WebApp Sec mailing list archives

Re: Should login pages be protected by SSL?


From: Dave Ockwell-Jenner <doj () solar-nexus com>
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 07:05:09 -0400

From a purely non-technical viewpoint: it may be a good idea for the login page to be protected by SSL if for no other reason that having the browser show the "padlock" symbol. It's something that non-technical, non-web developer people can see and (somewhat) understand. Since they are typing their password on a page, that's what many associate with - "I'm not entering my password here, I don't see the padlock".

Amir Herzberg wrote:

There may be some argument even in this case (privacy, tendency of users to use same passwords, ...). But this was _not_ my intent. I may not have been clear, but I am interested in sensitive sites - financial, shopping, security (CA, DNS, SSO, Portals, etc.). As you can see in my `Hall of Shame` http://AmirHerzberg.com/shame.html, many of these don't use SSL to authenticate the login page, only to encrypt the password (when using a correct login page).

So, the real question I'm asking: should login pages to sensitive (e.g. financial) sites be protected by SSL?



--
Dave Ockwell-Jenner
Solar Nexus Solutions
http://www.solar-nexus.com/


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