Re: username and Password sent as clear text strings

Thank You Chris, the webapp is not coded by my cleint, its a third party app, I'll double check I don't think there is a configuration setting to require the transmitision of the username and password in a encrypted format.

The problem I'm having with all of this is:
My cleint is currently running this WebApp on all of there WIn2k3 Domain Controllers and Member Servers. Guess who is logging in.... Domain Admins.........I just don't want to see a MITM attack or SSL Failure allow a domain admin account to be compromised.

Since they all log into the same domain, i was going to use a certificate.

I want to thank everyone that has shared there thoughts so far, I've learned alot from this exchange of ideas.

Take Care and Have Fun --John

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: christopher.riley@xxxxxxx
An IPSEC solution would put extra load on the server and clients for
encryption of the traffic. It would also possibly cause problems if the
users are remote and not part of the domain, as you will need to use
either a certificate or a PSK (pre-shared key) for the IPSEC. A PSK is
obviously easier to implement, but weaker than the certificate option.

From my view a simpler option would be to recommend that the webapp only
transmits username password in encrytped format across the wire even when
SSL is used. Adding another layer of on the wire encryption is just a
little overkill for something that might or might not be an issue. For the
client, it would seem like too much hassle for a low possibility hack. If
the SSL is working then nothing on the wire should be visible in clear
text. If a Man in the Middle attack of SSL failure (see Debian for
details) occurs, then the important details of the traffic are still
encrypted using whatever scheme the client decides on.

Chris

listbounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@inet wrote on 17.05.2008 01:52:14:

What does everyone think of implementing a IPSEC solution to resolve the
issue
that we've all be talking about. The following are the reason I was
thinking of IPSEC:

SSL was designed for client application-to-server application
authentication
and encryption. IPsec can be used end-to-end

I think the best scenario would be to implement both AH and ESP,

AH provides data origin authentication and data integrity for the entire
IP
packet (with the exception of some fields in the IP header that must
change intransit).

ESP provides data confidentiality, data origin authentication, and data
integrity for the IP payload. ESP with encryption uses an encryption
algorithm
(DES or 3DES) to provide data confidentiality, data origin
authentication, and
data integrity for the ESP payload.

The reason to implement both AH and ESP is to protect the IP header

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Arian J. Evans" <arian.evans@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Let me summarize the previous responses and be very clear:

This is how web applications work. All of them.

There is no effectively way to "hash or encrypted" the password
via client-side scripting. There are ways to do it, but in a web
application all the code to do this is passed to the client from
the server, making it pointless.

It is similar to the problem in cryptography of passing the key
with the message, but worse. It's passing the key, algorithm,
comments, and message all together. In this type of environment
it's not possible to do this securely.

Hence the use of SSL for transport-layer security.

Now...that said, some folks use SWFs and Adobe Air and such
for trying to encrypt data in transit, especially if they are using
AMF or some binary protocol, but again since everything has to
be passed to the client it is completely trivial to reverse engineer.

So, again, to conclude:

This is how all web applications on the planet work today by design.

You can reply to this if you would like to ask more questions,
but unfortunately the SF pen-test list is one of the only ones
that blocks posts from gmail forwarders so I do not think
that you will see my post on the actual list.

--
--
Arian J. Evans, software security stuff.

I spend most of my money on motorcycles, mistresses, and martinis. The
rest of it I squander.


On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 3:39 AM, <jfvanmeter@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello everyone, and I know this might not be the most correct place
to post
this questions, but I was hoping to get some feedback on what you
think the
potential risk would be and how this this could be exploited.

I completed a security review of a web server, that creates a SSL
connection
between the cleint and the server. Using WebScarab, I could see that
the
username and password are sent as clear text strings. The log in to
the server
requires a administrative account.

Do you think there is a large amount of risk, in sending the
username and
password as a clear text string, since the pipe is encrypted? I was
thinking
that a man-in-the-middle or sometype of session hijacking attack could
allow
the account to be compromised.

I'm working on completing the report for my client and was hoping
to get some
feedback from everyone so I could pose this to them correcly.

Thank you in advance --John


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