Security Basics mailing list archives
RE: News Item: UN warns on password 'explosion'
From: "Andrew Aris" <andrew () dev bigfishinternet co uk>
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2006 08:48:54 -0000
Nice idea, but it does have some flaws.. 1) Any attempts to spam the forum using invalid email addresses will result in the form sending large amounts of wasted e-mail out, followed by receiving large amounts of bounces back. 2) You could use it to "attack" peoples mail boxes by posting a lot to a forum with their email address, generateing lots of "authorisation" messages to their address. 3) Authorisation emails would probably be easy enough to automate a response to - allowing spammers to post on the forum. Sure you could use image verification but then you wouldn't have many posters as not many would be bothered to go through the hassle. All of the above combine to make it an unattractive idea to forum admins. -----Original Message----- From: listbounce () securityfocus com [mailto:listbounce () securityfocus com] On Behalf Of Saqib Ali Sent: 04 December 2006 14:53 To: security-basics Subject: News Item: UN warns on password 'explosion' Nothing new: Username + Password reuse will make the net less secure which in turn make people wary of spending money online. Still a good read. My question is why so many online discussion forum require logon to post messages? Currently I have 20+ discussion forum account for the various vendors that I deal with (e.g. citrix, wise, altiris, active batch etc) . Why can't they be like mailing lists where the username+password is optional/not-required. Discussion forums use username+password as mean to 1) control access, 2) tie the post to a email address; and 3) prevent anonymous spam. Alternatively this can also be achieved by simply requiring email address along with post, and then sending a authorization email to the poster before making the post visible on the forum. This will achieve the same effect, and the user will not be burdened with remembering username+password for each forum where they make posts. -- Saqib Ali, CISSP, ISSAP http://www.full-disk-encryption.net --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is sponsored by: ByteCrusher Detect Malicious Web Content and Exploits in Real-Time. Anti-Virus engines can't detect unknown or new threats. LinkScanner can. Web surfing just became a whole lot safer. http://www.explabs.com/staging/promotions/xern_lspro.asp?loc=sfmaildetect ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current thread:
- News Item: UN warns on password 'explosion' Saqib Ali (Dec 04)
- Re: News Item: UN warns on password 'explosion' Alexander Klimov (Dec 06)
- RE: News Item: UN warns on password 'explosion' Andrew Aris (Dec 06)
- Re: News Item: UN warns on password 'explosion' Saqib Ali (Dec 06)
- RE: News Item: UN warns on password 'explosion' Andrew Aris (Dec 06)
- Re: News Item: UN warns on password 'explosion' Saqib Ali (Dec 06)
- RE: News Item: UN warns on password 'explosion' Pranav Lal (Dec 07)
- Re: News Item: UN warns on password 'explosion' Saqib Ali (Dec 06)
- RE: News Item: UN warns on password 'explosion' Lall, Navneet Singh (Dec 12)