Re: Filezilla's silent caching of user's credentials

[Brandon McGinty <brandon.mcginty () gmail com>]

If this is the wrong list for this question, I appologize.
Is there any precedent for notifying those whose results have popped up
for the below referenced google search?
I would be happy to send out an email to the domain owners?, to alert
them of a problem, but I am not sure if this is recommended.

Brandon McGinty


On 10/9/2010 11:00 AM, Vipul Agarwal wrote:
> That's a live and good example. I hope that now they'll understand the
> importance of the issue.
>
> On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Shirish Padalkar
> <shirish.padalkar () tcs com>wrote:
>
> > http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=inurl:recentservers.xml&oq=inurl:recentservers.xml
> >
> > :)
> >
> >
> >  From:
> > Ryan Sears <rdsears () mtu edu>
> > To:
> > full-disclosure <full-disclosure () lists grok org uk>
> > Date: 10/08/2010 08:52 AM Subject:
> > [Full-disclosure] Filezilla's silent caching of user's credentials
> > Sent by: full-disclosure-bounces () lists grok org uk
> > ------------------------------
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > As some of you may or may not be aware, the popular (and IMHO one of the
> > best) FTP/SCP program Filezilla caches your credentials for every host you
> > connect to, without either warning or ability to change this without editing
> > an XML file. There have been quite a few bug and features requests filed,
> > and they all get closed or rejected within a week or so. I also posted
> > something in the developer forum inquiring about this, and received this
> > response:
> >
> > "I do not see any harm in storing credentials as long as the rest of your
> > system is properly secure as it should be."
> >
> > Source:(http://forum.filezilla-project.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17932)
> >
> > To me this is not only concerning, but also completely un-acceptable. The
> > passwords all get stored in PLAIN TEXT within your %appdata% directory in an
> > XML file. This is particularly dangerous in multi-user environments with
> > local profiles, because as we all know physical access to a computer means
> > it's elementary at best to acquire information off it. Permissions only work
> > if your operating system chooses to respect them, not to mention how simple
> > it is *even today* to maliciously get around windows networks using
> > pass-the-hash along with network token manipulation techniques.
> >
> > There has even been a bug filed that draws out great ways to psudo-mitigate
> > this using built-in windows API calls, but it doesn't seem to really be
> > going anywhere. This really concerns me because a number of my coworkers and
> > friends were un-aware of this behavior, and I didn't even know about it
> > until I'd been using it for a year or so. All I really want to see is at the
> > very least just some warning that Filezilla does this.
> >
> > Filezilla bug report:(http://trac.filezilla-project.org/ticket/5530)
> >
> > My feelings have been said a lot more eloquently than I could ever hope to
> > in that bug report:
> >
> > "Whoever keeps closing this issue and/or dismissing its importance
> > understands neither security nor logical argument. I apologize for the slam,
> > but it is undeniably true. Making the same mistake over and over does not
> > make it any less of a mistake. The fact that a critical deficiency has
> > existed for years does not make it any less critical a deficiency.
> > Similarly, the fact that there are others (pidgin) who indulge in the same
> > faulty reasoning does not make the reasoning any more sound." ~btrower
> >
> > While it's true you can mitigate this behavior, why should it even be
> > enabled by default? The total lapse in security for such a feature-rich,
> > robust piece of software is quite disturbing, and I don't understand how the
> > developers don't think this is an issue.
> >
> > I just wanted to gauge the FD community on this issue, because with enough
> > backing and explanation from the security community as to why this is a
> > problem, this issue may finally be resolved (it's been doing this for years
> > now).
> >
> > Regards,
> > Ryan Sears
> >
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Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
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