Penetration Testing mailing list archives
Re: username and Password sent as clear text strings
From: "Matthew Zimmerman" <mzimmerman () gmail com>
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 20:06:13 -0400
In my opinion, if you want to mitigate this, don't use passwords. Use true challenge-response. Everything else proposed here is either obfuscation or doesn't really work in a web application environment. A VPN around a webserver only works if every user that needs access to that webserver can also access the vpn. This situation should NOT be described as a 'password in cleartext'. If you call SSL encryption (when using a decent symmetric algorithm), then this is not a cleartext issue... You've committed a man-in-the-middle attack by being the client AND the man-in-the-middle... That doesn't really get you anything. If you control the client, you control the connection. In this case, you told your client to trust a self-signed certificate with the name of "WebScarab" when you went to "OtherSite. Follow NIST SP 800-63 for more guidance -- http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsDrafts.html#SP-800-63--1 Matt Zimmerman On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 6:39 AM, <jfvanmeter () comcast net> wrote:
Hello everyone, and I know this might not be the most correct place to post this questions, but I was hoping to get some feedback on what you think the potential risk would be and how this this could be exploited. I completed a security review of a web server, that creates a SSL connection between the cleint and the server. Using WebScarab, I could see that the username and password are sent as clear text strings. The log in to the server requires a administrative account. Do you think there is a large amount of risk, in sending the username and password as a clear text string, since the pipe is encrypted? I was thinking that a man-in-the-middle or sometype of session hijacking attack could allow the account to be compromised. I'm working on completing the report for my client and was hoping to get some feedback from everyone so I could pose this to them correcly. Thank you in advance --John ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This list is sponsored by: Cenzic Need to secure your web apps NOW? Cenzic finds more, "real" vulnerabilities fast. Click to try it, buy it or download a solution FREE today! http://www.cenzic.com/downloads ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Current thread:
- Dangerous in using nmap for AS/400 730 machine configured with 3 ASPs?, (continued)
- Dangerous in using nmap for AS/400 730 machine configured with 3 ASPs? Brahnda A. Eleazar (May 15)
- Re: Dangerous in using nmap for AS/400 730 machine configured with 3 ASPs? Jon Kibler (May 16)
- RE: Dangerous in using nmap for AS/400 730 machine configured with 3 ASPs? Newton, Preston (May 16)
- Re: Dangerous in using nmap for AS/400 730 machine configured with 3 ASPs? pand0ra (May 16)
- Re: Dangerous in using nmap for AS/400 730 machine configured with 3 ASPs? pand0ra (May 16)
- Re: Dangerous in using nmap for AS/400 730 machine configured with 3 ASPs? Rick Zhong (May 17)
- RE: Dangerous in using nmap for AS/400 730 machine configured with 3 ASPs? Brahnda A. Eleazar (May 26)
- RE: Dangerous in using nmap for AS/400 730 machine configured with 3 ASPs? Adriano Leite (DHL CZ) (May 28)
- RE: Dangerous in using nmap for AS/400 730 machine configured with 3 ASPs? Brahnda A. Eleazar (May 28)
- Dangerous in using nmap for AS/400 730 machine configured with 3 ASPs? Brahnda A. Eleazar (May 15)
- Re: username and Password sent as clear text strings David Howe (May 21)
- Re: username and Password sent as clear text strings Matthew Zimmerman (May 22)
- Re: username and Password sent as clear text strings David Howe (May 23)
- RE: username and Password sent as clear text strings Shenk, Jerry A (May 17)