Educause Security Discussion mailing list archives
Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP)
From: "Hagan, Sean" <sean.hagan () YC EDU>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2019 19:51:30 +0000
Robert – Thanks for the clarification, and I’m well aware of what Chegg is and that it is not our own breach. We’ve been receiving HIBP alerts for at least two years now and it’s part of our formal IR process. Again, knowing the password is not necessary, but it saves me considerable time and/or gives me much greater certainty during my triage and incident response process. Basically: IF breach announced for users in my domain AND breach includes passwords AND passwords are plaintext OR passwords are weakly hashed THEN force password change WHERE breach date >= last password change date. Hopefully that makes sense. Since this is a public list, I won’t go into details about anything else, but suffice it to say that general response above can have a very large user population in it. Knowing the passwords means I can automatically exclude most of my users since our password complexity requirements tend to be far greater than those of most websites. Not knowing the passwords means I’m left providing less than ideal options to my leadership on how to proceed (ignore it and hope the passwords weren’t valid, force password changes on several hundred accounts, etc.) In the case of the Chegg breach, the passwords were hashed – not plaintext - and I think there’s enough evidence out there now to conclude that the hashed passwords have been cracked (or at least a large subset of them). So hashing can be close to worthless depending on the algorithm used. From: The EDUCAUSE Security Community Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU> On Behalf Of Barton, Robert W. Sent: Monday, September 23, 2019 12:34 PM To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) I have not found a listing of the accounts (just the descriptions that HIBP gives) without hitting a questionable web site. Please note, this is an outside exposure that is being disclosed; not a hack of your system…unless you are Chegg. ☺ I’m not sure where knowing the password is necessary. If they have done their work in some areas, but not others, the site password should be a hash anyway and thus of limited (no) use. Although, if the passwords are kept in a non-encrypted format, I can see where knowing what people are using for passwords could give you a good idea as to IF they are using good password hygiene/policy. But, if you assume they are not, and use this as an educational opportunity anyway???? Robert W. Barton Executive Director of Information Security and Policy Lewis University One University Parkway Romeoville, IL 60446-2200 815-836-5663 From: The EDUCAUSE Security Community Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>> On Behalf Of Hagan, Sean Sent: Monday, September 23, 2019 1:50 PM To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU> Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) I would be looking for the same as Garrett in any breach situation because my triage of an incident first involves determining scope. Without access to the passwords, I have no idea if they meet complexity requirements or not, so I’m left making assumptions I’d rather not make. With the passwords, I can quickly run them through some Excel filters to check length and complexity, and then test those that meet our criteria to see if they’re still valid. Can usually reduce an incident involving potentially hundreds of accounts to just a handful. So I see a lot of value in getting the dumps/raw passwords where possible. From: The EDUCAUSE Security Community Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>> On Behalf Of Frank Barton Sent: Monday, September 23, 2019 9:48 AM To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU> Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) I think Garrett is looking the the raw passwords, not just the list of users included. I'm also not sure why that information would be useful HIBP is great for finding out when accounts are on lists, I'm not sure that I would want to have the passwords that were compromised. HIBP also has an API where passwords can be securely hashed and compared to check if they have been seen in any breach. (it doesn't specify exactly which breach it was found in, just that it is "out there somewhere" Frank On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 12:35 PM Jim A. Bole <jbole () stevenson edu<mailto:jbole () stevenson edu>> wrote: Garrett, Someone can sign up for your domain(s) on HIBP. Once you do you’ll get notifications as well as a dump of all accounts associated with your domain(s). Jim Bole Director of Information Security Stevenson University 1525 Greenspring Valley Road Stevenson, MD, 21153-0641 jbole () stevenson edu<mailto:jbole () stevenson edu> | O: 443-334-2696 From: The EDUCAUSE Security Community Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>> On Behalf Of Garrett McManaway Sent: Monday, September 23, 2019 11:52 AM To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU> Subject: Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) ________________________________ Does anyone have the raw password dump or able to point me to where it exist? Garrett McManaway CISO & Sr. Director C&IT - Information Security and Compliance Wayne State University Phone: 313-577-3454 From: The EDUCAUSE Security Community Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>> On Behalf Of Frank Barton Sent: Monday, September 23, 2019 9:21 AM To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU> Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Just to 'close the loop' on this, we're seeing so many attacks based on the chegg list right now that it isn't even funny. luckily many of them are failing, but we're seeing a good number of successful 'password reuse' attacks that we can confirm are linked directly to the chegg list. Frank On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 7:17 PM Joseph Tam <tam () math ubc ca<mailto:tam () math ubc ca>> wrote: (Speaking as someone who deals with a few hundred, not a few thousand accounts.) Frank Barton <bartonf () HUSSON EDU<mailto:bartonf () HUSSON EDU>> writes:
Are you notifying impacted users?
Yes. I make reference to the most comprehensive sites I can find that explain the data breach -- disturbingly, some vendors not very forthcoming about it-- as well as general security advice on password diversifiction, identity fraud, etc.
Are you requiring a password reset for campus systems?
No. Unless you have evidence that the same password is being used, I rely on the recipient to judge for themselves what are appropriate actions. Forcing people to change their password based on paranoia, like frequent password rotation, is counterproductive. Ken Connelly <ken.connelly () UNI EDU<mailto:ken.connelly () UNI EDU>> writes:
For all similar reports that include a password in the stolen data, we send this message to the affected accounts.
These breaches leak all sorts of data, and hashed passwords may not be as damaging as attempts at identity fraud, so I notify users about that as well. (In sig)
Any request to divulge your UNI password via e-mail is fraudulent!
Most phish will try and instruct you to enter it into a web form, but making this distinction in a short sig is doomed to failure. Reducing security to a slogan is the opposite of what you want. "Jim A. Bole" <jbole () STEVENSON EDU<mailto:jbole () STEVENSON EDU>> writes:
We subscribe to haveibeenpwned.com<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhaveibeenpwned.com&data=02%7C01%7Cjbole%40STEVENSON.EDU%7C6e1b1f09cdb442eeeab208d7403def22%7C93599c7168554022bac5141d808346d1%7C0%7C0%7C637048507061430402&sdata=uz%2Fki2PLbtlsMXmAsF3qNZFaWplsXjrsoccm6MNNSco%3D&reserved=0>'s domain search notification service. We= 've seen a steady increase in notifications around these types of services: - Chegg - Canva - Adobe
I'm also subscribed there, and the recent spike in reported accounts seems to be sourced from the same individual. Apparently, this person found a way to get a hold of a lot breached data. (Maybe working undercover?) From: Blake M Bourgeois <bbour53 () LSU EDU<mailto:bbour53 () LSU EDU>>
For what it is worth, we saw the data in the breach being leveraged as early as May 2018 and were able to finally confirm that the large number of account compromises then were a result of this breach.
I've observed that these data leak notifications get less useful over time. Not only do many accounts go extinct (most of the accounts I get notified about don't exist anymore), but action on earlier breach notices also protect from some later breaches. I see a lot of overlap on accounts where the same user account shows up again and again. These leaked credentials are exploited though: some of the frequently reported leaked credentials also show up frequently in my auth failure logs. Joseph Tam <tam () math ubc ca<mailto:tam () math ubc ca>> ********** Replies to EDUCAUSE Community Group emails are sent to the entire community list. If you want to reply only to the person who sent the message, copy and paste their email address and forward the email reply. 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Current thread:
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP), (continued)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Joseph Tam (Aug 16)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Frank Barton (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Garrett McManaway (Sep 23)
- Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: [SECURITY] Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Zachary Yamada (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Barton, Robert W. (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Jim A. Bole (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Frank Barton (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Barton, Robert W. (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Hagan, Sean (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Barton, Robert W. (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Hagan, Sean (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Garrett McManaway (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Bukowski, David (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Frank Barton (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Brandon Hume (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Joseph Tam (Aug 16)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Tanner, Andrea (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Frank Barton (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Barton, Robert W. (Sep 23)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Frank Barton (Sep 26)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Hart, Michael (Sep 26)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) Ramon Rentas (Sep 27)
- Re: Chegg Data Breach notification (Thanks to HIBP) King, Ronald A. (Sep 27)