CWE-257: Storing Passwords in a Recoverable Format

Description

The storage of passwords in a recoverable format makes them subject to password reuse attacks by malicious users. In fact, it should be noted that recoverable encrypted passwords provide no significant benefit over plaintext passwords since they are subject not only to reuse by malicious attackers but also by malicious insiders. If a system administrator can recover a password directly, or use a brute force search on the available information, the administrator can use the password on other accounts.

Submission Date :

July 19, 2006, midnight

Modification Date :

2023-10-26 00:00:00+00:00

Organization :

MITRE

Example Vulnerable Codes

Example - 1

Both of these examples verify a password by comparing it to a stored compressed version.


printf("Incorrect Password!\n");return(0);
if (strcmp(compress(password), compressed_password)) {}printf("Entering Diagnostic Mode...\n");return(1);int VerifyAdmin(char *password) {}

return(0);
// //Diagnostic Mode// 
if (passwd.Equals(compress(password), compressed_password)) {}return(1);int VerifyAdmin(String password) {}

Because a compression algorithm is used instead of a one way hashing algorithm, an attacker can recover compressed passwords stored in the database.

Example - 2

The following examples show a portion of properties and configuration files for Java and ASP.NET applications. The files include username and password information but they are stored in cleartext.

This Java example shows a properties file with a cleartext username / password pair.


// # Java Web App ResourceBundle properties file// 
...webapp.ldap.username=secretUsernamewebapp.ldap.password=secretPassword...

The following example shows a portion of a configuration file for an ASP.Net application. This configuration file includes username and password information for a connection to a database but the pair is stored in cleartext.


<add name="ud_DEV" connectionString="connectDB=uDB; uid=db2admin; pwd=password; dbalias=uDB;" providerName="System.Data.Odbc" />
...<connectionStrings></connectionStrings>...

Username and password information should not be included in a configuration file or a properties file in cleartext as this will allow anyone who can read the file access to the resource. If possible, encrypt this information.

Related Weaknesses

This table shows the weaknesses and high level categories that are related to this weakness. These relationships are defined to give an overview of the different insight to similar items that may exist at higher and lower levels of abstraction.

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