I was involved in disclosing a vulnerability found by a student to a production web site using custom software (i.e., we didn’t have access to the source code or configuration information).  As luck would have it, the web site got hacked.  I had to talk to a detective in the resulting police investigation.  Nothing bad happened to me, but it could have, for two reasons. 

The first reason is that whenever you do something “unnecessary”, such as reporting a vulnerability, police wonder why, and how you found out.  Police also wonders if you found one vulnerability, could you have found more and not reported them?  Who did you disclose that information to?  Did you get into the web site, and do anything there that you shouldn’t have?  It’s normal for the police to think that way.  They have to.  Unfortunately, it makes it very uninteresting to report any problems.

A typical difficulty encountered by vulnerability researchers is that administrators or programmers often deny that a problem is exploitable or is of any consequence, and request a proof.  This got Eric McCarty in trouble—the proof is automatically a proof that you breached the law, and can be used to prosecute you!  Thankfully, the administrators of the web site believed our report without trapping us by requesting a proof in the form of an exploit and fixed it in record time.  We could have been in trouble if we had believed that a request for a proof was an authorization to perform penetration testing.  I believe that I would have requested a signed authorization before doing it, but it is easy to imagine a well-meaning student being not as cautious (or I could have forgotten to request the written authorization, or they could have refused to provide it…).  Because the vulnerability was fixed in record time, it also protected us from being accused of the subsequent break-in, which happened after the vulnerability was fixed, and therefore had to use some other means.  If there had been an overlap in time, we could have become suspects.

The second reason that bad things could have happened to me is that I’m stubborn and believe that in a university setting, it should be acceptable for students who stumble across a problem to report vulnerabilities anonymously through an approved person (e.g., a staff member or faculty) and mechanism.  Why anonymously?  Because student vulnerability reporters are akin to whistleblowers.  They are quite vulnerable to retaliation from the administrators of web sites (especially if it’s a faculty web site that is used for grading).  In addition, student vulnerability reporters need to be protected from the previously described situation, where they can become suspects and possibly unjustly accused simply because someone else exploited the web site around the same time that they reported the problem.  Unlike security professionals, they do not understand the risks they take by reporting vulnerabilities (several security professionals don’t yet either).  They may try to confirm that a web site is actually vulnerable by creating an exploit, without ill intentions.  Students can be guided to avoid those mistakes by having a resource person to help them report vulnerabilities. 

So, as a stubborn idealist I clashed with the detective by refusing to identify the student who had originally found the problem. I knew the student enough to vouch for him, and I knew that the vulnerability we found could not have been the one that was exploited.  I was quickly threatened with the possibility of court orders, and the number of felony counts in the incident was brandished as justification for revealing the name of the student.  My superiors also requested that I cooperate with the detective.  Was this worth losing my job?  Was this worth the hassle of responding to court orders, subpoenas, and possibly having my computers (work and personal) seized?  Thankfully, the student bravely decided to step forward and defused the situation. 

As a consequence of that experience, I intend to provide the following instructions to students (until something changes):

1. If you find strange behaviors that may indicate that a web site is vulnerable, don’t try to confirm if it’s actually vulnerable.
2. Try to avoid using that system as much as is reasonable.
3. Don’t tell anyone (including me), don’t try to impress anyone, don’t brag that you’re smart because you found an issue, and don’t make innuendos.  However much I wish I could, I can’t keep your anonymity and protect you from police questioning (where you may incriminate yourself), a police investigation gone awry and miscarriages of justice.  We all want to do the right thing, and help people we perceive as in danger.  However, you shouldn’t help when it puts you at the same or greater risk.  The risk of being accused of felonies and having to defend yourself in court (as if you had the money to hire a lawyer—you’re a student!) is just too high.  Moreover, this is a web site, an application;  real people are not in physical danger.  Forget about it.
4. Delete any evidence that you knew about this problem.  You are not responsible for that web site, it’s not your problem—you have no reason to keep any such evidence.  Go on with your life.
5. If you decide to report it against my advice, don’t tell or ask me anything about it.  I’ve exhausted my limited pool of bravery—as other people would put it, I’ve experienced a chilling effect.  Despite the possible benefits to the university and society at large, I’m intimidated by the possible consequences to my career, bank account and sanity.  I agree with HD Moore, as far as production web sites are concerned: “There is no way to report a vulnerability safely”.

Edit (5/24/06): Most of the comments below are interesting, and I’m glad you took the time to respond.  After an email exchange with CERT/CC, I believe that they can genuinely help by shielding you from having to answer questions from and directly deal with law enforcement, as well as from the pressures of an employer.  There is a limit to the protection that they can provide, and past that limit you may be in trouble, but it is a valuable service. 

mod_security is an essential tool for securing any apache-based hosting environment.  The Pathfinder High Performance Infrastructure blog has posted a good starter piece on using mod_security to block email injections.

One of the more common problems with PHP-based applications is that they can allow the injection of malicious content, such as SQL or email spam. In some cases we find that over 95% of a client’s ISP traffic is coming from spam injection. The solution? Grab an industrial size helping of Apache mod_security.

BTW, Ivan Ristic’s (the developer of mod_security) Web Security Blog is well worth a spot in your blogroll.

(Edit: fixed title.  Duh.)

This is a great blog posting: Security Absurdity: The Complete, Unquestionable, And Total Failure of Information Security.  The data and links are comprehensive, and the message is right on.  There is a tone of rant to the message, but it is justified.

I was thinking of writing something like this, but Noam has done it first, and maybe more completely in some areas than I would have.  I probably would have also said something about the terrible state of Federal support for infosec research, however, and also mentioned the PITAC report on cyber security.

[posted with ecto]

[tags]passwords, human factors, general security[/tags]
Today, I found a pointer to this short news story: Password Security is Her Game.  Here’s a quote from that story:

Many users have half a dozen passwords to remember. That’s why the most common password is “password.” The usual solution is to write it down. But how secure is that? Practicality wins. The probability of remembering six passwords is not that great. Half the people who say they never write down their passwords need to have their passwords reset because of forgetting.

I wasn’t going to post anything else on passwords so soon, but this seemed particularly pertinent.  Plus, the researcher is a Purdue alumna.

When I posted earlier about passwords and best practices, I had no idea it would elicit such a response!  So, now that my class’s final exams and papers are graded, I will return to the topic and attempt to address some of the points raised in comments—or, at least those comments that were related to the original blog entry.
[tags] best practices, passwords, awareness, general security[/tags]

Best Practices
It was certainly not my intent to disparage all best practices.  I was merely observing that sometimes best practices are viewed as a panacea.  It is important for people to understand the origins of the best practices they espouse, and whether they are indeed “best”!  Sometimes, excellent practices are adopted outside their realm of proper application, or are used too long without proper (re)evaluation of the underlying conditions.  “Best practices” are designed for the average case, but are not meant to be blindly applied in every case—reason should be applied to the situation, but isn’t.  And all too often, folklore and superstition are accepted as “best practice”  because they “seem” correct, or coincidentally produce desired results.

Consider an example of the first of these (understanding the realm of application): showing an ID to get inside a closed facility, proving that you are a current employee of the company or agency.  That is excellent security practice…until you move it to the lobby of every office building!.  At that point, too many guards aren’t really checking the cards to see if someone is really who they claim to be.  Instead of watching for suspicious behavior, many guards now simply look for a laminated card with a picture on it, and something that looks like an official seal.  Security in many places has degraded by accepting what “best practice” is without understanding where it is really best.

The second case (blind application without reasoning) is illustrated by many of the things that TSA does in airline passenger screening.  One example, told to me by a Federal law enforcement agent, is when he showed his badge and papers while passing though security.  They didn’t make him take out his weapon when going through the metal detector…but then they insisted that he run his shoes through the X-ray machine!  They had rules that allowed them to let a law enforcement agent with a semiautomatic handgun through the checkpoint, but they couldn’t appropriately reason about why they had a rule about screening shoes and apply it to this case!  (Of course, several aspects of TSA screening are poorly considered, but that may be a topic for a later post.)

The third case—folklore and superstition accepted as best practice—is rampant in information security, and I intend to say more about this in later postings.

My post about password security was based on the fact that the “change passwords once a month” rule is based on very old practice, and doesn’t really help now in many real-world environments.  In fact, it may result in weaker security in many cases, as users try to find a way around the rules.  At the least, the average user will have the impression reinforced that “Those security guys are idiots and their goal seems to be to make my life more difficult.”  That doesn’t help build a cooperative working environment where the user population is part of the security infrasrtructure!

Risk Assessment
Donn Parker was one of the first people to argue persuasively that traditional risk assessment would not work in modern IT, and that sound design and best practice would have to do.  I greatly respect Donn’s long experience and opinions, but I don’t completely agree.  In many cases it is possible, using recent experience and expert knowledge, to appropriately estimate risk and loss to quartiles or deciles.  Although imperfect, it can help in making choices and understanding priorities.  When there is insufficient experience and knowledge, I agree with Donn that relying on sound practice is the next best thing; of course, sound design should be used at all times!

Some readers commented that they didn’t have the money to do a risk evaluation. Resolving a question such as password change frequency does not require a full-blown audit and risk analysis.  But, as with my previous comment, if you don’t have the resources, experience or knowledge, then pick sound practice—but put in some effort to understand what is sound!

Password Vaults
A number of responses (including several private responses) were directed to the growing number of passwords, PINs, serial numbers and employee IDs we are expected to remember.  Good security practice suggests that authenticators used in different realms of privilege be unique and uncorrelated.  Good privacy practice suggests that we develop independent identifiers for different uses to prevent correlation.  The two combined result in too many things to remember for those of us whose brains are full (to indirectly pay homage to an old Larson cartoon), and especially for the average person who is overly-taxed when remembering anything beyond who was voted off of American Idol this week.  Now, add frequent requirements to change some of those values, and the situation becomes well-nigh impossible.

Several readers mentioned password vault programs that they use, either on PDAs or the WWW.  I was asked my opinion of some of these.

I use several password vaults myself.  They have 4 characteristics that I believe are important:

1. The programs use published, strong ciphers to encrypt the contents. (e.g., AES). I don’t need to worry about some random person getting the encrypted database and then decrypting all my keys.
2. The programs are cross-platform so that I can use the same program on my PDA, my laptop, and my home system.  This keeps me from creating keys and passwords then forgetting them because I don’t have the vault program at hand.
3. The different versions of the program sync with each other, and allow the database to be backed up.  If I lose my PDA, I’m not completely locked out of everything—I can do a restore, unencrypt, and carry on as before.
4. I don’t store the database and the encryption routines on someone else’s machine.  That way, I don’t have to worry about the owner of a remote site altering the encryption routines, or making a surreptitious copy of my keys.  It is still possible for someone to intercept my interaction with the program on my local machine, but I have other mechanisms in place to monitor and verify those.

Needless to say, I don’t use a web-based password vault service, nor would I necessarily recommend it to anyone who has sensitive passwords.

One other thing—I escrow some of my passwords.  No, I’m not talking about the ill-fated government key escrow scheme that gave the idea a bad name.  I am referring to self-escrow.  Some of my important passwords at work, which would need to be recovered by the staff if I were to be abducted (again ) by a UFO crew, have been encrypted and escrowed in a safe place that can be accessed in an emergency.  As more things get locked up with extreme encryption, it is all the more critical that we each consider self-escrow.

So, What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
How often should passwords be changed?  Many of you asked that, and many of you volunteered your own experience, ranging from monthly to “hardly ever.”  These times were backed up with anecdotes.  Of course, this simply serves to reinforce my comment that the time period should be based on risk assessment of your particular, including access to the system, strength of mechanism, usage, sensitivity of protected information, security of the underlying system, and sophistication of the users…to name a few factors.

Basically, I would suggest you start with an assumption that passwords should be changed every quarter.  If the passwords are used over a lightly protected communications link, then change them more often.  If someone could break the password and use the account without being noticed, then further accelerate the change interval.  If users get guidance on strong password selection, and are motivated to help ensure good security, then maybe you can extend the time period.  In many cases, without due care, you realize that any reuse of passwords is risky.  Instead of dismissing that and imposing monthly password changes, use that knowledge to address the underlying problems.

Several of you mentioned the problem of people sharing passwords and only finding out about it after a mandatory password change.  If that’s the case, you have deeper problems than stale passwords!

I continue to advocate use of a one-time password token for highly sensitive or at-risk resources.  Otherwise, use your judgement and professional evaluation of the risks and benefits of change frequencies.

[posted with ecto]