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> Attackers were not able to view previous account passwords, as those are not stored in plain text or available through the tools used in the attack. They so

> Attackers were not able to view previous account passwords, as those are not stored in plain text or available through the tools used in the attack. They so carefully avoiding mentioning how they do store passwords that I have to wonder what their security practices are on that front (and the rest). What tools are they available under? You'd think they would've said "passwords are hashed and salted" to rule it out entirely if that was a thing.

judge2020 6y ago
Wording is suspicious, you would assume they mean "they had no db access so they didn't see the hashed passwords". Hopefully it just wasn't completely thought out. The only other reference to password storage efforts: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/a/2013/keeping-our-users-secure.html#component-wrapper:~:text=encrypted%2Fsalted%20versions%20of%20passwords https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/a/2013/keeping-our-users-secu... > attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.
batter 6y ago
In some old articles it was mentioned they used Bcrypt. Not sure if that has changed. Not so many new algos are proven to be good.
- skunkworker 6y ago
  As long as they’re continually bumping the work factor it should be good for now.
  - rswail 6y ago
    If passwords are peppered as well as salted, is the bcrypt work factor a factor?
    - rocqua 6y ago
      When the pepper is compromised, the work factor still matters.
- fmajid 6y ago
  Bcrypt wasn’t designed for GPUs, FPGAs and ASICs, unlike argon2 or scrypt that are designed to consume lots of RAM so they can’t be parallelized. The common knowledge “just use bcrypt” is dangerously outdated.
tialaramex 6y ago
> "passwords are hashed and salted" Means something to you and me, but means nothing to the average Twitter user who is the audience for this blog post.
- scoopertrooper 6y ago
  "plain text" is also a technical term. Ask the average joe what it means for something to be in "plain text" and you'd probably get the answer "Oh that's simple, they didn't write it out in cursive!"
  - albatross 6y ago
    I think the average non-technical reader could figure out that "plain text" refers to some variant of "········" rather than "password," even if the understanding is lacking technical depth.
    - scoopertrooper 6y ago
      My point was a term such as 'unencrypted' would probably be the word I'd use to explain the concept of a 'plain text' password to a non technical user.
      - maccam94 6y ago
        Encrypted implies that the passwords could possibly be decrypted with a key.
- fmajid 6y ago
  Hashed and salted is insufficient, as GPUs are extremely fast at crunching through hashes. Unless they use a memory-intensive (for GPU/FPGA résistance) algorithm like argon2 or scrypt, I would assume those credentials compromised.
  - manjalyc 6y ago
    Doesn't matter how fast GPUs are, they only get linearly faster. Passwords are exponential in terms of difficulty so assuming your password isn't password123 no GPU in the world is going to crack a 'decent' password in a decade on any modern algorithm memory-intensive or not.
bawolff 6y ago
Not really, this document is clearly intended for a general public audience (They define the term "social engineering" after all). I don't think its surprising they didn't go into the details of which algorithms they use on old passwords
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  They could've just said "...as this is not possible" or something like that. I wasn't suggesting they need to drop in acronyms like PBKDF2 or whatever. They go out of their way to say "through the tools used in the attack" which might as well imply there are other tools through which the passwords are available...
  - bawolff 6y ago
    They said "those [passwords] are not stored in plain text or available through the tools used in the attack." - "Or" means both clauses are true. I think it most likely means, the passwords are hashed, and the hashes aren't available in this tool. There's undoubtedly other tools that allow people to view the hash, (Mysql command line client is a "tool" after all ;) Although I agree the statement is ambiguous enough, that it could mean things that aren't best practise.
    - ethanwillis 6y ago
      Maybe they should hire a better writer because "and are not" is much clearer writing.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - maccam94 6y ago
    But technically you could try a dictionary-based brute-force attack on a user with a weak password and crack it regardless of the hashing scheme.
  - Godel_unicode 6y ago
un_montagnard 6y ago
It also sounds like they may keep old passwords?

judge2020 6y ago

Wording is suspicious, you would assume they mean "they had no db access so they didn't see the hashed passwords". Hopefully it just wasn't completely thought out. The only other reference to password storage efforts: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/a/2013/keeping-our-users-secure.html#component-wrapper:~:text=encrypted%2Fsalted%20versions%20of%20passwords https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/a/2013/keeping-our-users-secu... > attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.

batter 6y ago

In some old articles it was mentioned they used Bcrypt. Not sure if that has changed. Not so many new algos are proven to be good.

skunkworker 6y ago
As long as they’re continually bumping the work factor it should be good for now.
- rswail 6y ago
  If passwords are peppered as well as salted, is the bcrypt work factor a factor?
  - rocqua 6y ago
    When the pepper is compromised, the work factor still matters.
fmajid 6y ago
Bcrypt wasn’t designed for GPUs, FPGAs and ASICs, unlike argon2 or scrypt that are designed to consume lots of RAM so they can’t be parallelized. The common knowledge “just use bcrypt” is dangerously outdated.

tialaramex 6y ago

> "passwords are hashed and salted" Means something to you and me, but means nothing to the average Twitter user who is the audience for this blog post.

scoopertrooper 6y ago
"plain text" is also a technical term. Ask the average joe what it means for something to be in "plain text" and you'd probably get the answer "Oh that's simple, they didn't write it out in cursive!"
- albatross 6y ago
  I think the average non-technical reader could figure out that "plain text" refers to some variant of "········" rather than "password," even if the understanding is lacking technical depth.
  - scoopertrooper 6y ago
    My point was a term such as 'unencrypted' would probably be the word I'd use to explain the concept of a 'plain text' password to a non technical user.
    - maccam94 6y ago
      Encrypted implies that the passwords could possibly be decrypted with a key.
fmajid 6y ago
Hashed and salted is insufficient, as GPUs are extremely fast at crunching through hashes. Unless they use a memory-intensive (for GPU/FPGA résistance) algorithm like argon2 or scrypt, I would assume those credentials compromised.
- manjalyc 6y ago
  Doesn't matter how fast GPUs are, they only get linearly faster. Passwords are exponential in terms of difficulty so assuming your password isn't password123 no GPU in the world is going to crack a 'decent' password in a decade on any modern algorithm memory-intensive or not.

bawolff 6y ago

Not really, this document is clearly intended for a general public audience (They define the term "social engineering" after all). I don't think its surprising they didn't go into the details of which algorithms they use on old passwords

mehrdadn 6y ago
They could've just said "...as this is not possible" or something like that. I wasn't suggesting they need to drop in acronyms like PBKDF2 or whatever. They go out of their way to say "through the tools used in the attack" which might as well imply there are other tools through which the passwords are available...
- bawolff 6y ago
  They said "those [passwords] are not stored in plain text or available through the tools used in the attack." - "Or" means both clauses are true. I think it most likely means, the passwords are hashed, and the hashes aren't available in this tool. There's undoubtedly other tools that allow people to view the hash, (Mysql command line client is a "tool" after all ;) Although I agree the statement is ambiguous enough, that it could mean things that aren't best practise.
  - ethanwillis 6y ago
    Maybe they should hire a better writer because "and are not" is much clearer writing.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- maccam94 6y ago
  But technically you could try a dictionary-based brute-force attack on a user with a weak password and crack it regardless of the hashing scheme.
- Godel_unicode 6y ago

un_montagnard 6y ago

It also sounds like they may keep old passwords?