Bugtraq mailing list archives
RE: [Full-Disclosure] Clear text password exposure in Datakey's tokens and smartcards
From: Bart.Lansing () kohls com
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 08:53:30 -0500
Guys... RSA has been doing PIN cards for ages...I don't get the hangup on SmartCards vs "plain old" something you have/something you know two factor http://www.rsasecurity.com/node.asp?id=1311 Cost of entry/ownership is nothing remotely close to the $1000 you mention Lyal...in fact, it's under 1/10 of that on a per seat basis... Why get hung up on it being a smartcard, when you can do two factor with a much lower entry cost and do it, frankly, easier? Bart Lansing Manager, Desktop Services Kohl's IT full-disclosure-admin () lists netsys com wrote on 08/05/2004 08:45:33 PM:
This exposure, of PIN compromise, is genric in all smartcard products
today,
unless a dedicated PINpad or biometric-sensor equipped readers are used
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putting cost of ownership towards $1000 in some cases. PC/SC doesn't help - as a data interfcae API spec, it excludes human interface aspects. STIP (Small Terminal Interoperability Platform at www.stip.org) moves in this direction, but has evolved into many
variants to
interoperate with proprietary vendors and proprietary industry
standards.
The challenges in putting biometric sensors or PINpads onto cards
include
the need to conform to ISO 7816 for form factor, physical resilience
etc,
and that the cards are unpowered. Or, someone redesigns the entire form-factor, user interface model, portability and business model - something that has previously failed to go anywhere. Something like a mobile phone or PDA is a good compromise tool to this overall exposure, imho. Lyal -----Original Message----- From: Kevin Sheldrake [mailto:kev () electriccat co uk] Sent: Thursday, 5 August 2004 8:39 PM To: Toomas Soome; lionel.ferette () belnet be Cc: vuln () hexview com; full-disclosure () lists netsys com; bugtraq () securityfocus com Subject: Re: [Full-Disclosure] Clear text password exposure in Datakey's tokens and smartcards Surely if the user is entering a passphrase then the same problem exists
-
that of effectively eavesdropping that communication from the keyboard? Ignoring the initial expense for a moment, wouldn't it have made a lot
of
sense to include the keypad actually on the cards? Obviously, card readers would need to be contructed such that the keypad part of the
card
would be exposed during use. The keypad security could then rely on the
tamper resistant properties of the rest of the card. From a costs perspective, I would guess that the actual per-card cost increase would be minimal if hundreds of millions of these cards were produced. KevLionel Ferette wrote:Note that this is true for almost all card readers on the market, not
only for Datakey's. Having worked for companies using crypto smart cards, I have conducted a few risk analysis about that. The
conclusion
has always been that if the PIN must be entered from a PC, and the attacker has means to install software on the system (through
directed
viruses, social engineering, etc), the game's over. The only solution against that problem is to have the PIN entered using a keypad on the reader. Only then does the cost of an attack raise significantly. But that is opening another can of worms,
because
there is (was?) no standard for card readers with attached pin pad
(at
the time, PC/SCv2 wasn't finalised - is it?).at least some cards are supporting des passphrases to implement
secured
communication channels but I suppose this feature is not that widely
in
use.... how many card owners are prepared to remember both PIN codes and passphrases... toomas-- Kevin Sheldrake MEng MIEE CEng CISSP Electric Cat (Bournemouth) Ltd _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
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- RE: [Full-Disclosure] Clear text password exposure in Datakey's tokens and smartcards Bart . Lansing (Aug 06)