Re: Re: yahoo mail login security

[Prakash Kailasa <pkailasa () seisint com>]

I've had my gmail account since September 2004.

I've almost always logged in using https: connection, and it has been
my experience that secure connection is maintained even after login
and throught the session.

The only time I remember logging in on non-secure connection was when
they introduced the chat feature, which required (for a period of time)
that I use the non-secure connection.

Thanks,
/prakash

On Thu, May 04, 2006 at 08:34:53PM -0400, Darren Bounds wrote:
> That Google SSL functionality must have just recently been
> implemented. Back in December (when I last checked) they were
> operating in the same fashion as Yahoo, redirecting clear text after
> SSL-based authentication.
>
>
> On 5/2/06, Damon Leung <bcdnet () myrealbox com> wrote:
> > In Gmail, if you start with the url https://mail.google.com, then you stay 
> > in https even after authentication.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ace123 <flace9 () gmail com>
> > To: "ROB DIXON" <rdixon () workforcewv org>
> > Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 11:30:32 +0530
> > Subject: Re: yahoo mail login security
> >
> > 1. Would it then be wise to send the md5 hash over ssl?
> >
> > 2. Yahoo is not alone in switching to http for email after
> > authenticating the user, both hotmail and gmail do the same. One
> > reason I can think of why they do this is, the various resources in
> > their pages come from different domains (possibly 3rd party) and they
> > can't ask for all of them to do SSL. Do you know of any other reasons?
> >
> > 3. The cookie names these guys use are very tricky, there are usually
> > many cookies and it is not clear why of them represents the session,
> > so that we can take that cookie, set it in our browser and check out
> > other's email. Ofcourse, it might be possible to set all the cookies
> > that we see there, but I have not tried that. Has anyone done any
> > research on what each of the cookies is used for, in
> > yahoo/hotmail/gmail?
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> >
> > On 5/2/06, ROB DIXON <rdixon () workforcewv org> wrote:
> > > exactly
> > >
> > > Robert L. Dixon,  CHFI
> > > State of West Virginia's
> > > West Virginia Office of Technology
> > > Infrastructure Applications
> > > Netware/GroupWise Administrator
> > > Telephone: (304)-558-5472 ex.4225
> > > ------------------------------------------
> > > If you spend more on coffee than on IT security, you will be hacked.
> > > What's more, you deserve to be hacked.
> > > -- former White House cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke
> > > > > > "Matt Fisher" <mfisher () spidynamics com>  >>>
> > > Don't they revert back to HTTP after auth anyhow ?
> > > Protect my credentials all you want, but if you give up my email on the
> > > wire(less) I'm switching regardless.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: ROB DIXON [mailto:rdixon () workforcewv org]
> > > Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 3:51 PM
> > > To: flace9 () gmail com; vanderaj () greebo net
> > > Cc: webappsec () securityfocus com
> > > Subject: Re: yahoo mail login security
> > >
> > > If you are capturing the form submission via MITM then would SSL not be
> > > just as trivial via Cain and Able.\
> > >
> > > Granted it would be obvious since the SSL cert would appear to be
> > > invalid, but not everyone is that savy.
> > >
> > > Robert L. Dixon,  CHFI
> > > State of West Virginia's
> > > West Virginia Office of Technology
> > > Infrastructure Applications
> > > Netware/GroupWise Administrator
> > > Telephone: (304)-558-5472 ex.4225
> > > ------------------------------------------
> > > If you spend more on coffee than on IT security, you will be hacked.
> > > What's more, you deserve to be hacked.
> > > -- former White House cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke
> > > > > > Andrew van der Stock <vanderaj () greebo net>  >>>
> > > Several reasons:
> > >
> > > 1. MD5 does protect the password... as long as it is salted
> > > correctly. Unsalted MD5 hashes are trivially breakable using rainbow
> > > attacks, and are unsuitable for most uses (despite heavy usage by
> > > many programs in exactly this fashion).
> > >
> > > 2. Replay attacks on public networks. Capturing the form submission
> > > (trivial without SSL) would allow an attacker to replay the
> > > conversation and log on as the identity without any issues
> > >
> > > 3. MD5 is provably weak as a hash - see the work of Wang et al:
> > >
> > > http://eprint.iacr.org/2004/199.pdf
> > >
> > > 4. Javascript on the client is not a trusted environment. Minimizing
> > > the trust of security weak components is a good design goal.
> > >
> > > 5. SSL is cheap. A certificate costs less than $100 these days and
> > > solves many of these issues.
> > >
> > > Andrew
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 30/04/2006, at 5:55 PM, Ace123 wrote:
> > >
> > > > Clicking on "Why this is secure" link on the yahoo login page gives
> > > > this:
> > > >
> > > > "Yahoo! now submits your ID and password securely via SSL (Secure
> > > > Sockets Layer) encryption. This means that your personal information
> > > > is more secure every time you sign in.
> > > >
> > > > In the past, Yahoo! used a challenge-response mechanism to protect
> > > > passwords using MD5. Passwords were scrambled using a one-way hash, so
> > > > that they could not be converted to clear text."
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > What could be the reasons why yahoo changed their login security
> > > > mechanism?
> > > >
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> --
>
> Thank you,
> Darren Bounds
>
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