6 ms·

I agree with him - it's impossible to remember a unique high-entropy password for every account. I disagree that password managers are the solution. They are a

I agree with him - it's impossible to remember a unique high-entropy password for every account. I disagree that password managers are the solution. They are a huge single point of failure both for getting locked out of accounts and for security breaches. I think passwords are fundamentally broken as a security mechanism, once you take human psychology into consideration. We've spent decades trying to teach people to pick better passwords. That didn't work; people still pick stuff that gets cracked in minutes. And now, as Randall Munroe said, it turns out that the "better" passwords we taught people to use are actually very bad. Great, let's spend the next 3 decades teaching people to use long passphrases, and watch that fail too. Then we can start teaching them to stop sharing and reusing passwords (good luck). A security token (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_token http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_token) is a fundamentally better solution to authentication. It's not perfect and it's not a panacea, as the RSA security leak/breach shows. But it's better than a completely broken paradigm. Once these tokens acquire enough compute power to perform challenge-response calculations internally, they will be very safe even at untrusted terminals. They've already become ubiquitous in places that really care about authentication on a large scale (like the military), and they should become ubiquitous everywhere. You can have several of them (one for banking sites, one for social...), to avoid single points of failure. They are reliable, and you know when you've lost one. A leaked password manager password, on the other hand, could have the attacker using your logins for months. A technical solution is preferable to a solution which involves changing human behavior on a massive scale; that is just not going to happen.

troyhunt 15y ago
"A leaked password manager password, on the other hand, could have the attacker using your logins for months" That's only half the story as without the password keychain (in the 1Password example), the master password itself it useless. So now you've got to extract a human memory-bound password AND compromise their machine / device / Dropbox to gain access to the strongly encrypted passwords. I'm with you in wanting a better alternative to passwords, but for now password managers are the best mousetrap we've got. But it's not as easy to exploit as simply obtaining one password.
- yaakov34 15y ago
  And if their laptop (or smartphone - there are even worse security breaches possible with them) is rooted and keylogged, then both of these things will happen simultaneously. And they won't find out right away, either. EDIT: the other problem (again, psychological) is that you can't require users to have a password manager, even if you think it's a good solution, which I personally don't. Your site is not aware if the password came from a manager or from a keyboard. But once you issue security tokens, they must be used. And often, it's not just the user's problem if someone has their password; once someone is in your network, privilege escalation is usually not far away.
  - troyhunt 15y ago
    Ah, this is true but you've just made a very big leap from simply obtaining a password to now successfully installing a rootkit and key logger and obtaining both the keychain and password. We could go back and forth about the likelihood of this on a patched, virus protected machine (ok, there are still zero days), but we're starting to greatly reduce the probability as it is. I'd love to see two factor auth or at least the option of RSA style tokens and we're gradually seeing that in some places but unfortunately we're still stuck with the status quo for the vast majority of sites for the foreseeable future.
    - yaakov34 15y ago
      I don't disagree with that, but I am making a different point. Password systems, by their nature, require lots and lots of actions from users: making up passwords, resetting them when expired, making a keyfile and keeping it safe and backed up (if using a password manager), remembering a long and random master password, and the list goes on - e.g. remembering not to reuse passwords or use similar passwords. It's been proven over and over and over and over again that users will not do these things. It's not like password managers are new; they've been around for 15 years, and haven't made a dent. We can keep banging our heads against that wall, or we can give users a solution that doesn't depend on them doing and remembering dozens of technical actions. "This is the key to your bank account. Don't lose it, but if you do, call us." This can work. And from a technical point of view, all password systems have a weakness of having long-term credentials - a stolen password can be used for months, at any time, until it expires. That part is not fixable.
pavel_lishin 15y ago
> You can have several of them (one for banking sites, one for social...), to avoid single points of failure. Carrying a bag of security tokens around with me doesn't sound like a lot of fun - and they're still a single point of failure if you happen to get mugged by an idiot or fall in a puddle.
- yaakov34 15y ago
  I am not suggesting a bag of tokens. I think I would like some segmentation (e.g. a banking token that I wouldn't necessarily carry with me everywhere). But that's a personal preference - the more tokens, the more security and reliability. A single token can be used to sign on to many services. That's a technology that exists today - e.g. the US military, which deployed tokens to just about all service members and civilian DOD personnel, certainly doesn't give people a bag of tokens for all the services they need to access. They use a single sign-on system. I don't know if someone has already deployed this for general users (like OpenID) - but it's certainly doable if someone thinks there is a market for it.
blahedo 15y ago
So now we're carrying around 130 security tokens? Unless you're talking about this in conjunction with a password manager, all the OP's arguments apply to this too.
- yaakov34 15y ago
  The token would either have to work with a single-sign-on authority that would authenticate you to other parties (like OpenID, but hopefully easier to use), or it would contain multiple "authentication slots" for the parties that issue credentials. Both things already exist today, although I don't think they are very widely deployed. But certainly companies that deploy something like the RSA tokens have a company-wide single sign in working with them, and there is no reason for that to stay within one company. Both solutions are technically very different from a password manager.
- eru 15y ago
  No. It's better. Because somebody can still your password by eavesdropping. But they can't still your token the same way. (Unless the cryptography used is seriously broken.)
- chadgeidel 15y ago
  I have several security token apps on my phone. I'm not saying that's the best solution, but it is a solution.
pnathan 15y ago
I've tried a password manager. The fact that losing one password would mean losing all of my passwords really bothered me. It's not commonly talked about, but it's possible to have multipassword encryption. I wonder if a password manager out there supports it. (I think GPG can, so if you consider a test file & gpg a password manager... ;) ) One scheme: There'd be the "normal" login, which would be rotated, then another ultra-high-entropy one written down and locked in a safe somewhere. That way when you spaced out your password, it'd not be "whoops, just blew my credentials... all of them".
- mseebach 15y ago
  Since it's only one password, and there's no maintenance overhead, write it down on a piece of paper, wrap it in tinfoil and seal it in an envelope. Stick the envelope in the bottom of your desk drawer. If you're afraid of losing the password in a fire simultaneously with you forgetting it, repeat for your mothers desk drawer. Yes, if someone who knows you well physically targets you for your password, that person will likely succeed. But he would probably also succeed using this method: http://xkcd.com/538/ http://xkcd.com/538/
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  So: Use a password manager. Export the saved passwords, print on paper, and put in a safe place. Distribute encrypted versions of the passwords on various systems you use, with one very well known and recoverable password. Or encrypted against multiple passwords. There's a risk, yes, but it's reasonable fungible. And yes, actually, GPG is my password manager ;-)
timwiseman 15y ago
You have a good point and I think tokens are very useful for anything were security matters, but of course if you are really concerned about security you will use multifactor authentication (password + token, or token + biometrics, etc).
mseebach 15y ago
It would be rather interesting if a password manager could be token-secured in a way that would keep it safe on a rooted and keylogged machine.

troyhunt 15y ago

"A leaked password manager password, on the other hand, could have the attacker using your logins for months" That's only half the story as without the password keychain (in the 1Password example), the master password itself it useless. So now you've got to extract a human memory-bound password AND compromise their machine / device / Dropbox to gain access to the strongly encrypted passwords. I'm with you in wanting a better alternative to passwords, but for now password managers are the best mousetrap we've got. But it's not as easy to exploit as simply obtaining one password.

yaakov34 15y ago
And if their laptop (or smartphone - there are even worse security breaches possible with them) is rooted and keylogged, then both of these things will happen simultaneously. And they won't find out right away, either. EDIT: the other problem (again, psychological) is that you can't require users to have a password manager, even if you think it's a good solution, which I personally don't. Your site is not aware if the password came from a manager or from a keyboard. But once you issue security tokens, they must be used. And often, it's not just the user's problem if someone has their password; once someone is in your network, privilege escalation is usually not far away.
- troyhunt 15y ago
  Ah, this is true but you've just made a very big leap from simply obtaining a password to now successfully installing a rootkit and key logger and obtaining both the keychain and password. We could go back and forth about the likelihood of this on a patched, virus protected machine (ok, there are still zero days), but we're starting to greatly reduce the probability as it is. I'd love to see two factor auth or at least the option of RSA style tokens and we're gradually seeing that in some places but unfortunately we're still stuck with the status quo for the vast majority of sites for the foreseeable future.
  - yaakov34 15y ago
    I don't disagree with that, but I am making a different point. Password systems, by their nature, require lots and lots of actions from users: making up passwords, resetting them when expired, making a keyfile and keeping it safe and backed up (if using a password manager), remembering a long and random master password, and the list goes on - e.g. remembering not to reuse passwords or use similar passwords. It's been proven over and over and over and over again that users will not do these things. It's not like password managers are new; they've been around for 15 years, and haven't made a dent. We can keep banging our heads against that wall, or we can give users a solution that doesn't depend on them doing and remembering dozens of technical actions. "This is the key to your bank account. Don't lose it, but if you do, call us." This can work. And from a technical point of view, all password systems have a weakness of having long-term credentials - a stolen password can be used for months, at any time, until it expires. That part is not fixable.

pavel_lishin 15y ago

> You can have several of them (one for banking sites, one for social...), to avoid single points of failure. Carrying a bag of security tokens around with me doesn't sound like a lot of fun - and they're still a single point of failure if you happen to get mugged by an idiot or fall in a puddle.

yaakov34 15y ago
I am not suggesting a bag of tokens. I think I would like some segmentation (e.g. a banking token that I wouldn't necessarily carry with me everywhere). But that's a personal preference - the more tokens, the more security and reliability. A single token can be used to sign on to many services. That's a technology that exists today - e.g. the US military, which deployed tokens to just about all service members and civilian DOD personnel, certainly doesn't give people a bag of tokens for all the services they need to access. They use a single sign-on system. I don't know if someone has already deployed this for general users (like OpenID) - but it's certainly doable if someone thinks there is a market for it.

blahedo 15y ago

So now we're carrying around 130 security tokens? Unless you're talking about this in conjunction with a password manager, all the OP's arguments apply to this too.

yaakov34 15y ago
The token would either have to work with a single-sign-on authority that would authenticate you to other parties (like OpenID, but hopefully easier to use), or it would contain multiple "authentication slots" for the parties that issue credentials. Both things already exist today, although I don't think they are very widely deployed. But certainly companies that deploy something like the RSA tokens have a company-wide single sign in working with them, and there is no reason for that to stay within one company. Both solutions are technically very different from a password manager.
eru 15y ago
No. It's better. Because somebody can still your password by eavesdropping. But they can't still your token the same way. (Unless the cryptography used is seriously broken.)
chadgeidel 15y ago
I have several security token apps on my phone. I'm not saying that's the best solution, but it is a solution.

pnathan 15y ago

I've tried a password manager. The fact that losing one password would mean losing all of my passwords really bothered me. It's not commonly talked about, but it's possible to have multipassword encryption. I wonder if a password manager out there supports it. (I think GPG can, so if you consider a test file & gpg a password manager... ;) ) One scheme: There'd be the "normal" login, which would be rotated, then another ultra-high-entropy one written down and locked in a safe somewhere. That way when you spaced out your password, it'd not be "whoops, just blew my credentials... all of them".

mseebach 15y ago
Since it's only one password, and there's no maintenance overhead, write it down on a piece of paper, wrap it in tinfoil and seal it in an envelope. Stick the envelope in the bottom of your desk drawer. If you're afraid of losing the password in a fire simultaneously with you forgetting it, repeat for your mothers desk drawer. Yes, if someone who knows you well physically targets you for your password, that person will likely succeed. But he would probably also succeed using this method: http://xkcd.com/538/ http://xkcd.com/538/
dredmorbius 15y ago
So: Use a password manager. Export the saved passwords, print on paper, and put in a safe place. Distribute encrypted versions of the passwords on various systems you use, with one very well known and recoverable password. Or encrypted against multiple passwords. There's a risk, yes, but it's reasonable fungible. And yes, actually, GPG is my password manager ;-)

timwiseman 15y ago

You have a good point and I think tokens are very useful for anything were security matters, but of course if you are really concerned about security you will use multifactor authentication (password + token, or token + biometrics, etc).

mseebach 15y ago

It would be rather interesting if a password manager could be token-secured in a way that would keep it safe on a rooted and keylogged machine.