Weakness (CWE)
CWE-916: Use of Password Hash With Insufficient Computational Effort
The product generates a hash for a password, but it uses a scheme that does not provide a sufficient level of computational effort that would make password cracking attacks infeasible or expensive.
More detail
Many password storage mechanisms compute a hash and store the hash, instead of storing the original password in plaintext. In this design, authentication involves accepting an incoming password, computing its hash, and comparing it to the stored hash.
Many hash algorithms are designed to execute quickly with minimal overhead, even cryptographic hashes. However, this efficiency is a problem for password storage, because it can reduce an attacker's workload for brute-force password cracking. If an attacker can obtain the hashes through some other method (such as SQL injection on a database that stores hashes), then the attacker can store the hashes offline and use various techniques to crack the passwords by computing hashes efficiently. Without a built-in workload, modern attacks can compute large numbers of hashes, or even exhaust the entire space of all possible passwords, within a very short amount of time, using massively-parallel computing (such as cloud computing) and GPU, ASIC, or FPGA hardware. In such a scenario, an efficient hash algorithm helps the attacker.
There are several properties of a hash scheme that are relevant to its strength against an offline, massively-parallel attack:
- The amount of CPU time required to compute the hash ("stretching")
- The amount of memory required to compute the hash ("memory-hard" operations)
- Including a random value, along with the password, as input to the hash computation ("salting")
- Given a hash, there is no known way of determining an input (e.g., a password) that produces this hash value, other than by guessing possible inputs ("one-way" hashing)
- Relative to the number of all possible hashes that can be generated by the scheme, there is a low likelihood of producing the same hash for multiple different inputs ("collision resistance")
Note that the security requirements for the product may vary depending on the environment and the value of the passwords. Different schemes might not provide all of these properties, yet may still provide sufficient security for the environment. Conversely, a solution might be very strong in preserving one property, which still being very weak for an attack against another property, or it might not be able to significantly reduce the efficiency of a massively-parallel attack.
How to prevent it (2 mitigations)
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Architecture and Design
Use an adaptive hash function that can be configured to change the amount of computational effort needed to compute the hash, such as the number of iterations ("stretching") or the amount of memory required. Some hash functions perform salting automatically. These functions can significantly increase the overhead for a brute force attack compared to intentionally-fast functions such as MD5. For example, rainbow table attacks can become infeasible due to the high computing overhead. Finally, since computing power gets faster and cheaper over time, the technique can be reconfigured to increase the workload without forcing an entire replacement of the algorithm in use.
Some hash functions that have one or more of these desired properties include bcrypt [REF-291], scrypt [REF-292], and PBKDF2 [REF-293]. While there is active debate about which of these is the most effective, they are all stronger than using salts with hash functions with very little computing overhead.
Note that using these functions can have an impact on performance, so they require special consideration to avoid denial-of-service attacks. However, their configurability provides finer control over how much CPU and memory is used, so it could be adjusted to suit the environment's needs.
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Implementation, Architecture and Design
When using industry-approved techniques, use them correctly. Don't cut corners by skipping resource-intensive steps (CWE-325). These steps are often essential for preventing common attacks.
Source: MITRE CWE-916
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Critical 9.8
CareCam CM2507 Use of Password Hash With Insufficient Computational Effort
CareCam CM2507 IP cameras store the device's root-account password using a fixed legacy password hash that provides insufficient resistance to offline cracking. An attacker who obtains the firmware image or password database could recover the associated crede…
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Critical —
Taylored webhook validation vulnerabilities
### Critical Security Advisory for Taylored npm package v7.0.7 - tag 7.0.5 #### Summary A series of moderate to high-severity security vulnerabilities have been identified specifically in version **7.0.7 of \`taylored\`**. These vulnerabilities reside in the …
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Critical 9.8
Command Injection Vulnerability
An attacker could exploit the 'Use of Password Hash With Insufficient Computational Effort' vulnerability in EveHome Eve Play to execute arbitrary code. This issue affects Eve Play: through 1.1.42.
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Critical 9.1
crypto-js PBKDF2 1,000 times weaker than specified in 1993 and 1.3M times weaker than current standard
crypto-js is a JavaScript library of crypto standards. Prior to version 4.2.0, crypto-js PBKDF2 is 1,000 times weaker than originally specified in 1993, and at least 1,300,000 times weaker than current industry standard. This is because it both defaults to SH…
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Critical 9.1
crypto-es PBKDF2 1,000 times weaker than specified in 1993 and 1.3M times weaker than current standard
CryptoES is a cryptography algorithms library compatible with ES6 and TypeScript. Prior to version 2.1.0, CryptoES PBKDF2 is 1,000 times weaker than originally specified in 1993, and at least 1,300,000 times weaker than current industry standard. This is beca…
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Critical —
GraphQL queries can expose password hashes
### Impact Unauthenticated GraphQL queries for user accounts can expose password hashes of users that have created or modified content, typically but not necessarily limited to administrators and editors. ### Patches Affected versions: Ibexa DXP v3.3.\*, v4.2…
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Critical 9.8
QSAN Storage Manager, XEVO, SANOS - Use of Password Hash With Insufficient Computational Effort
Use of password hash with insufficient computational effort vulnerability in QSAN Storage Manager, XEVO, SANOS allows remote attackers to recover the plain-text password by brute-forcing the MD5 hash. The referred vulnerability has been solved with the update…