Password Management: Weak Cryptography

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Vulnerabilities Table of Contents

Description
Obscuring a password with a trivial encoding does not protect the password.

Password management issues occur when a password is stored in plaintext in an application's properties or configuration file. A programmer can attempt to remedy the password management problem by obscuring the password with an encoding function, such as base 64 encoding, but this effort does not adequately protect the password.

Risk Factors
TBD

Examples
The following code reads a password from a properties file and uses the password to connect to a database.

...	Properties prop = new Properties; prop.load(new FileInputStream("config.properties")); String password = Base64.decode(prop.getProperty("password")); DriverManager.getConnection(url, usr, password); ...

This code will run successfully, but anyone with access to config.properties can read the value of password and easily determine that the value has been base 64 encoded. If a devious employee has access to this information, they can use it to break into the system. The following combinations you can create: ¢J{B}/aK0]EY=\÷7|\8%\*)A>¡#(W|a ¢30=÷7|852-42-* Scripture charmap.exe:: Tw Cent Condensed Extra Bold::encrypt passwords with AES http://axantum.com/axcrypt
 * You can harden with letters, numbers and symbols, Hermetic Password against dictionary attacks, letters and even brute force script used by crackers to steal identities, bank accounts, mails, administrators.
 * 1) ¢m3Tr¡¢d38r¡Sr3m4k3

Related Attacks

 * Attack 1
 * Attack 2

Related Vulnerabilities

 * Vulnerability 1
 * Vulnerabiltiy 2

Related Controls

 * Password Management Countermeasure
 * Cryptography

Related Technical Impacts

 * Technical Impact 1
 * Technical Impact 2