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Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2013 14:16:27 -0700
From: Chris Palmer <snackypants@...il.com>
To: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Cc: Rich Felker <dalias@...ifal.cx>
Subject: Re: Source of bad password hashing practices? MySQL manual...
There is more bad advice on that page:
"""
...Even passwords like“xfish98” are very bad. Much better is “duag98”
which contains the same word “fish” but typed one key to the left on a
standard QWERTY keyboard. ...
"""
And then a rather wacky assertion:
"""Invest in a firewall. This protects you from at least 50% of all
types of exploits in any software. Put MySQL behind the firewall or in
a demilitarized zone (DMZ)."""
Ideally, someone (Seth Arnold started; want to finish?) should rewrite
all the bad stuff on that page, and send it to MySQL's security
contact as a patch. I'd remove the password creation advice completely
(other sources do a better job), and change the firewall thing to just
say something along the lines of, "Avoid exposing MySQL to the
internet... if you must, require authentication... if you must, use
TLS or an SSH tunnel... If you use TLS, make sure the client correctly
authenticates your server, such as by checking for a specific
end-entity certificate/key or a specific issuer certificate/key...".
Part of the rewrite should be some advice along the lines of, "MySQL
offers a delightful built-in function you can use for storing
passwords, SCRYPT(). Prefer SCRYPT to other mechanisms like MD5(),
ENCRYPT(), or ... Please note that the ENCRYPT() function is not safe
and has been deprecated as of... To verify passwords, check that
SCRYPT(...) = scrypted_password in your WHERE clause... Do not log
plaintext passwords..." And then give them a patch to implement SCRYPT
and to log a deprecation warning when ENCRYPT is used.
Easier said than done, of course; but I wanted to make the point that
Rich was right to raise this issue here (or, at least, somewhere).
Does anyone know the right MySQL security contact? It isn't
immediately obvious from a few web searches, but maybe
secalert_us@...cle.com is right? Making that clear, and maybe
publishing a PGP key, is another thing they could do...
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