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OP finds vulnerability where a forum sends you your password in plaintext over email and everyone misses the forest for the trees (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

86 comments fedilink hide all child comments

This thread is frustrating. Everyone seems more interested in nitpicking the specifics of what OP is saying and are ignoring that a forum sends you your password (not an automatically generated one) in an email on registration.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They have said it is being hashed for storage: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=669268#Post669268

I can’t fault the OP though, if I received such an email I would assume it is stored in plain text and be similarly upset.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reversible hashed password storage isn't meaningfully better than clear text.

The key to reverse the hash is typically (necessarily) stored in the same infrastructure as the password. Bad actors with access to one have access to the combination.
Even if an attacker fails to exfiltrate the key to the reversible hash, it's typically only a matter of days at the most before they can reverse engineer it, and produce plain text copies of every password they obtained the hash of.

A reversible hash provides a paper thin layer of protection against accidental disclosure. A one way hash is widely considered the bare minimum for password storage.

Anyone claiming a password has been protected, and then being able to produce the original password, is justly subject to ridicule in security communities.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The one they were sending at registration was prior to hashing. It would not be reversible afterwards.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That's technically less terrible, then.

Good for them. /s

Edited to add the /s for clarity, because the NIST recommended remediation in 2023 for emailing a password is "burn everything down and pretend the organization never existed". /s

Again, adding that /s since that's not actually what NIST says to do, and I am, at best, paraphrasing.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

I wasn’t trying to claim what was happening here, simply that one (extremely) bad practice increases the chance of another.