Pandora doesn't hash their passwords • Hacker News Board

Re: Pandora doesn't hash their passwords

#71

Post by cbsmith » Fri, Sep 21, 2012, 1:25 AM UTC

There may be a security issue here, but I think there is a distinct possibility that it certainly isn't what people think. Pandora needn't store the password on their servers. Just posted this to the Google+ thread:

Okay, I just did a simple test of what happens when I change my Pandora password. There is a record of HTML local storage keyed on "jStorage" which appears to be a giant JSON blob. A specific attribute whose name appears to be a randomly generated (encrypted) is updated.

Assuming that is password, stored encrypted, the exposure here may not be what people think. It certainly would mean the password need not be stored at all on Pandora's server. They could just have an HMAC. The password value could be simple extracted from local storage. Has anyone checked to see if this is the case?

Follow up: Okay, I further confirmed that if I set the password back to a prior value, that field in jStorage flips back to the prior value. So, it looks like it is stored encrypted, locally on the system. I haven't traced through all the JavaScript, but it seems likely that the security issue here is different than perceived, and might even be non-existant.

Re: Pandora doesn't hash their passwords

#72

Post by daeken » Fri, Sep 21, 2012, 1:26 AM UTC

ecaron wrote: post #45

jmediast wrote: post #36

Thoughts? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3798597

Proof that 99% of generating good conversation on HN comes from a well-phrased title.

No, most of it is timing and simple luck. If you hit the right time of the day (when there are a lot of users present but not a ton of news) and get the first few votes in a good time (which is mostly luck), you'll make the front page.

Re: Pandora doesn't hash their passwords

#73

Post by aiiane » Fri, Sep 21, 2012, 1:30 AM UTC

cbsmith wrote: post #71

There may be a security issue here, but I think there is a distinct possibility that it certainly isn't what people think. Pandora needn't store the password on their servers. Just posted this to the Google+ thread: Okay, I just did a simple test of what happens when I change my Pandora password. There is a record of HTML local storage keyed on "jStorage" which appears to be a giant JSON blob. A specific attribute wh…

Even if that's the case, though, that actually only mitigates the least problematic issue here (namely, how the passwords are stored on Pandora's end). At least the stored passwords there are behind other forms of security - so regardless of whether they're stored in plaintext or hashed on Pandora's servers, it'd still take an actual breach of Pandora's servers to retrieve them.

The real, major issue here is the fact that passwords are loaded into an HTTP-served page and displayed back to the user. It doesn't matter how it happens behind the scenes - the fact that someone can do either of the following is still majorly problematic:

1. Walk up to a computer you're logged into and read your plaintext password.

2. Inject scripts into the main (non-HTTPS) Pandora page and read it out of the DOM.

If they did go to the trouble of saving the password into local storage with encryption, one has to wonder what they were thinking, given that it's a lot of effort for a solution that's far less secure than the trivial effort of just storing hashed passwords.

Re: Pandora doesn't hash their passwords

#74

Post by peterwwillis » Fri, Sep 21, 2012, 1:30 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #69

peterwwillis wrote: post #21

If your Pandora password is extremely sensitive perhaps you should re-evaluate how anal you are about privacy. As long as your CC details are secure, who cares?

If a site is indifferent, incompetent, or stupid about password security, you should assume they are the same with credit card security until proven otherwise.

This is an incredibly dangerous assumption. It implies they're doing credit card security right just because they put a crypt() call in their code.

Always assume they're doing it wrong, because usually they are.

Re: Pandora doesn't hash their passwords

#75

Post by masterzora » Fri, Sep 21, 2012, 1:34 AM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #47

JohnsonB wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple, for every user that the hackers have, try their password for the associated email account, guaranteed they will gain access to many email accounts. Now they have access to their banking accounts.

This could happen, but do we have any evidence that it has? I'm being serious...I constantly hear about widespread leaks of passwords, but the most I hear about it is people having their email hacked by a botnet to...send spam. Have their been any large scale attacks to gain access to bank accounts to then clean them out somehow? On top of that, how does getting access to someone's bank account even help you? You hav…

I'm sorry please be clear: is your response to "this is a well-known security problem with easy-to-implement best practices to lower chances of incident" really "I've never heard of an attack using this"?

Re: Pandora doesn't hash their passwords

#76

Post by cbsmith » Fri, Sep 21, 2012, 1:36 AM UTC

telecuda wrote: post #18

I wish someone would make a one-pager that says: "Hey CEO, your site doesn't hash passwords. Here's why it's bad. Here's how it got other companies in hot water. Here's how simple it is to fix. Forward this to your tech guy. Oh, and until you do, we'll put your company on this wall of shame." Every time I receive a welcome email showing my password in plain-text, I'd gladly spend 5 minutes finding the email of an exe…

Someone shouldn't do that, because a) though the poster thinks they have proof that the site doesn't hash passwords, it increasingly seems like they do, and b) the CEO isn't the person to send this to anyway.

Re: Pandora doesn't hash their passwords

#77

Post by thaumaturgy » Fri, Sep 21, 2012, 1:40 AM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #47

JohnsonB wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple, for every user that the hackers have, try their password for the associated email account, guaranteed they will gain access to many email accounts. Now they have access to their banking accounts.

This could happen, but do we have any evidence that it has? I'm being serious...I constantly hear about widespread leaks of passwords, but the most I hear about it is people having their email hacked by a botnet to...send spam. Have their been any large scale attacks to gain access to bank accounts to then clean them out somehow? On top of that, how does getting access to someone's bank account even help you? You hav…

Yes. One of our clients had their ETrade account compromised after a Yahoo password leak. (We had helped them change passwords on all their other services and recover the data deleted from their Yahoo account, but they forgot they had an ETrade account.)

In that case, E*Trade detected the activity as fraudulent, so the damage was minimal.

Re: Pandora doesn't hash their passwords

#78

Post by masterzora » Fri, Sep 21, 2012, 1:43 AM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #70

bduerst wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which would be a reasonable argument except that hashing passwords is effortless in terms of development. The cost/benefit of implementing this functionality makes it a rule of thumb for front facing web pages.

Of course it's easy. You won't necessarily do it right, but you can sure get a crappy version working quickly. Assuming every web developer implemented a crappy password hash and then checked off the 'security' box on their compliance form. Are users more secure? No, because they didn't consider exactly how secure it needed to be . Are you using a sha1 hash? Great. Is it salted? Oh shit, forgot that, let's salt it. O…

When password reuse is common (that is to say, in the real world) it is always the time and place for password security. Sure, you and I know that we should have different passwords for every one of the hundreds of websites we've ever visited and that they should each be as strong as the potential damages of each website warrants and that we should change them on a relatively regular basis. And we are supergood about this and never slip.

Except, oh wait, even people on HN don't always follow best practices because they can be fucking hard sometimes. And that's before we get into the support email I got from a 90-year old user that consisted entirely of the subject line "WHAT IS PASSWORD".

I will guarantee you that somebody with access to every Pandora user's username and password will be able to access multiple bank accounts (or worse) within a short time period even though Pandora itself is a key example of a minimum-damages service.

Re: Pandora doesn't hash their passwords

#79

Post by peterwwillis » Fri, Sep 21, 2012, 1:44 AM UTC

aiiane wrote: post #73

cbsmith wrote: post #71

There may be a security issue here, but I think there is a distinct possibility that it certainly isn't what people think. Pandora needn't store the password on their servers. Just posted this to the Google+ thread: Okay, I just did a simple test of what happens when I change my Pandora password. There is a record of HTML local storage keyed on "jStorage" which appears to be a giant JSON blob. A specific attribute wh…

Even if that's the case, though, that actually only mitigates the least problematic issue here (namely, how the passwords are stored on Pandora's end). At least the stored passwords there are behind other forms of security - so regardless of whether they're stored in plaintext or hashed on Pandora's servers, it'd still take an actual breach of Pandora's servers to retrieve them. The real, major issue here is the fact…

The fact that someone could physically break into your machine to steal your Pandora password is extremely problematic? I'd hate to see your write-up once somebody knocks over the carton of milk...

If they used an HMAC and the secret is stored locally, aside some some sort of JavaScript/browser exploit, it's more secure than a non-MAC cryptographically hashed password, and much more secure than the plaintext password you submit in your browser to log into almost every website in the entire world.

This Pandora password is just visible to you on your computer. If you're worried about that, please don't have a heart attack, but they have these things called malware now ...

Re: Pandora doesn't hash their passwords

#80

Post by cbsmith » Fri, Sep 21, 2012, 1:46 AM UTC

aiiane wrote: post #73

cbsmith wrote: post #71

There may be a security issue here, but I think there is a distinct possibility that it certainly isn't what people think. Pandora needn't store the password on their servers. Just posted this to the Google+ thread: Okay, I just did a simple test of what happens when I change my Pandora password. There is a record of HTML local storage keyed on "jStorage" which appears to be a giant JSON blob. A specific attribute wh…

Even if that's the case, though, that actually only mitigates the least problematic issue here (namely, how the passwords are stored on Pandora's end). At least the stored passwords there are behind other forms of security - so regardless of whether they're stored in plaintext or hashed on Pandora's servers, it'd still take an actual breach of Pandora's servers to retrieve them. The real, major issue here is the fact…

1) No matter what they do, if someone walks up to a computer that you're logged in to, they have a very good shot at getting your plaintext password (there's a distinct chance it's in a memory buffer somewhere). With a minor bit of effort, they can get access to any future password you use. This is a basic principle of security for anything other than MAC style security systems (and even then...)

2) I think there is a very real risk there, but of course, unless they use HSTS (and therefore always HTTPS) everywhere, there is a risk of this. Even if they use HSTS (which isn't broadly supported in browsers yet), almost no-one checks TLS certificates for man-in-the-middle attacks. In short: the man-in-the-middle attack risk is always a risk unless the user takes extraordinary efforts. They could do more to mitigate it, but it'd undoubtedly have some seriously negative user experience consequences. It seems like a very high bar to hold Pandora to given the nature of their service. If you are going to hold them to that standard, you might want to start with a more significant target like say.... the Apple Store.