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Re:Can you trust 37signals with your password? by sachinag on Saturday May 02, 2009 @12:03PM (#589954)
Really? We're going to downmod the most active security professional on HN? A guy who's built a 25+ person company on the basis of analyzing web applications for security? FFS, did we learn nothing from yesterday's expert kerfuffle?

If Thomas says it's not really a big deal in practice, then it's not really a big deal in practice.

Re:Can you trust 37signals with your password? by tptacek on Saturday May 02, 2009 @12:30PM (#589982)
Note that I might not be "the most active security professional on HN", but am certainly "the security professional most active on HN". There's a big difference. ;)

Note: I don't know who this "kubrick" person is, because he won't tell us, but "CISO of a financial institution or not", he's wrong about the OWASP Top 10.

Neither "broken authentication" nor "poor encryption" "top vulnerabilities" discuss password encryption. "Storing plaintext passwords" is not an OWASP Top 10 flaw.

"A7 Broken Authentication and Session Management" is a proxy for session fixation, and the catch-all category for things like "cookies that store the bit that tells the app whether you're the admin. It mentions passwords repeatedly without ever recommending they be encrypted; in fact, by talking about "Question and Answer" features, it tacitly acknowledges the practice.

"A8 Insecure Cryptographic Storage" means "don't invent your own crypto", and now also "don't use MD5". It mentions passwords zero times; the only thing it says need to be encrypted are credit cards. This makes sense, because if it said anything else, no real-world web app would pass muster.

Having said all that, I wouldn't put much stock in the OWASP Top 10 either. It's the most popular list of web flaws, but it isn't the most complete, nor is it the most coherent. It's not like there's science behind it.

Re:Can you trust 37signals with your password? by ryanwaggoner on Saturday May 02, 2009 @12:16PM (#589964)
On the contrary, it's a big deal to me because it's my password and I judge that it's being stored in an insecure manner. I really appreciate Thomas's expertise, but since my data is at risk as a customer, my opinion is really the one that counts.
Re:Can you trust 37signals with your password? by axod on Saturday May 02, 2009 @01:05PM (#590014)
If you're not already using different passwords for each website, you can't really complain too much.
Re:Can you trust 37signals with your password? by ErrantX on Saturday May 02, 2009 @01:21PM (#590034)
but it's still the password for THAT site.
Re:Can you trust 37signals with your password? by axod on Saturday May 02, 2009 @01:36PM (#590045)
Sure, but if someones managed to hack into the server, they can steal your account regardless of if the password is plain text or not.
Re:Can you trust 37signals with your password? by mdg on Saturday May 02, 2009 @05:22PM (#590223)
no its cool, they use macs