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Does it mean they are doing a shitty job? Yes. Is storing a password using two-way encryption more secure than plaintext? Laughably. Still...
I hate to be pedantic, but just because they send you your password in plain text, doesn't mean they are storing it in plain text. Does it mean they are doing a shitty job? Yes. Is storing a password using two-way encryption more secure than plaintext? Laughably. Still...
So yes, generally if they send you the password then that means they store it in plain text. While it isn't always that hard to crack a password hash, it is unlikely that Amtrak went through that length to retrieve the password.
I hate to be pedantic, but just because they send you your password in plain text, doesn't mean they are storing it in plain text. Does it mean they are doing a shitty job? Yes. Is storing a password using two-way encryption more secure than plaintext? Laughably. Still...
Presumably if the passwords are hashed they have no way of telling you your password. They can only reset it. So yes, generally if they send you the password then that means they store it in plain text. While it isn't always that hard to crack a password hash, it is unlikely that Amtrak went through that length to retrieve the password.
The problem with this, and why people don't view it as much better than plain text, is because it's a single point of failure - and if your DB has been compromised, your secret keys (in a config or in source) probably isn't too far behind.
They don't seem to store credit card information for future use, which is a good sign. However, they do store a lot of personally identifiable information that might make sending a password via email illegal in some states (at least Massachusetts [1]).
[1] http://www.mass.gov/Eoca/docs/idtheft/201CMR1700reg.pdf - (3)Encryption of all transmitted records and files containing personal information that will travel across public networks, and encryption of all data containing personal information to be transmitted wirelessly.