The storage of passwords in a recoverable format makes them subject to password reuse attacks by malicious users. In fact, it should be noted that recoverable encrypted passwords provide no significant benefit over plaintext passwords since they are subject not only to reuse by malicious attackers but also by malicious insiders. If a system administrator can recover a password directly, or use a brute force search on the available information, the administrator can use the password on other accounts.
N/A
Threat Mapped score: 3.25
Industry: Finiancial
Threat priority: P2 - Serious (High)
CVE: CVE-2022-30018
A messaging platform serializes all elements of User/Group objects, making private information available to adversaries
| Phase | Note |
|---|---|
| Architecture and Design | COMMISSION: This weakness refers to an incorrect design related to an architectural security tactic. |
Intro: Both of these examples verify a password by comparing it to a stored compressed version.
Body: Because a compression algorithm is used instead of a one way hashing algorithm, an attacker can recover compressed passwords stored in the database.
int VerifyAdmin(char *password) { if (strcmp(compress(password), compressed_password)) { printf("Incorrect Password!\n"); return(0); } printf("Entering Diagnostic Mode...\n"); return(1); }Intro: The following examples show a portion of properties and configuration files for Java and ASP.NET applications. The files include username and password information but they are stored in cleartext.
Body: This Java example shows a properties file with a cleartext username / password pair.
# Java Web App ResourceBundle properties file ... webapp.ldap.username=secretUsername webapp.ldap.password=secretPassword ...