Deloitte: Use a Longer Password In 2013. Seriously. 538
a user writes "Deloitte predicts that 8-character passwords will become insecure in 2013. Humans have trouble remembering passwords with more than seven characters, and it is difficult to enter long, complex passwords into mobile devices. Users have not adapted to increased computing power available to crackers, and continue to use bad practices such as using common and short passwords, and re-using passwords across multiple websites. A recent study showed that using the 10000 most common passwords would have cracked >98% of 6 million user accounts. All of these problems have the potential for a huge security hazard. Password vaults are likely to become more widely used out of necessity. Multifactor authentication strategies, such as phone texts, iris scans, and dongles are also likely to become more widespread, especially by banks."
Use TPM (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead, store your password on a TPM chip, from where the hash can not be stolen and where the attempt rate can be regulated. This way even 7 character passwords can be quite secure.
Re:I Got It! (Score:5, Interesting)
When I use pass-phrases, I make sure to include some capital letters, numbers, and symbols. This makes it almost impossible to brute force. So for example, 2Correcthorse4batteryStapple! would be a much more secure password, that really isn't any more difficult to remember. It's only using 7 symbols, which makes it fairly easy to remember. Once you type it enough, muscle memory will allow you to enter it without too much issue.
You could make it even more complex by using slang words, words from other languages, proper nouns, or other such words.
Re:I Got It! (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd just double the time it takes for each try.
First bad password: 1 second to retry.
Second bad password: 2 seconds to retry.
Third bad password: 4 seconds to retry.
Fourth bad password: 8 seconds to retry.
Fifth bad password: 16 seconds to retry.
You get the idea. It'll end brute-force and only mildly inconvenience clueless users with fat fingers.
Re:Until artificial limits are removed... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's usually a guarantee they don't hash passwords :/
Or they use some kind of encoding scheme instead that just lengthens with password size and letter case (DB field width will get maxed out) and don't use parameters for DB inserts/updates so special chars would wreak havoc with queries. Sometimes that's because they're running ancient software, but other times it's pure and simple laziness or disregard. It's hard to care about a project under near-slave-labor conditions in some of those sweatshops.
Re:Until artificial limits are removed... (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you think that's all? Nope. With that you can only use IB in 'read only mode', not being able to perform any transaction that might make a debit to your account. Then you have to request a 'codes card', with is basically a very cheap version of a token, albeit a little less secure. Upon completion of each transaction you'd be required to type one of the codes in your card. Thing is, fraudters caught up to that pretty quicly, and started sending phising mail where they'd lead the baits to a website passing as the bank asking them to type all their codes for 'security purposes'.
So then they made it compulsory to register each computer you use IB with, therefore forcing you to use a whitelist to enable trusted computers. You actually have to go in person to an ATM machine and use your debit card + 3 letter PIN + 4 digit debit PIN to authorize each computer. Thing is, so many people have machines so full of malware that this wasn't enough to stop the fraudsters.
Next in line was their latest addition: now in order to be able to make transactions online, not only you must have the IB password, install a proprietary browser 'security plugin', the token card, authorize your machine previously on an ATM with your debit card + 3 letter PIN + 4 digit debit PIN, you also must have a mobile phone on your file with the bank. Then, after you use all your passwords and code card in a trusted machine, they then generate a 7-digit code that is send via SMS to your mobile phone (which can also be only updated in person or in an ATM with both pins).
What if you don't have a mobile phone? What if you don't have signal at the moment you want to perform the transaction? What if your phone battery is out of charge? Well, tough luck, you'll have to go to a Santander ATM machine, because all these security paranoia features are mandatory...
The thing is, this a perfect example of adverse selection in effect, so now every bank is demanding you to install proprietary plugins (which are usually modified rootkits themselves..) to ensure the safety of your machine before being able to use any IB. Some are already demaning the use of SMS on a per-transaction basis and the process of using IB is getting more inconvenient by the day...
When I compare that with the breeze that is using the IB for my HSBC account in the US... it makes me wonder how much inconvenience is enough to tolerate...
Re:I Got It! (Score:5, Interesting)
4 symbols chosen randomly from a dictionary of ~200,000 by a computer not by you because you won't choose words randomly.
that makes it a 1 in 200000^4 to guess... or 1.6 x 10^21
compare that to an 8 character password also randomly generated. Passwords which are drawn from a set of around 90 symbols. (50 letters including upper and lower case, 10 digits, and ~30 symbols)
that's 90^8 or a measly 4.3 x10^15
a 4 word randomly chosen password from a dictionary is by far the better password, and much easier to remember too.
An 11 character password of completely random gibberish is about equivalent, to 4 random dictionary words. Good luck remembering somthing like `oN{/QM9PKb
which is no better than:
scald obsolescent period postpone
Re:I love old news. (Score:5, Interesting)
12? I know a freaking BANK where the character limit for the password is 8. Yep 8 character password to online banking.
I was an IBM security consultant for about 10 years. I worked for all sorts of corporations big and small, talking to them about their security practices. Do you know which industry consistently had the worst security practices? Banking. It's amazing. I once talked to a bank that moves very large amounts of money (9+ figures) daily in wire transfers, communicated by kermit transfer of unencrypted files over a dialup modem. This was around 2005, and it actually wouldn't shock me to learn they're still doing it the same way.
Now I work for Google, and part of my job entails setting up secure communications with banks. Almost without exception every bank tries to argue us into lowering our security requirements. It's not like we're asking for anything crazy, either: strong encryption and mutual authentication using standard algorithms and protocols and adequately-large keys (e.g. 2048-bit RSA, 128-bit AES, etc.), with proper key exchange protocols and periodic key rotations. It's not rocket science, but it's beyond the IT staff of most banks.
I am frankly amazed that there aren't more major security breaches in our banking infrastructure.
Re:I Got It! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I Got It! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I Got It! (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless your computer is hacked and the master database stolen, it's a pretty decent way to use unique passwords.