The Death of Passwords

Dangers to Passwords●Passwords are “phished”●Passwords are shared●Users use dictionary words or “lazy” passwords●Users reuse password for different sites●Users recycle passwords or add numbers at the end (BlueDevil#9)●Passwords can be cracked using:

Brute Force the hashes AND / OR Rainbow TablesAND / OR GPU Cracking ...

Demo of the GPU cracking

5 characters of mixed cases, characters and numbers: ~2.5 min brute force of NVidia NVS

3100M (16 cores, 512 Mb) for comparison,

NVidia card PCI Express - eVGA Memory clock 4212 MHz Effective. Shader clock 1800 MHz.

Cuda cores 512. Memory 3072MB GDDR5. ~$600

Cracking Passwords

Password File

HA

SHPassword Guess d131dd02c5e

6eec4693d9a0698aff95c

d131dd02c5e6eec4693d9a

0698aff95c

Password Type Using the CPU Using the GPU

6 char (no spec chars) 1 hour 30 sec 4 seconds

7 char (no spec chars) 4 days 17 minutes 30 seconds

7 char (spec chars) 75 days 7 hours

9 char (spec chars) 43 years 48 days

12345 anyone?

“I'm so clever” passwords: Q1W2E3R4A!S@D#F$zxcv/.,mAq1Sw2De3Fr4L33tSp3@K (th3y w1ll n3v3r gu3$$)

Dictionary lists, hybrid attacks and mangle rules

#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_LREST 'l' // lower case all chars#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_UREST 'u' // upper case all chars#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_LREST_UFIRST 'c' // lower case all chars, upper case 1st#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_UREST_LFIRST 'C' // upper case all chars, lower case 1st#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_TREST 't' // switch the case of each char#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_TOGGLE_AT 'T' // switch the case of each char on pos N#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_REVERSE 'r' // reverse word#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_DUPEWORD 'd' // append word to itself#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_DUPEWORD_TIMES 'p' // append word to itself N times#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_REFLECT 'f' // reflect word (append reversed word)#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_ROTATE_LEFT '{' // rotate the word left. ex: hello -> elloh#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_ROTATE_RIGHT '}' // rotate the word right. ex: hello -> ohell#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_APPEND '$' // append char X#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_PREPEND '^' // prepend char X#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_DELETE_FIRST '[' // delete first char of word#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_DELETE_LAST ']' // delete last char of word#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_DELETE_AT 'D' // delete char of word at pos N#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_EXTRACT 'x' // delete X chars of word at pos N#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_INSERT 'i' // insert char X at pos N#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_OVERSTRIKE 'o' // overwrite with char X at pos N#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_TRUNCATE_AT '\''// cut the word at pos N#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_REPLACE 's' // replace all chars X with char Y#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_PURGECHAR '@' // -- not implemented --#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_DUPECHAR_FIRST 'z' // prepend first char of word to itself. ex: hello -> hhello#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_DUPECHAR_LAST 'Z' // append last char of word to itself. ex: hello -> helloo#define RULE_OP_MANGLE_DUPECHAR_ALL 'q' // duplicate all chars. ex: hello -> hheelllloo

Rainbow Tables

● http://www.freerainbowtables.com/ (using BOINC distributed computing for calculation) (5271 GB as of 02/20/2012)

● RainbowCrack –your local friendly rainbow tables generator / converter (different formats of RT) / cracker

RainbowCrack Project example

ntlm_mixalpha-numeric#1-9

Hash Algorithm: NTLMCharset: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789Plaintext Length: 1 to 9Key Space: 13,759,005,997,841,642 (about 253.6)Table Pre-computation Effort: 59,476,604,035,792,896 (about 255.7) hash computationsTable Size: 864 GB

That pretty much means the game is over for NTLM passwords under 10 digits alphanumeric!

Methods to Compromise Accounts/Passwords

Password Attack

Defense

Longer passwords (passphrases)

Regular Password changes

Account lockouts

Multi-factor

Education

Network encryption

Host-based security

Password Cracking• Dictionary Attack • Brute Force• Rainbow Tables • GPU Cracking

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Password Sharing ✔ ✔

Phishing/Social Engineering ✔ ✔

Man-in-the-Middle Attack ✔ ✔ ✔

Network Sniffing ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Keylogger ✔* ✔*(unless digital cert)

What is Multi-Factor

• Authentication involves:

– Something you know (e.g. password)

– Something you have (e.g. digital cert, “token”)

– Something you are (e.g. fingerprint, voice pattern)

– Somewhere you are (e.g. GPS or network IP)

• Passwords provide 1 of these items. What if we supported the use of a second? Or a third?

• Depending on a user role AND the application they are trying to access we could provide a second factor for authentication

Multifactor Options:Option Pros Cons

Tokens Industry standard; can implement into current authentication services; can run on top of existing password policy

Token replacement costs; if lost, stolen, or not available, cannot log-in; may not be able to log-in from a guest machine; ‘seed’ server must be protected at all costs

Digital Certificates

Cheapest option (via Incommon); Least impact to users; can run on top of existing password policy

Only ½ of a factor in some cases; Cert must be installed on all user devices; cannot log-in from a guest machine; depend on user key protection

Phone (SMS/QR tech)

Similar to tokens; low-cost/open source options; works well for those that have smart phones; can run on top of existing password policy

User has to have a phone that can take pictures or SMS; If phone is lost, stolen, or not available, cannot log-in

Passwords Alone Are No Longer Effective