3 ms·
What you point out here is a very implausible attack to perform. Not only would you need to know that the user is using this scheme to generate a password, you
by Tharkun 16y ago
What you point out here is a very implausible attack to perform. Not only would you need to know that the user is using this scheme to generate a password, you would also have to know how he generates the salt (maybe they use fb, or FACEBOOK or facebook.com). But then you'd have to be able to trick him into signing into some website with a name that's a subset of the aforementioned salt. Hell, even using FQDNs would fix the "problem" in most cases.
For the average user, a scheme like this would be a vast improvement over their "123456 is secure enough, no?"-scheme.
Putting the face/facebook start at the front of the passpphrase string would fix that. So would an HMAC.
- JoachimSchipper 16y agoReversing the order is not a good idea: read http://rdist.root.org/2009/10/29/stop-using-unsafe-keyed-hashes-use-hmac/ http://rdist.root.org/2009/10/29/stop-using-unsafe-keyed-has... for a readable introduction (summary: it works, but it maximally exposes you to any possible problems.) Just use HMAC, especially if you want to use SHA1 - which is not broken, but no longer above suspicion. I agree that this scheme is probably fine as long as you're the only one using it and nobody is specifically targeting you; but if you're going to go to use a password manager (which would be an improvement in general - as you point out, "123456 is secure enough, no?" is prevalent), why not use a good password manager?