Re: OpenSSH & S/Key information leakage

From: Alan J Rosenthal (flapsat_private)
Date: Thu Nov 15 2001 - 14:12:26 PST

  • Next message: Cisco Systems Product Security Incident Response Team: "Cisco Security Advisory: IOS ARP Table Overwrite Vulnerability"

    These observations of information leakage are cute, and while some of them
    might be fixable, I'm not sure that most of them are, which is dismaying.
    If OPIE didn't tell you the password number, for example, it would be quite
    hard to use.
    
    Anyway, I was expecting to see the following in that list.  OPIE will tell
    you whether or not a given account exists.  This is a disclosure we often
    take pains to avoid on the internet these days; we expect the same error
    message for 'no such account' and 'bad password'.
    
    A login prompt for a non-account looks like this:
    
    	login: flomp
    	otp-md5 175 at2078 ext
    	Response: 
    
    So far, so good.  But press return once or twice to get "Login incorrect"
    (or make a new conection), and then do
    
    	login: flomp
    	otp-md5 220 at0624 ext
    	Response: 
    
    Either the user just set a new passphrase in this one-second interval, or
    "flomp" does not exist.
    
    Compare:
    
    	login: flaps
    	otp-md5 796 qz1234 ext
    	Response: 
    	Response: 
    	Login incorrect
    	login: flaps
    	otp-md5 796 qz1234 ext
    	Response: 
    	Response:
    
    Always 796 qz1234 (until I next log in using OPIE and/or re-set my passphrase).
    
    Joel Maslak <jmaslakat_private> writes:
    >- If S/Key passwords are used at all, "fake" challenge strings should be
    >printed whenever a real challenge string is not available.  OPIE does this
    >right.
    
    I claim that what OPIE does is inadequate, but I don't have a solution
    (thus this is not a criticism of OPIE).
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Nov 15 2001 - 17:11:03 PST