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Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2015 04:16:10 +0300
From: Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com>
To: john-dev@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: wrong comment in sha512crypt_fmt_plug.c
On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 06:05:01PM +0300, Aleksey Cherepanov wrote:
> It looks like there is a wrong comment in cryptsha512_fmt_plug.c :
>
> /* For every character in the password add the entire password. */
> for (cnt = 0; cnt < 16 + ((unsigned char*)crypt_out[index])[0]; ++cnt)
> SHA512_Update(&alt_ctx, cur_salt->salt, cur_salt->len);
>
> It is #18 according to
> http://www.akkadia.org/drepper/SHA-crypt.txt
> "
> 18. repeast the following 16+A[0] times, where A[0] represents the first
> byte in digest A interpreted as an 8-bit unsigned value
>
> add the salt to digest DS
> "
>
> The comment is from the original code:
> /* For every character in the password add the entire password. */
> for (cnt = 0; cnt < 16 + alt_result[0]; ++cnt)
> sha512_process_bytes (salt, salt_len, &alt_ctx);
Ouch. This is actually a (minor) security shortcoming in SHA-crypt.
I wonder why they're doing this - it doesn't appear to be in md5crypt.
As far as I can tell, they do it for no reason at all.
I brought this to Twitter:
<solardiz> SHA-crypt running time depends not only on password length, but also on password characters. See algorithm step 18. http://www.akkadia.org/drepper/SHA-crypt.txt
<solardiz> Also, SHA-crypt reference source code comment corresponding to step 18 doesn't match the spec and the code. http://www.openwall.com/lists/john-dev/2015/02/12/2
<@solardiz> @0xdeadb @kragen The unusual aspect about SHA-crypt's timing leak is that it's in an algorithm step that wasn't needed at all
<@solardiz> @0xdeadb @kragen Luckily, it's mitigated by having the salt mixed in as well, so it can't be exploited without stealing/inferring the salt
Alexander
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