3 ms·

There's also a difference between (non-reversible) hashing, with or without salt, and (reversible) encryption. Additionally, encrypted passwords are only bette

There's also a difference between (non-reversible) hashing, with or without salt, and (reversible) encryption. Additionally, encrypted passwords are only better than plaintext passwords if an adversary that breaks into your database does/can not also get the encryption key. That's unlikely to be the case.

mattmanser 16y ago
Very true, my mention of salts seems to have muddied things. As for getting the key, I'm no Linux expert but in windows afaik SQL injection generally doesn't allow you to get to the machine key which is used for this type of encryption. So it really depends on the attack vector on the likeliness of them having the key. I also totally agree in this day and age everyone should be hashing, it's just too easy to leave an accidental hole and you should mitigate the consequences of a breach. But I still stand by the idea that they're not necessarily storing the password in plaintext, which was all I was trying to say with my nitpick!
- JoachimSchipper 16y ago
  Just look at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2343330 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2343330. Tumblr has piles of money, and a misplaced 'i' still gave away all their passwords (fortunately, just their passwords for external APIs...) Keeping the source code secret is usually not security goal #1, and not needing to is a good idea. Also, un-salted encrypted passwords are still bad. Just compare the top 10 most popular encryptions with a table of the top 10 most popular passwords. I'll drop this, but please do hash your passwords with something sensible like bcrypt. ;-)
  - Dylan16807 16y ago
    Still, you can have your passwords very securely stored in bcrypt AND mail the plain text out when the account is created. If your email isn't secure that should really be dealt with, and separately.
    - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
      No. E-mail is an unencrypted, unauthenticated protocol; how could sending out plain text passwords over a plain text protocol ever be a good idea?

mattmanser 16y ago

Very true, my mention of salts seems to have muddied things. As for getting the key, I'm no Linux expert but in windows afaik SQL injection generally doesn't allow you to get to the machine key which is used for this type of encryption. So it really depends on the attack vector on the likeliness of them having the key. I also totally agree in this day and age everyone should be hashing, it's just too easy to leave an accidental hole and you should mitigate the consequences of a breach. But I still stand by the idea that they're not necessarily storing the password in plaintext, which was all I was trying to say with my nitpick!

JoachimSchipper 16y ago
Just look at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2343330 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2343330. Tumblr has piles of money, and a misplaced 'i' still gave away all their passwords (fortunately, just their passwords for external APIs...) Keeping the source code secret is usually not security goal #1, and not needing to is a good idea. Also, un-salted encrypted passwords are still bad. Just compare the top 10 most popular encryptions with a table of the top 10 most popular passwords. I'll drop this, but please do hash your passwords with something sensible like bcrypt. ;-)
- Dylan16807 16y ago
  Still, you can have your passwords very securely stored in bcrypt AND mail the plain text out when the account is created. If your email isn't secure that should really be dealt with, and separately.
  - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
    No. E-mail is an unencrypted, unauthenticated protocol; how could sending out plain text passwords over a plain text protocol ever be a good idea?