passwords

How to check for a password breach, involving you.

~ Ron Walker ~ 20 Comments
Email I received. (Email hidden)

This morning, while going through some very old emails that I had somehow overlooked (not good, I know), and found a notice of a breach, from a site I had used while taking a security course online. Of all the places I would not have guessed it would be, it was “Gravatar” when I had originally signed up with them years ago, before WordPress acquired it. While some of you may already be aware of this breach, I thought I would share it for those who are not. I hope some of this information, on how hackers get, and use your password helps you understand the importance of a strong password.

Apparently in October 2020, Gravatar suffered a data breach which exposed 113,990,759 accounts.

In October 2020, a security researcher published a technique for scraping large volumes of data from Gravatar, the service for providing globally unique avatars. 167 million names, usernames and MD5 hashes of email addresses used to reference users’ avatars were subsequently scraped and distributed within the hacking community. 114 million of the MD5 hashes were cracked and distributed alongside the source hash, thus disclosing the original email address and accompanying data.

If you’re ever curious

Way back then, when starting my Blog, I was rather dumb and had used a simple password. While this site, alerting me to the breach, doesn’t know your password, they just notify you when your email is involved with a breach. I learned how passwords are cracked while taking a cybersecurity class. The password I had chosen, back then, was a pretty weak one that would probably be found in a word-list used by most security auditors and hackers. I changed it this morning. If you’re ever curious if your information has been “possibly” compromised, you can visit the site, and test your password. Basically, when you test your password, it is compared to all the lists (word-lists that hackers use) and if found, it lets you know what breach it was found in, and the date, so you can go change that password to something stronger. The site is “Have I been Pawned”. Pawned being a slang word used by hackers to denote a compromise of something.

I have used this site for years, and the man running it is a well known security speaker.

Many users are unaware of how hackers work to get passwords. So here is a crash course, on what a word-list is, and how it can be used by nefarious persons.

Your password is known only to you, unless you share it. A password, you create for a site, is then “encrypted” as a “hash”. A hash is a result of the encryption and looks more like a string of numbers. For instance, if I were to use Superman as a password, and the site used MD5 hash encryption, it would now look like this 527d60cd4715db174ad56cda34ab2dce. No one would glean “Superman” from that.

One hash at the time.

However, when a data-breach occurs, The bad guys get the password hash. Sometimes they even get the username as well. While this in itself is unusable, because all they see is the “hash” for the password, they then utilize a program that is capable of taking huge lists of words, turning them into “hashes”, and then comparing each “word hash” to see if it matches your password hash, in this case “Superman”. One hash at the time. Now, this may sound time-consuming, but computers are fast. My computer, during the security course, processed 138,000+ hashes or “hash comparisons” per second. Or 102 hashes every millisecond. “Superman” can be found in standard word-lists in about milliseconds. Imagine what several computers linked together could do. This is why, choosing a good password is important. Never use a regular word, such as a name, object, or subject, in other languages, unless the words are strung together, such as our example here, Ihabcouch@2endtables

Where do these word-lists come from? Word-lists, are simply a file of words, one word per line. They are generated from Dictionaries, Bibles, Foreign languages, names, events, anything a person might use for a simple password. Added to the list are passwords that have been cracked and leaked online by hackers. Sometimes a website (even large ones) have been found to have forgotten to encrypt the passwords, and they were stored in the database in “plain text”. Those are found, leaked, and added to the circulating word-lists. So if your account was involved in a data-breach, and you used a simple password found in a list, then they now have your email maybe your username, and password. They go to your email account, plug in your password and wreak havoc using your account for spam.

How big are the lists? Amazingly small, and large. I’ve seen pretty effective lists of about 120 MB that contains around 10,937,952 words. Then you have lists that are 5+ GB and larger, so use your imagination of how many words and combinations of words would be in that list.

passwords like 12345678

Many times while working on someone’s machine, they had to provide the password for me, at which time I always counseled them to change it, when the work was done. No one, not even me, should have that password. It is yours and yours alone. I would find passwords like 12345678, password, iloveyou, ilovebob. Yes, these were actually seen by me. Or a person on a website about flowers using Rosebud, Camellia, etc. I worked on my brother-in-law’s computer once, and he had his first name, as his email password! Although it was long enough, it was simply a name in any list of people’s names.

I hope this helps understand why it is important to have a good password. Not just something simple for the sake of “senior moment” memories, of which I have. Michelle describes my attributes as, “The compassion of a rock at times, attention span of a gnat, and memory like a leaky bucket.”

Password Tip

I sometimes use my home and items to make up an easy, strong, memorable password. Like, I have a brown couch & 2 endtables
Ihabcouch&2endtables Comes out to 20 characters, upper and lower case, a symbol, and a number. Yet after using it several times, repeating it as I type, and remembering to use the & symbol for the “and”. Since it’s not in a word-list, a brute-force cracking would take 42 quintillion years.

If you have questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments.

Note: information contained herein, is for educational purposes only, to assist others in a more secure online experience.

Update: 12/06/21 8:46pm

The service, “Gravatar” has stated they don’t consider this a “breech” of user data.

Many Gravatar users were not satisfied with the service’s explanation that all of the information users entered was public, which disqualified the incident from being labeled a breach. In the same explanation, however, the service claims the API was abused, instead of admitting that it was vulnerable and could have been better protected.

Source

It would appear to me, that even though they claim, the information of users entered is public. Yet in the same breath state the service API was “abused” which means it was used for other than its intended function by someone without permission to do so. I call that a hack or breach, by any other name. You can follow the source link above, and make your own determination.

Cover that Webcam, Before you’re a Star!

~ Ron Walker ~ 11 Comments

Webcams, are a subject that I have covered before with friends and family. This is an opportune time to share some of my knowledge, with blogging friends. While they are a great tool in visiting one another during this worldwide shelter-in-place, they can be an embarrassment, perhaps even a danger without the proper precautions. Remember, once somethings out there on the Internet, it’s out there forever.

Why should I be worried

During this time of boredom, you will have kids home from school, others that no longer have to work and have a lot of time on their hands. Some will entertain themselves with video games. Some, will entertain themselves with the sport of hacking into your devices. Most of the time, it is just to see if they can accomplish the exercise of gaining control of something they aren’t supposed to. Thrill of the game type of thing.

Your security is important

Most webcams are plug and play. This is nice for those of us that don’t care for complication in setting up devices. Most, if not all webcams, come preconfigured with “default” user and password settings. They can range from user=admin or simply user=user. Then we have the password. They can generally on the simple side from the factory. Password=password, or Password=(nothing, blank).

If for whatever reason you don’t take the time to change those items of security, then someone may be watching your baby cam, or your home, or seeing whatever the webcam on your desk, or built into your laptop can see. There may be moments, that might be embarrassing. If you do opt to change your password, make it a decent one. There’s no guarantee this will happen to you, but erring on the side of caution is best.

They can do that?

When I bring this subject of webcam security up (which by the way I’m no expert at), the first question is usually,”They can do that? How”. Without getting into the technical geek speak, the method is out there. With Google, you can find “anything”. There are other research types of search engines, that are not generally used by the normal public. These can be used to search for certain “strings” that have to do with webcams that have admin, and password set to default.

]There are the websites that do auto searches using these search engines and compile lists for people who would like to see the world. Some webcams are purposely set, so hotels, or venues can share their beauty or location. These search engines, also find other webcams that have factory set passwords and list them.

Examples for you to see.

There is a site called insecam. While it says that all cameras are filtered as having no password set, or requested to be added to the directory, there have been some spotted that obviously were from laptops and home webcams. Now, there are cameras of birds, aquatic life, locations of beauty, all of them have one thing in common. No password set.

Things to do.

  1. First and foremost, set a password for your webcam, if it is connected to the Internet. If you use it for security, or perhaps video conferencing then it has access to the Internet.
  2. Purchase or make a cover for your webcam. It can be as simple as a post-it note, or piece of frosted scotch tape, or one purchased from online.

This is where I keep my webcam for my desktop. Pointing away toward a wall, when not in use. I use a small piece of post-it or opaque scotch tape for my laptop and tablet (Yes, I’m cheap). If you have questions, or more tips to help others secure their webcams, please share them with everyone.

Comments always welcome,

Please, stop trying to help me! I’m not a total idiot.

~ Ron Walker ~ 12 Comments

Browsers, websites, anti-virus programs. They all want us to accept, they know what’s best for us. Sure, there are some out here, that can benefit from some help to keep them safe online, but the majority of users today, know the dangers of clicking on links sent by email, or on social media.

First, they came out with “safe web surfing, big name virus companies scanned the web looking for websites with malicious items. That is great, in a way. Except scanners aren’t that smart. If something was detected on your site, you were immediately placed on a list as dangerous. Bad thing is, if it;s a false positive detection, it can take months to be removed from that list. If you’re a business that had a malfunctioning credit card link, you lost a lot of business while you fought to get off the list.

Certification

Next they decided SSL (a form of encrypting your data) was the way to go, turns out, it was full of holes itself. Then came HTTPS which shows you are encrypted and verified by a certificate. This was forced on everyone. Very soon, they possibly stop you from connecting to a site, just because it has images from a site that runs only HTTP (because the site can’t afford a certificate).

Then came the breaches of databases, actually these have happened for years, the last few years they are reported more, due to liability to customers. So we now come to browsers, and some sites that you have to sign in to, telling us whether our password is strong enough. They are about to go one step further, and not allow you to sign in if your password has been found in a breach, forcing you to make a new password. When you start to set a password, the site checks a HUGE database of passwords from all past breaches, to see if it is found in a breach somewhere.

Now, while I am all for being safe. Some of this seems to be knee-jerk responses. Overkill, comes to mind. You can’t protect everyone, by trying to protect the minority of users, you place more burden on others. Not to mention, if that massive database of passwords, was ever breached. Well, you can picture that. There is a saying in IT security. Nothing is truly secure, from a hacker with the proper skill set.

Want to check your password to see if it has been used?
Click Have I Been Pwned to find out.

Comments welcome,

Stop hiding my password from me! I can’t remember what’s under a zillion *********’s

~ Ron Walker ~ 21 Comments

This has always disturbed me to no end. Devices hiding MY password, from ME!

In the infancy of the computer age, all the way through today. They taught you two basic things. Protect your password from others, don’t use the same password on multiple accounts. In working environments this made sense. In other situations, not so much. The geniuses  thought if they hid the password as it was typed on the screen, then someone behind you, could not see and steal your password. Thus, a “Star” was born (An asterisk actually).

Never mind the fact they could watch you type out your password on the keys. Of course, polite people turn their heads, or turn around as someone is using a password. Or a sneaky key-logger program could capture your passwords as you typed them asterisks or not. It records the keys pressed, not what shows on the screen.  Showing the Asterisk in a workplace environment may be a good idea, not so much in our own privacy. If someone I don’t know is standing behind me, in my house, then they have a bigger problem than just seeing my password.

Password History

  • Passwords were simple, it wasn’t a smart thing, but simple. abcd, 1234, flower, ford, etc. There were far fewer threats in those days.
  • Companies would actually assign passwords like  (first/last name initials and employee number).
  • Computers became more important, and we were told our passwords were too easy to guess. Hacking programs could find the password in milliseconds. We needed letters and numbers.
  • We were told that they needed to be over 8 characters, made of all manner of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols.
  • We now have evolved into something like  wuGqF3yqA3o*CAu  (randomly generated for an example, not an actual password).

Password managers

People with multiple phones, computers and other devices they own, need to remember these ultra complex passwords. So password Managers were born. What happened to the cardinal rule, “Don’t share your password with anyone”. They will store your password/s for you, and insert them as you visit your websites. Really convenient, but what happens if someone hacks the password manager site. Or hacks a large website you do business with. Then you must start the process over, making new passwords. So we hide them from our own sight, but hand them over to a total stranger to keep for us, and hope they are secure from attacks.
2017 Data Breach of OneLogin. All US customers emails, passwords stolen.

I get way too frustrated trying to remember if I hit the wrong key by accident, little stars staring at me are no help, and some programs, don’t display anything while you type the password. How about giving the user the option, especially in a private setting, of default showing the password as you type it. Turn it on or off if needed. It’s 2018, why are we still hiding passwords from ourselves?

What are your feelings on “Staring at the Stars” (Asterisks) trying to use your password.

Comments always welcome,