Re: EasyJet is storing user passwords in the clear

[Michael Neal Vasquez <mnv () alumni princeton edu>]

If I reread your statement, and take it as "70% of people's passwords suck"
-- I'd have to agree.  I'd say though, for the remaining 30%, algorithm
choice, even without salting, can make a difference.  My password audits go
much quicker when LM is enabled, vs NTLM.  Same for MD5 vs SHA1.

On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 9:07 AM, Dan Kaminsky <dan () doxpara com> wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 10:39 AM, Michael Neal Vasquez <
> mnv () alumni princeton edu> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 8:05 AM, Dan Kaminsky <dan () doxpara com> wrote:
> >
> > > Sai,
> > >
> > >    I see where you're coming from, but what are the most recent
> > > statistics on the effectiveness of hash cracking?  Isn't it something like
> > > 70% of the passwords in the field can be cracked with a minimal amount of
> > > brute forcing?
> >
> > 70% ?
> >
> > Plain MD5 perhaps, but I don't think salted, or sha1, etc, have anywhere
> > near such high success rates.
>
> The problem isn't in the algorithm -- it's in the passwords themselves.
> Salting helps in that the attacker can't amortize the work effort across the
> entire population, but at the end of the day, even PBKDF2 isn't going to do
> much against 1234567890 and its ilk.
>
> To put it another way, if EasyJet *did* have a breach, they couldn't very
> well say "It's OK, because the passwords were hashed".
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