+ - Australian Tax Office stores passwords in clear text->
Submitted
by
mask.of.sanity
mask.of.sanity writes "The passwords of thousands of Australian businesses are being stored in clear readable text by the country's tax office. Storing passwords in readable text is a bad idea for a lot of reasons: they could be read by staff with ill intent, or, in the event of a data breach, could be tested against other web service accounts to further compromise users.
In the case of the tax office, the clear text passwords accessed a subsection of the site. But many users would have reused them to access the main tax submission services. If attackers gained access to those areas, they would have access to the personal, financial and taxpayer information of almost every working Australian.
Admins should use a strong hash like bcrypt to minimise or prevent password exposure. Users should never reuse passwords for important accounts."
Link to Original Source
In the case of the tax office, the clear text passwords accessed a subsection of the site. But many users would have reused them to access the main tax submission services. If attackers gained access to those areas, they would have access to the personal, financial and taxpayer information of almost every working Australian.
Admins should use a strong hash like bcrypt to minimise or prevent password exposure. Users should never reuse passwords for important accounts."
Link to Original Source
Australian Tax Office stores passwords in clear text More Login
Australian Tax Office stores passwords in clear text