The human nature part of the equation is that people tend to follow certain patterns when creating passwords. They found that even when users complied with instructions to create passwords mixing letters, numbers and punctuation, their choices were often easily guessable by cracking software using a dictionary of a couple of hundred thousand words. Using mathematical models that would give most of us a headache, researchers analyzed the effectiveness of actual passwords derived from several large data breaches encompassing tens of millions of examples. The revised recommendations lean heavily on a 2010 report prepared by researchers from Florida State University, Redjack LLC, and Cisco IronPort Systems. The real issue with password strength isn’t length. Meanwhile, users can use this registry tweak to disable Content Delivery Manager in order to prevent Microsoft from installing unwanted apps silently on their PCs.The revised Appendix A in NIST Special Publication 800-63 explains that the effectiveness of choosing passwords “constructed using a mix of character types, such as at least one digit, uppercase letter, and symbol…is not nearly as significant as initially thought, although the impact on usability and memorability is severe.” Instead, the institute now recommends that “Users should be encouraged to make their passwords as lengthy as they want, within reason.”īut that doesn’t mean eight-character passwords can’t be just as effective as a string of unrelated words like “foamwisetortoiseignoretrucksocialcycle.” A deeper look at the NIST guidance shows that not that much has actually changed. However, Microsoft still needs to explain how the Keeper password manager gets installed on the users' computers without their knowledge. Keeper has also added that the company has not noticed any attack using this security vulnerability in the wild.Īs for Windows 10 users, Ormandy said users wouldn't be vulnerable to the password theft unless they open Keeper password manager and enable the software to store their passwords. Since the vulnerability only affects version 11 of the Keeper app, which was released on December 6 as a major browser extension update, the vulnerability is different from the one Ormandy reported six months ago. Ormandy reported the vulnerability to the Keeper developers, who acknowledged the issue and released a fix in the just released version 11.4 on Friday by removing the vulnerable "add to existing" functionality.ĭiscover the Hidden Dangers of Third-Party SaaS AppsĪre you aware of the risks associated with third-party app access to your company's SaaS apps? Join our webinar to learn about the types of permissions being granted and how to minimize risk. To explain the severity of the bug, Ormandy also provided a working proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit that steals a user's Twitter password if it is stored in the Keeper app. I think I'm being generous considering this a new issue that qualifies for a ninety day disclosure, as I literally just changed the selectors and the same attack works," Ormandy said. "I checked and, they're doing the same thing again with this version. The security vulnerability in the Keeper Password Manager was almost identical to the one Ormandy discovered and reported in the non-bundled version of the same Keeper plugin in August 2016 that enabled malicious websites to steal passwords. People really tell me this," Ormandy tweeted. "I don't want to hear about how even a password manager with a trivial remote root that shares all your passwords with every website is better than nothing. Knowing that a third-party password manager now comes installed by default on Windows 10, Ormandy started testing the software and took no longer to discover a critical vulnerability that leads to "complete compromise of Keeper security, allowing any website to steal any password." Some Reddit users complained about the hidden password manager about six months ago, one of which reported Keeper being installed on a virtual machine created with Windows 10 Pro. Ormandy was not the only one who noticed the Keeper Password Manager.
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