What I don't want is to generate random password because I may require to refer to the password in future. The requirement is for authentication between 2 machines and only thing I have is usertoken (a unique alphanumeric string identifying a user). The other system however expects username and password. Plus in future I may require to regenerate the same username and password for a given usertoken. Is there a ready Java service that does this? I looked around but there are none. What I could think of is use cryptography to generate 2 new strings from usertoken which allows me to regenerate in future. Thoughts please.
Related
There is a common requirement of storing user credentials securely (user id / user password) in the App and use them automatically next time the App starts, but I'm not being able to figure out how to do this without user interaction.
Using JSON Store I need a password to encrypt the information, so if I store user credentials in the JSON Store I will need to ask to the user for the password used to encrypt the information.
A solution I figure out is to store the user id in a JSON Store without encryption and the password in a JSON Store encrypted with the user id as password. May be this solution provide a bit more security than not to encrypt anything but I think is not a complete solution.
As explained in the comments this is a really bad idea.
Is there any solution to store user credentials securely and recover them without user interaction?
You can use the Keychain API on iOS. Android doesn't seem to have an equivalent API.
The most complete solution I figure out is to store the user id in a JSON Store without encryption and the password in a JSON Store encrypted with the user id as password. May be this solution provide a bit more security than not to encrypt anything but I think is not a complete solution.
I would strongly advise against doing that, if you store the encryption key (the user id) in plain text, then the attacker can simply use that to get to the password.
Update (Aug 27, 2014)
You should consider:
Hashing - You could hash values you want to protect. These are one-way functions, so you can't get the password back once you hash it. However, you can verify that the user provided the correct password. For example: First login you store( hash(password) ) then on next logins you compare if hash(password_provided) == stored_password_hash. If it matches, the user provided the same password. You should also use a salt.
You could give the user the ability set a pin using some library like ABPadLockScreen (you could probably find or implement something similar for Android too). You can then use the pin as the PBKDF2 input to generate an encryption key (JSONStore will do this for you when you pass the pin as the password). I would advise in favor of letting users only try a small amount of incorrect pin numbers, especially if the pin is only numeric and short, that way they can't easily guess the pin by trying various combinations. The idea here is that a pin will be easier to remember and type than their password.
FYI - There's a Stack Exchange site similar to StackOverflow but for security questions here.
I Create a API of reset password. and the project use yii framework so i dont get the type of password encoding Plz help me to find the type of password the password show in 128 digit
Password:
1234567 in database shown :
a711df782e24d90ff59725fa2b4ba16178676506cd411ebbd8ff2360420f8f5f728b7ab09c60358c084d634a7d3363c3f733e6746154f959767f08d2f2725afa
It is hard to say, but you can try one of these:
how to php encrypt passwords to 128 character?
The beauty of encryption is that you do not decrypt it easily, so it may be hard to find the algorithm.
But actually if you make a password reset in a project, I suppose there should be somehwere also the function for creating the passwords, so you should not guess, but find it in the project.
If i Remove Security.salt and Security.cipherSeed value then Admin login not working.
Configure::write('Security.salt', '');
Configure::write('Security.cipherSeed', '');
Please Help
Of course the Admin login will not work. The AuthComponent needs that Strings to hash the User Data in the Session, as well for persisting passwords on the database.
Since you already have the passwords hashed on your databese, when you submit the admin login form, it will hash the password you just sent via input and compare with the database one to see if they match, if they do, permission is granted.
Considering that you deleted the salt, the hash will now have a different behavior compared to one with a provided salt, thus, it will output different hashes for the same input, which means permission is denied and will remain like this until you come back to the exact same salt.
When you bake a project with the cake bake command, it will generate and replace the default salts for you.
Remember, when you change this salts, every single password stored in the database will need to be rehashed, then you need to provide your users a way to do this, like a 'forgot my password' mechanism.
NOTE: This might appear as a optional step, but it is more like a "Must do" Configuration, and it should be done just after install. Remember that using an wide know Salt is a HUGE security flaw.
I'm trying to set a cookie so that user can be automatically logged in.
I do not want to query DB for session string when authenticating cookies (basically I need to do that whenever most of my APIs are called, I want to make it faster)
the solution I found is to set a hash in the cookie and try to decrypt it when authenticating, if decryption is successful then log user in.
I am wondering what hashing method should I use? Do I just use a constant salt in my program and hash the userName with that salt, store the hashed userName and original userName in cookie, and try to match userName with decrypted hash upon authentication?
Since I am not familiar with hashing functions, can anyone kindly provide some suggestions on how should I do it in Java?
I recommend you to use an unique token key generated for each session. For example, if a client once logged in from a computer, this token will be valid until the password is changed. Expiring a cookie is not completely secure...
You can also use session variable for a simple authentication. Once you set a session variable for an user, every time this user sends a request with this session id; your session variable will be reached for just this session id. Most of the platforms can also use DB for storing these variables for you.
Two approaches:
1) Create your own authentication framework. In this case I recommend to put in a cookie an encrypted value of a username (I strongly not recommend to use hashing; also please do not put the user password value). For encryption please use AES-256 encryption with BouncyCastle:
256bit AES/CBC/PKCS5Padding with Bouncy Castle
If your framework success to decrypt the cookie – the user is authenticated. If your framework cannot decrypt the cookie or the user is not exist - the user is not authenticated.
2) Please consider to use the Spring Security framework:
http://static.springsource.org/spring-security/site/docs/3.1.x/reference/springsecurity-single.html
It is the great framework and solves a lot of authentication / authorization problems.
Your problem is solved by the “RememberMe” feature:
http://static.springsource.org/spring-security/site/docs/3.1.x/reference/springsecurity-single.html#ns-remember-me
Best regards,
Michael
I don't come from Java background, but your hash key should never be something exposed.
For example:- In your case UserName is key and one of the fellow developers who knows what mechanism you are using can break it down because name is something very common and known.
Don't know what the best way is but I have used UserID(GUID) which is not visible in UI.
If I understand correctly, the biggest problem with sending a password via email is that it requires the password to be stored in clear text in the database. If the DB is compromised, the attackers will gain access to all accounts.
Is there a workaround for this problem?
How can one make sending a user their password via email as safe as possible?
The simple answer is: don't. If you think your database is insecure, an email is far, far less.
If you mean that you want to send them their password when they register, then you could do that before you store it in the database.
If you mean after they have registered, the only option is to store in plaintext (again, don't do this) or make a new, random password and send them that. It is impossible to get their password from the hash, which is why it makes the password storage safer. The best option is to generate a new (temporary) password you send them, or a token giving them access to a password change system.
You may want to consider a good hashing algorithm like BCrypt that includes a salt.
I don't know if my suggestion is feasible for your scenario, but you should better keep the data hashed or encrypted and send password reset links instead of plain-text passwords.
The moment the password is in cleartext in the email, it is inherently insecure.
As such, there is no safe way to send a password in cleartext safely.
You should not be storing passwords in cleartext in your database - you should be using salted hashes. When the user enters their password, you hash it with the salt and compare to the stored hash.
When people forget their password, instead of sending passwords by email, you should send reset links backed up by expiring tokens. These would generate a temporary new password (that would expire within minutes).
You should be hashing all passwords in your database.
sha1($_POST['password'].$salt.$username);
In the case of a lost password
A user requests a password reset link, which contains a hash generated in the "user_meta" table. When the user recieves this link, the hash is compared to that in the database, and the user will be able to UPDATE their current password with a new password.
The PTXT of the password is never reveiled.
You only compare hashes.
Yes, there is a common workaround.
Assuming that you have your users in your database.
You send the "password reset link" containing some "key" information, like a guid. An example link is a form:
http://your.site.com/setpassword?id=5b070092-4be8-4f4d-9952-1b915837d10f
In your database you store the mapping between sent guids and emails.
When someone opens your link, you check your database and you can find out who asks for the page - because any valid guid maps to an email. You can then safely let the user change his/her password assuming their email is not compromised.
When it's about to store the password, you never store it in plain text, you always hash passwords, using additional random salt to make the dictionary attack more difficult when someone breaks into your database.
There is a workaround which is less secure than a password reset but works if it is a requirement that users are sent a password, not a reset link.
What you do is you generate a new password that contains sufficient randomness to be very hard to guess, but is also formatted in a way that it is easy for them to remember and read out (say over the phone).
Something like: xyz-xyz-xyz-nnnn where xyz is an easy-to-spell but uncommon word and nnnn is a four digit number.
Then set it up so that this is a temporary password that needs to be changed on first login.
Set the password using the same logic you would use to set a normal password, so that it is correctly salted and hashed, and then send the password plaintext via email, like so.
Dear FirstName LastName,
You requested we reset your password.
Your new password is:
insipid-mirth-nonplus-9174
You will be able to log into the system once using this password, then you will need to enter a new password.
Important Caveats
This system has some serious vulnerabilities which make it unsuitable for websites where data security is crucial. There are more than these, but these are the ones I know/can think of:
Unlike systems which use a password reset link, this system could be used to lock someone out of the system (assuming you use it as is) unless you either require someone to fill out identifiable information before issuing the password reset, or send a "are you sure you want to reset your password?" email first. This would entail them clicking on a link with a GUID that goes to the server; at that point they may as well be sent to the password reset form anyway.
Since the password is being sent plain text via email, there is a danger it can be intercepted and the password can be used. Although to be fair this is not that much different than the risk of sending a password reset link.
If you ignore the risks in step #1 and you don't use a sufficiently random way of generating passwords (say you use a word list of fewer than 1000 items), someone who has hacked into your server will be able to retrieve the salted password hash and then write an algorithm that generates all possible passwords and checks them against the hashed password. Not as much of a problem if you use a cryptographically complex hashing algorithm.
If you want to send password to user via Email in cleartext and want to store those password into database as hash or any other format . It will be possible.......
Just you will have to follow some simple way....
1 .you will have to take those password as variable which will send from user.
2. When you store database then just convert it as you wishes format.
3. But when you send those to user by mail , That time just sent those variable password...
I think it will be helpful to build your concept about WAY.......