Hash, store, ..., profit!

Passwords13 Las Vegas

Presented by: Michal Spacek (spazf0rze)
Date: Tuesday July 30, 2013
Time: 16:00 - 16:20
Location: Main Room
Track: Passwords13

Why is proper hashing essential in protecting your users? And what is proper hashing, anyway?

I will talk about various ways of storing users' passwords in a database. I will also show one real world example by using a dumped dataset with several hundred hashed passwords from a small local (Czech) online shop for a major clothing brand. I'll show that it's possible to take over a user's mailbox (including gmail.com mailbox) by cracking passwords from this dataset simply by using an online cracking tool. That is few dozens of active mailboxes in several minutes with just a browser. I will also present some stats from this dataset - how many passwords were successfully cracked by this online tool. I will recommend better hashing algos than just a plain SHA-1. I will also add few tips like "don't send passwords by email".

Michal Spacek

Michal Spacek, aka spazef0rze, is a Czech web developer formerly employed by Skype. He is on a mission to show developers how to write secure code and why. He communicates by whistling binary; assembly is too high-level.


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