest out there.

You'd expect them to be one of the more targeted companies just because of the 'treasure' they hold - hence the more security breaches.

Re: LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised

#142
post #115

To those who are recommending all different password managers, I have a question: why not using Chrome (or Firefox/Edge/ )'s built-in password manager? I have been using it for a couple years and haven't noticed any issue. Even if Google decides to screw me over and terminates my Google account, I can still access the passwords via the local copy in Chrome, so that is not really a concern. (Though, don't take this as…

Google is an advertising company. In the coming years, they'll continue to erode the privacy of Chrome users. I've long since reached the breaking point and switched to firefox. You may not be there yet, but when the time comes, you should make it as easy to switch for yourself as possible.

Re: LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just use KeePass: https://keepass.info/ It's a free open source app that runs on your local machine and stores your passwords locally - never uploads your passwords to a server. But it does this securely. And you can run it on multiple machines (and phones) and transfer the passwords (the vault) without ever uploading anything to servers.

Thanks for the tip! I will look into it. I am curious to find out how it syncs without servers. (I assume this is not an incredibly hard problem but we are just not used to doing things without "the cloud" these days)

it doesn't, it's up to you to manage that. you could use rsync, dropbox, google drive, icloud drive, or whatever mechanism for syncing you like.

Re: LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do this with LastPass.

I'm the OP from yesterday's story. I had 2fa enabled on my LastPass account, but didn't have access to the phone anymore. I clicked a link, LP sent me an email, and I was able (through that email) to remove 2fa. It doesn't make their 2fa completely useless, but it's not great.

That sounds fine to me tbh. It's worth knowing, but it's not weak. Email is a pretty good 2FA in terms of security, it's just not great in terms of usability, so it makes for a good fallback.

Attacker with MP + email access is pretty severe.

I wish more services used email as a 2FA instead of SMS.

Re: LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised

#145
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, how can this amount of files be justified? And how did this breached exactly happen?

> Wow, how can this amount of files be justified? File count is not a good metric of complexity nor is an indicator of the quality of an application. There is a good chance a lot of that are packages that have been packaged up into the extension. Lastpass itself is not a super trivial application, either.

25MB of plaintext lines of javascript code is absolutely an indication of the complexity

Re: LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised

#146

Confession: I store all my passwords in a plaintext file on my local desktop. I'm sure some people will look at me very funny for doing this, but it seems to me that I have both fewer hassles logging in and fewer breaches than people using more "secure" methods (like handing your passwords over to LastPass's mystery Chrome extension). Think about today's threat landscape and tell me I'm wrong. I may not be more secur…

Confession: I use Chrome's built-in password manager.

Re: LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised

#147

They claim it's credential stuffing, but there are plenty of people on the HN thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29705957 ) claiming to have used a unique password. Does LastPass/LogMeIn have a history of lying about/downplaying security incidents? I only remember a controversial (and to my knowledge unresolved) issue at TeamViewer (where the company claimed no compromise but due to the number of reports t…

Not lying, but definitely downplaying past incidents [0], of which they have had a number.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LastPass#Security_issues

Re: LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised

#148
post #128

Algorithmic passwords. Come up with an algorithm a(website, rules) that you can remember and that generates unique passwords per website. Store the rules (length restrictions, special character restrictions, number of times the password has changed, etc) in a google doc or something. Print out your algorithm on a physical piece of paper and put it in a safe place for after you die and people need to access your accou…

Sounds like a lot of mental work just to log in. Or... Try a self-hosted password manager, or one that generally has a much better reputation?

Re: LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised

#149
post #115

To those who are recommending all different password managers, I have a question: why not using Chrome (or Firefox/Edge/ )'s built-in password manager? I have been using it for a couple years and haven't noticed any issue. Even if Google decides to screw me over and terminates my Google account, I can still access the passwords via the local copy in Chrome, so that is not really a concern. (Though, don't take this as…

Google is an advertising company. In the coming years, they'll continue to erode the privacy of Chrome users. I've long since reached the breaking point and switched to firefox. You may not be there yet, but when the time comes, you should make it as easy to switch for yourself as possible.

Alright google hater. I have edited my question to also include Firefox's password manager.

EDIT: Also, if you don't know, Chrome also supports passwords export/import, so it not any more vendor-lock-in than any other password managers.

Re: LastPass users warned their master passwords are compromised

#150
This is why I rolled my own cryptography to generate random passwords for each site I use.

There is a tradition here that we tell programmers they must never write cryptographic code, that they will screw it up, and so on. To which I say: Yes, I agree that writing crypto code if you don’t know what you are doing can cause problems. It should not be done unless you know what you are doing; if you think using MD5 in any cryptographic context is secure, you don’t know what you are doing and shouldn’t be writing code using crypto.

If one wishes to write crypto code, the first thing is to realize that it’s very important to choose an algorithm wisely. Use one which has been made by an esteemed cryptographer, has been released to the academic cryptographic community, and has not been broken by said community.

Never try to make your own algorithm. Unless you know the difference between differential cryptanalysis and linear cryptanalysis, you have no business making your own algorithm. Even if you do, you have no business making you own algorithm and using it in production without releasing it to the academic cryptographic community so they can analyze it and see if it’s broken in some way you didn’t see.

It’s not just algorithms. It’s how to use an algorithm. If you don’t understand why it’s a bad idea to use a block cipher in ECB mode, then you probably shouldn’t be writing code that uses a block cipher in live production.

I would not have anyone write crypto code for production use unless they have read Applied Cryptography cover to cover; while somewhat dated (it came out before AES, MD5 getting broken, SHA-3, or post-quantum crypto) it is an excellent introduction to the basics.

That said, I have written my own password generator. I have read Applied Cryptography. I know MD5 is broken. I know to random pad plaintext before encrypting it with RSA. I know not to use a block cipher in ECB mode. I have written cryptographic code used in production and it hasn’t ever been shown to be weak or broken; I have revised the code when purely academic attacks have been made against it: I started transitioning from AES to RadioGatún[32] back in 2007 because, while purely academic, I felt the cache timing attacks made it too insecure for me to continue using it in production code.

My password generator takes a master password, and it appends it to that master password the name of the site I am visiting, then runs it through a strong cryptographic hash (RadioGatún[32], for the record, which has been around for over 15 years and remains unbroken) for over 500,000 rounds, to generate a secure password. Since it’s not an online service, there is no point of failure where hackers could get in to the online site; since it’s not a browser plugin, there is no point of failure where a browser security hole or a Javascript hack can get at my master password.

The code is open source and available here: https://github.com/samboy/PassGen/

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