Questions tagged [passwords]
Specific to the security of passwords: hashing, entropy, cracking, resets, lockouts, etc.
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How to determine the number of characters changed between two passwords as per DISA Application Developer STIG rule SV-84187r1_rule?
The DISA Application Developer STIG specifies:
Group ID (Vulid): V-69565
Rule ID: SV-84187r1_rule
Rule Version (STIG-ID): APSC-DV-001730
Rule Title: The application must require the change of at ...
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Maximum password length for user accounts on Ubuntu
I have a VPS hosted at a remote location. Obviously the host can login directly (without SSH or any keys) on this box and I want to make brute force password guessing as hard as possible for a bad ...
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How vulnerable are password managers in the real world?
I'm a senior undergraduate majoring in computer science. I recently took a computer security class where instead of exams we had a final project that could be anything related to computer security.
So ...
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How to mitigate insecure password policy that I am forced to use?
The site in question is the UK regulator for companies at https://ewf.companieshouse.gov.uk. Online access to a company on this site enables the user to file/change various critical things on behalf ...
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Saved password store on Android Edge browser
Does anyone have knowledge, or better yet, a reference document showing how and where passwords are stored when using the Edge browser on Android?
I'm assuming it's going to be SQLite, as I ...
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How exactly does "Apache Shiro's" hashing work when using a Desktop-Client
I was looking at this question
How does storing hash passwords work?
and every answer essentially says that Hashing is done via the server, or most of it should, as that is the safest way to do it. I ...
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Security of in-app Forgot Password workflow in Xamarin (Mobile App) without using a website
I decided to implement "forgotten password" functionality, without having to create a website just for that. The usual workflow that I've seen for any app is:
User requests password reset
...
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Any data on how many users change passwords after a breach notifcation?
Does anyone know of any study or any data whatsoever which might indicate how many users actually change their passwords after they have been notified that their credentials appeared in a breach?
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GPG: how to encrypt using a keyfile? (symmetric)
In Ubuntu this produces a "filename.txt.gpg" file and works:
$ gpg --symmetric --passphrase-file keyfile.key filename.txt
In debian, I get a popup requesting I enter a password...
How do I encrypt ...
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Are enterprises Office 365 accounts overly exposed to brute force attacks?
Earlier this year the Scottish parliament was attacked by what described as a “Brute Force” cyber-attack. It was said that the attack targeted “MSPs and staff with parliamentary email addresses”.
...
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Can we capture security key used in an NFC connection for Mifare Classic?
Millions of NFC Mifare Classic cards are used for public transport, access control and other purposes. These NFC tags use encryption so that the data on NFC tag cannot be read or changed by someone ...
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Security concerns for long-lasting single use access tokens with secondary identity verification?
I have an application that has a user type that "returns as needed" over the course of 22 days to complete action items. The application handles sensitive/confidential information, but > 90% of users ...
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How secure is automatic authentication in Skype?
How secure is checking the automatic authentication option in Skype client? What if I sign in with Microsoft account instead of Skype id? What if both accounts are merged? Is there any documentation ...
user31793
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Why is John returning gibberish for cracked hashes
I've been messing around with John, and when I attempt to crack an SSH hash, I receive this output.
Any clue why the cracked hash is displaying the gibberish??
I used ssh2john to convert the key to a ...
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Entering password on third party websites to enable integrations
I've got a third party service that I want to integrate with various other websites/applications, the third party service says they support this however rather than using an API key or OAuth to ...
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Authentication in Desktop App
I'm reading the OWASP Authentication Cheat Sheet, but it obviously is focused only on web browser. I'm searching for something similar for a desktop app.
I want users to login to a desktop app. The ...
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Why does firebase encrypt with password hashes instead of storing the hashes?
I am trying to migrate off of firebase, as in doing so, you can export the hashes of user passwords. Looking at their algorithm, they do not store password hashes, but rather, they use the first 32-...
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Does the random presence of a common password sequence within a larger password weaken the password?
I have a somewhat basic understanding of how entropy relates to password strength - generating a password with a truly random selection from some set (whether that's characters, or a set of dictionary ...
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Recovered a 7z password with hashcat, but it's not the right one
I am trying to recover a 7z file, but have forgotten the password. It's completely AES-256 encrypted (i.e. not even the filenames are available).
Steps:
Generated hash file with 7z2hashcat.pl
Ran a ...
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Can I skip any password hashing for localhost authentication?
Setup
I have several services (Postfix, Apache (PHP)) that access a PostgreSQL database on a Debian Linux 10 system.
everyone is on the same host
they use the loopback interface (127.0.0.1) to ...
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If the given key of a Vigenère Cipher has repeated letters, does it make it any easier to break?
I am studying the Vigenère Cipher that given a passphrase uses rotating Caeser Ciphers to encode the plaintext. The ‘classical’ attacks on Vigenère first deduce the length of the passphrase by ...
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Admin able to set new plaintext user password - security problem?
I am working on this application that can be deployed and run by anyone on their server. Most often, it is run as a web service. In our new version, we removed the possibility for admins to set and ...
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Credential Storage for Partner/Vendor Accounts
We work with many other companies to do data exchange. As an example, we might work with COMPANY A to send them sensitive data over SFTP. This would be done by them giving us an SFTP Host/Account/...
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How do biometric password managers work?
Many password managers for mobile offer the option to unlock the password vault with a fingerprint instead of a password. If you never type in your master password, how is it possible to decrypt the ...
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Quantify security strength from entropy and lifetime
Entropy or randomness is a quantitative measure of security strength for various types of passcodes, but in current times with digital technology, breaches, and cracking tools it seems that lifetime ...
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Add additional rounds on existing SHA-512 salted hashes without knowing clear text password?
Assuming you have a salted SHA-512 password hash with 5000 rounds. For example:
{CRYPT}$6$rounds=5000$6835c5dcf0bb7310$hVod/jy7uONMSa.FVpLHb/2OrWpAj3lB/....
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For cloud-based password managers, is it safe to login using public WiFi?
For cloud-based password managers, is it safe to login when using public WiFi?
To help get good answers to this question, let's define 3 terms:
Cloud-based password managers = Password managers such ...
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User has been authenticated. Now what?
I'm trying to create a user authentication system for an application. I can't use a built in library for that such as ASP.NET Identity, but I can use any simple methods in .net.
Not wanting to ...
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WCF WS - Passing passwords through service
I am implementing security on a WCF service from basicHttp to WShttp, the issue is the service sends some passwords for connections to the database that the user can define,test and save.
The ...
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Protecting the password in a PBE scheme for an application
I am currently formulating security best practices and requirements for ongoing Java software development in my department and have settled with a recommendation of using the Jasypt framework for ...
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Native Mobile App Finger Print Authentication and web service.
I have developed many web based applications and focused a lot on authentication LDAP, SAML and in application passwords. Now I am moving to building native mobile application and would like to take ...
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Mimikatz hash dump of logged-off users
If I want to dump hashes of domain users on my computer, do they have to be logged on, or can I dump hashes of logged off users?
When I try mimikatz in my lab, I can only get dumps from others users ...
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Under what conditions does Safari have access to the Keychain?
The Keychain is shared among many different apple products and includes asymmetric, symmetric, and other types of security data.
People who use iCloud, and also enable the keychain synchronization ...
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What are the security features of the Microsoft PasswordVault class?
There doesn't seem to be much information on the PasswordVault but it seems to provide for local encryption of credentials.
There are references to it in this source code and this blog.
The reason I'm ...
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Syncing service passwords during offline installations
Due to very paranoid customer requirements, we have to install several Windows services on two different systems that should run under a shared service account. Each system should each have a copy of ...
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Digital signature based authentication schema using two passwords
I'm working on an authentication system for a web based Bitcoin-related service. As part of the service, users do some less sensitive operations (mostly reading and sending various types of ...
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Creating New Acc in Mac Mail 1st Connect to Server not SSL is uname & pw tx secure?
It appears that whenever you set up a new mail account on Mac Mail on OS X (or iPhone, iPad etc), that as soon as you enter the server and the mail account user name and password, Mac Apple-Mail tries ...
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Securely changing Veracrypt password
How can I change a Veracrypt (master) password efficiently and securely?
Based on the answers here, it is not safe to use system --> change password due to various reasons.
I cannot simply image ...
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Rationale behind disallowing the use of similar passwords?
I recently had to change my password on a linux server (RedHat). It wouldn't let me use my password of choice because it was "too similar" to my previous password. Is this really ...
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Attack on home dir encryption with sddm pam_mount by using password in /etc/shadow
I'm using Debian + sddm + KDE with ONLY home directory encrypted with gocryptfs.
Decrypting is performed with gocryptfs as follows:
PC boots as usual and starts the sddm service
I enter my login ...
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Why does a password guessing robot repeatedly test nonsense?
I log repeated invalid login attempts on a small custom made e-shop (no open source system is used). Last year, I started recording repeated failed logins from a single IP address. That's why I ...
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Is it necessary to have keep these 4 accounts separate from password manager?
Microsoft Authenticator requires an:
Outlook account
Verification account
iCloud account
The first two are required to set up the authenticator on a new device, the latter stores all the data to be ...
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Security implications of using a plaintext master password as the salt for PBKDF2 in a zero-knowledge system
I was reading the BitWarden Security Whitepaper (BitWarden is an open source, zero-knowledge password manager that performs encryption/decryption on the client side) and came across the following ...
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Is username + password functionally equivalent to a single login string of the same length?
My intuition is failing me with this. Would it make it easier or harder for an attacker trying to gain access to any of the accounts in a database?
I can see that in the case of a single login string, ...
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Is 2FA based on Google Authenticator Real?
I was reading this response on SE about 2FA:
Well, I hate to break this to you, but Google Authenticator plus
password isn't really two-factor authentication. Proper 2FA is two
separate items out of ...
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Can SMB/CIFS credentials be extracted from Linux?
On a penetration test, I have completely compromised a Linux machine and I am now trying to move around the network. The Linux machine has a mounted CIFS share, and I want to get the password used to ...
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Using John the Ripper for Blockchain.info second password
Is there a way to use JtR for Blockchain.info's (v2) secondary password?
I already tried the blockchain2john.py file, and it does not ask for primary password (which I know already) so it is going to ...
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JTR finishing very quickly with rockyou.txt and not cracking the hash
I've been fumbling through the world of Information Security by going through the HTB challenges, and I've come across an issue I just can't seem to find an answer for. During one of the challenges I'...
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Is there record of a pubilc RDS instance with strong password having been hacked?
I am auditing an AWS account and I found a public RDS instance, that is with public DNS, no Security Group IP connection filtering and in a public Subnet
However, the instance has a relatively strong ...
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John the ripper output formatting
I'm supposed to crack some passwords from a file. I've done john pwlist.lst > passwords.txt which is outputting the files into my txt file.
I'd like to make it such that when John is cracking the ...
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