Re: Whitespace in passwords

[Tim <pand0ra.usa () gmail com>]

It all about the math. Let's write it out, say you have a machine that
runs 3,000,000 combinations per second (about a 1.6 GHz machine). In
this example we will use the Windows LanMan Challange/Response (which
is bad to begin with, but the main key in this is that it does not use
a salt).

60 possible characters and the password is 7 characters long.(no spaces)
60^7 = 2,799,360,000,000 = 10.8 days (A-Z, 0-9, special)

86 possible characters and the password is 7 characters long.(no spaces)
86^7 = 34,792,782,221,696 = 134.23 days (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, special)

62 possible characters and the password is 8 characters long.(no spaces)
62^8 = 218,340,105,584,896 = 2.3 years (A-Z, 0-9, special)

86 possible characters and the password is 8 characters long.(no spaces)
86^8 = 2992179271065856 = 31.62 years (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, special)

36 possible characters and the password is 14 characters long. (no spaces)
36^14 = 6,140,942,214,464,815,497,216 combinations = 64,909,333 years (a-z, 0-9)
2bigbrown1dogs (throw some special characters in) We have 2 big brown
dogs! (25 characters using numbers, upper and lower, and special
cahracters, you do the math). Microsoft Windows supports up to ~250
characters for the passwords/phrases.

The point here is that a 14 character all lowercase passphrase with
numbers is millions of time more difficult that a 'strong' 8 character
password with all sorts of characters. A space is just another
character and don't believe that it will protect you from getting your
password  cracked (security through obsecurity?). Also, keep in mind
that if you use a algo that has a salt and supports many characters
you will be much better off. Instead of making things more complex for
your users (which also increses the risk of them posting their
password on a stick-it note) make the passphrase easy for them to
remember.

Side note: Disable LanMan on all Windows machines if you are not
running any Windows 95/98/ME machines. It is there for backward
compatability and is still enabled by default on Windows 2003 Servers.


On 9/11/05, dave kleiman <dave () isecureu com> wrote:
> They also do not have a lot of the Extended ASCII characters:
>
> http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/88/312263
>
>
> Dave
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Steve.Cummings () barclayscapital com
> > [mailto:Steve.Cummings () barclayscapital com]
> > Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 12:54
> > To: AMeyers () msolgroup com; Anders.Thulin () tietoenator com;
> > homegrown () bryanallott net; pen-test () securityfocus com
> > Subject: Re: Whitespace in passwords
> >
> > Alt characters are also pretty cool
> >
> > Try alt 255 this is blank space
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Andrew Meyers <AMeyers () msolgroup com>
> > To: Anders Thulin <Anders.Thulin () tietoenator com>; bryan
> > allott <homegrown () bryanallott net>;
> > pen-test () securityfocus com <pen-test () securityfocus com>
> > Sent: Thu Sep 08 01:40:34 2005
> > Subject: RE: Whitespace in passwords
> >
> > I like pass phrases better because crackers like john and
> > l0pht, by default, don't have white spaces in their list of
> > characters.
> >
> >
> > -------------------
> > Andrew Meyers
> > Systems Engineer
> > Managed Solution
> > Email: ameyers () mssandiego com
> > Phone: 619-220-0544 x115
> > Fax: 619-220-0599
> > http://www.mssandiego.com
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Anders Thulin [mailto:Anders.Thulin () tietoenator com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 3:17 AM
> > To: bryan allott; pen-test () securityfocus com
> > Subject: RE: Whitespace in passwords
> >
> > > From: bryan allott [mailto:homegrown () bryanallott net]
> >
> > > to the misnomer "passWORD" rather than passPHRASE but it seems that
> > > [most?] people choose passes that dont contain whitespaces,
> >
> >   Most people still stick to alphanumeric passwords, and most
> > of those are passwords where the digits are placed at the end.
> > Whitespace is probably not more special than any of the other
> > 'specials' that appear on a standard keyboard. A problem is
> > to know just what those are -- a look at a keyboard may lead
> > a user to think the 'x' on the keypad is a different special
> > character than the '*'.
> >
> > > my main question, re security, is wether the whitespace made the
> > > password too vulnerable? [historically] and why this constraint is
> > > introduced in many systems..
> >
> >   Tradition, probably.  In environments where users are given
> > fixed passwords that they can't change themselves, space
> > belongs together with S58, O0, and Il1 to the characters that
> > probably will be misunderstood, and so cause calls to helpdesk.
> > Anything that is likely to cause a help-desk call is a no-no
> > in large environments.
> >
> >   Another aspect is regularity of user interface design:
> > should space be treated as significant when it appears first
> > and last in a string in general, say a Search field in a text
> > editor or a From- field in an e-mail program? If not, spaces
> > first and last in passwords will be assumed to be
> > insignificant as well -- and so become another source for
> > helpdesk complaints.
> > Regularity pays off.
> >
> >  [but then, if
> > > myth- why propogate it?]
> >
> >   Probably also a case that password are seldom documented in
> > detail, and few people are willing to sit down to find out
> > details by experiment.
> > (Windows NT hashes use the OEM character set ... which is
> > another source of documentation problems.)  So instructions
> > for password construction tend to avoid mentioning characters
> > that might be troublesome, even though there are some
> > important things to know.
> >
> >   For instance, dead accent keys (on my kbd ^ is one) usually
> > don't change the base character in a password, so 'pass' and
> > 'pâss' may produce the same password hash.
> >
> >   The most useful character to have in a reasonably modern
> > Windows password is EUR (Alt-Gr E on my kbd.) I suspect the
> > reason why is well known -- if not, I'll leave it as an
> > exercize. I'm sure there are similar 'oddities' on other
> > password situations.
> >
> > > i'm thinking that whitespaces [if yr
> > > system can handle them, and why not?] would add another measure of
> > > complexity in cracking pwds?
> >
> >   Of course they do.  But ... if you alredy have an adequate
> > password protection -- say, accounts are locked out after 25
> > failed attempts per day regardless of source --  the extra
> > complexity doesn't add much protection.  (If you have the
> > password hashes, security has already failed, and any attempt
> > to add a last line of defense in the form of password
> > complexity is misguided: it's only a question of time before
> > the passwords are discovered, and that time should not be
> > left to users to ensure.)
> >
> > Anders Thulin   anders.thulin () tietoenator com   040-661 50 63
> > TietoEnator Telecom & Media AB, Box 85, SE-201 20 Malmö
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> Audit your website security with Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner:
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> Hackers are concentrating their efforts on attacking applications on your
> website. Up to 75% of cyber attacks are launched on shopping carts, forms,
> login pages, dynamic content etc. Firewalls, SSL and locked-down servers are
> futile against web application hacking. Check your website for vulnerabilities
> to SQL injection, Cross site scripting and other web attacks before hackers do!
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>
> http://www.securityfocus.com/sponsor/pen-test_050831
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-- 
Tim Van Cleave

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