Alexander Holler <[email protected]> writes:

> Am 18.12.2009 02:33, schrieb Kurt Zeilenga:
>>
>> On Dec 17, 2009, at 9:55 AM, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>>
>>> Low iteration counts removes one nice features of SCRAM (mitigating
>>> dictionary attacks on stolen hash databases).
>>
>> It's only a nice feature if you can take advantage of it.  If you need to 
>> support multiple password mechanisms, each either their own hashed password, 
>> you'd end up storing each.  And then the attacker need only attack the 
>> weakest.  And with need to service providers to support DIGEST-MD5 and 
>> CRAM-MD5, to the most popular password-based mechanisms, the weakest is not 
>> much stronger than cleartext.
>
> Storing a hash for every mechanism will not work. E.g. for DIGEST-MD5
> the server has to hash the clear-text password with a value the client
> provides.

That is true for CRAM-MD5, but not for DIGEST-MD5 and SCRAM-MD5.  With
the latter two mechanisms, the server can store a hash and perform
authentications without access to the password.  For CRAM-MD5 this is
not possible, and the server indeed needs to have access to the
cleartext password for things to work.

> So the server needs the clear-text password. And if the server is able
> to get the clear-text password, everyone with the same rights on the
> server can retrieve the clear-text passwords too.

Right.

/Simon
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