Revisiting Security Vulnerabilities in Commercial Password Managers
Michael Carr, Siamak F. Shahandashti
备注：
This is an accepted manuscript to appear in the proceedings of the 35th Int'l Conf. on ICT Systems Security & Privacy Protection (IFIP SEC 2020), Maribor, Slovenia
In this work we analyse five popular commercial password managers for security vulnerabilities. Our analysis is twofold. First, we compile a list of previously disclosed vulnerabilities through a comprehensive review of the academic and non-academic sources and test each password manager against all the previously disclosed vulnerabilities. We find a mixed picture of fixed and persisting vulnerabilities. Then we carry out systematic functionality tests on the considered password managers and find four new vulnerabilities. Notably, one of the new vulnerabilities we identified allows a malicious app to impersonate a legitimate app to two out of five widely-used password managers we tested and as a result steal the user's password for the targeted service. We implement a proof-of-concept attack to show the feasibility of this vulnerability in a real-life scenario. Finally, we report and reflect on our experience of responsible disclosure of the newly discovered vulnerabilities to the corresponding password manager vendors.
Password managers have the potential to help users more effectively manage their passwords and address many of the concerns surrounding password-based authentication, however prior research has identified significant vulnerabilities in existing password managers. Since that time, five years has passed, leaving it unclear whether password managers remain vulnerable or whether they are now ready for broad adoption. To answer this question, we evaluate thirteen popular password managers and consider all three stages of the password manager lifecycle--password generation, storage, and autofill. Ou…
Despite their well-known security problems, passwords are still the incumbent authentication method for virtually all online services. To remedy the situation, end-users are very often referred to password managers as a solution to the password reuse and password weakness problems. However, to date the actual impact of password managers on password security and reuse has not been studied systematically. In this paper, we provide the first large-scale study of the password managers' influence on users' real-life passwords. From 476 participants of an online survey on users' password creation an…
To encourage users to use stronger and more secure passwords, modern web browsers offer users password management services, allowing users to save previously entered passwords locally onto their hard drives. We present Lupin, a tool that automatically extracts these saved passwords without the user's knowledge. Lupin allows a network adversary to obtain passwords as long as the login form appears on a non-HTTPS page. Unlike existing password sniffing tools, Lupin can obtain passwords for websites users are not visiting. Furthermore, Lupin can extract passwords embedded in login forms with a de…
Vulnerabilities in password managers are unremitting because current designs provide large attack surfaces, both at the client and server. We describe and evaluate Horcrux, a password manager that is designed holistically to minimize and decentralize trust, while retaining the usability of a traditional password manager. The prototype Horcrux client, implemented as a Firefox add-on, is split into two components, with code that has access to the user's master's password and any key material isolated into a small auditable component, separate from the complexity of managing the user interface. I…
Hacking password databases is one of the most frequently reported cyber-attacks. Current password management systems are based on known and public algorithms. Also, many studies have shown that users select weak passwords. Thus, with the emergence of new powerful computing devices, the passwords based on known algorithms can be disclosed. Using physical unclonable functions (PUFs) for increasing the security level of password management systems is a quite recent method that is proposed to solve this problem. In this method, Addressable PUF Generator (APG) is added to the conventional password …
Password managers are important tools that enable us to use stronger passwords, freeing us from the cognitive burden of remembering them. Despite this, there are still many users who do not fully trust password managers. In this paper, we focus on a feature that most password managers offer that might impact the user's trust, which is the process of generating a random password. We survey which algorithms are most commonly used and we propose a solution for a formally verified reference implementation of a password generation algorithm. We use EasyCrypt as our framework to both specify the ref…
Password managers help users more effectively manage their passwords, encouraging them to adopt stronger passwords across their many accounts. In contrast to desktop systems where password managers receive no system-level support, mobile operating systems provide autofill frameworks designed to integrate with password managers to provide secure and usable autofill for browsers and other apps installed on mobile devices. In this paper, we evaluate mobile autofill frameworks on iOS and Android, examining whether they achieve substantive benefits over the ad-hoc desktop environment or become a pr…
For the first time, we report gender bias in people's choice and use of password managers, through a semi-structured interview ($n=18$) and a questionnaire-based survey ($n=200$, conducted `in the wild'). Not only do women and men prefer different types of password managers, but software features that women and men frequently use also differ. These differences are statistically significant. The factors that women and men consider the most important or influential in choosing their password managers differ, too. Choice of convenience and brand are on the top of the women's consideration, wherea…
Password managers (PMs) are considered highly effective tools for increasing security, and a recent study by Pearman et al. (SOUPS'19) highlighted the motivations and barriers to adopting PMs. We expand these findings by replicating Pearman et al.'s protocol and interview instrument applied to a sample of strictly older adults (>60 years of age), as the prior work focused on a predominantly younger cohort. We conducted n=26 semi-structured interviews with PM users, built-in browser/operating system PM users, and non-PM users. The average participant age was 70.4 years. Using the same codebook …
The paper analyses current versions of top three used Internet browsers and compare their security levels to a research done in 2006. The security is measured by analyzing how user data is stored. Data recorded during different browsing sessions and by different password management functions it is considered sensitive data. The paper describes how the browser protects the sensitive data and how an attacker or a forensic analyst can access it.
Biometric authentication is one of the promising alternatives to standard password-based authentication offering better usability and security. In this work, we revisit the biometric authentication based on "fuzzy signatures" introduced by Takahashi et al. (ACNS'15, IJIS'19). These are special types of digital signatures where the secret signing key can be a "fuzzy" data such as user's biometrics. Compared to other cryptographically secure biometric authentications as those relying on fuzzy extractors, the fuzzy signature-based scheme provides a more attractive security guarantee. However, des…
Bug bounty programs offer a modern platform for organizations to crowdsource their software security and for security researchers to be fairly rewarded for the vulnerabilities they find. Little is known however on the incentives set by bug bounty programs: How they drive new bug discoveries, and how they supposedly improve security through the progressive exhaustion of discoverable vulnerabilities. Here, we recognize that bug bounty programs create tensions, for organizations running them on the one hand, and for security researchers on the other hand. At the level of one bug bounty program, s…
