4 ms·

No, good password is infeasible to brute-force (not "decrypt", hashing doesn't encrypt anything; I invite you to research the topic you're talking about) even i

by dchest 12y ago

No, good password is infeasible to brute-force (not "decrypt", hashing doesn't encrypt anything; I invite you to research the topic you're talking about) even if you use non-salted SHA-1. Slow password hashing is there to protect weak passwords. In the event compromise like this, you need to change password regardless, because you can't be certain if, for example, attackers had access to server memory (remember that password is kept there before hashing?) or not. These sorts of one-size-fits-all responses to security is why the state of security to day is so bad. This sentence is completely false.

hackinthebochs 12y ago
>not "decrypt", hashing doesn't encrypt anything; I invite you to research the topic you're talking about You are familiar with a colloquialism, are you not? Imprecise language like this is common among experts in just about every field. You don't not get points for being a pedant when everyone understands what is meant by decrypt in this context. > because you can't be certain if, for example, attackers had access to server memory Which is why I asked about the details of the compromise. Getting full access to memory of a system is a few orders of magnitude more difficult than getting admin credentials to a DB. >This sentence is completely false. Nope. A decade ago the common security advice was "just MD5 it", and we're still suffering through this boneheaded advice today. Teach concepts, not catchphrases.
- dchest 12y ago
  Imprecise language can be used, but not when two terms mean completely different things. "Just MD5 it" advice was not given by knowledgeable security experts. The practice of using a slow cryptographic function to derive password hashes goes back at least to the 1978 paper "Password Security: A Case History" by Robert Morris and Ken Thompson. (I have collected some implementations of historic password hashes (many of which are weak) here: https://github.com/dchest/historic-password-hashes https://github.com/dchest/historic-password-hashes)

by dchest 12y ago

hackinthebochs 12y ago

>not "decrypt", hashing doesn't encrypt anything; I invite you to research the topic you're talking about You are familiar with a colloquialism, are you not? Imprecise language like this is common among experts in just about every field. You don't not get points for being a pedant when everyone understands what is meant by decrypt in this context. > because you can't be certain if, for example, attackers had access to server memory Which is why I asked about the details of the compromise. Getting full access to memory of a system is a few orders of magnitude more difficult than getting admin credentials to a DB. >This sentence is completely false. Nope. A decade ago the common security advice was "just MD5 it", and we're still suffering through this boneheaded advice today. Teach concepts, not catchphrases.

dchest 12y ago
Imprecise language can be used, but not when two terms mean completely different things. "Just MD5 it" advice was not given by knowledgeable security experts. The practice of using a slow cryptographic function to derive password hashes goes back at least to the 1978 paper "Password Security: A Case History" by Robert Morris and Ken Thompson. (I have collected some implementations of historic password hashes (many of which are weak) here: https://github.com/dchest/historic-password-hashes https://github.com/dchest/historic-password-hashes)