Re: comments to draft-ietf-ldapbis-authmeth-04.txt

[Hallvard B Furuseth <h.b.furuseth@usit.uio.no>]

Alexey Melnikov writes:
>Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>>Alexey Melnikov writes:
>>> Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>>>
>>>> Section 3.9 "Storing passwords" says: if this password file is 
>>>> compromised, then an attacker gains immediate access to documents on 
>>>> the server using this realm.
>> (...)
>>
>>That is, does this mean that one can authenticate as any in the password
>>file if the password file is compromised?
>>
> Yes, the same way as if you have all passwords in the clear. However,
> 1). these hashes are not good for other servers, even if the same user 
> has an account and uses the same password. They are effectively "salted" 
> with realm, which will be in most cases different;
> 2). changing realm used by the compromised server, should disallow 
> access to anyone.
> 
> Also, I believe it is possible to store a salted version of the hash, 
> assuming the server always generates
> nonce-value that uses the salt as the prefix. But of course this salted 
> hash will be different from traditional UNIX salted hashes.

Thanks.

I hope to see something about this in the Security Considerations of the
Authmeth draft.  Though perhaps it should wait to after -07 is out.

-- 
Hallvard