[16654] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: AOL Help : About =?ISO-8859-1?Q?AOL=AE_PassCode?=
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joerg Schneider)
Thu Jan 6 19:51:33 2005
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2005 11:44:02 +0100
From: Joerg Schneider <js@joergschneider.com>
To: Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de>
Cc: Ian G <iang@systemics.com>, cryptography@metzdowd.com,
cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net
In-Reply-To: <87pt0k6dn1.fsf@deneb.enyo.de>
Florian Weimer wrote:
> I think you can forward the PassCode to AOL once the victim has
> entered it on a phishing site. Tokens =E0 la SecurID can only help if
Indeed.
> the phishing schemes *require* delayed exploitation of obtained
> credentials, and I don't think we should make this assumption. Online
> MITM attacks are not prevented.
So, PassCode and similar forms of authentication help against the=20
current crop of phishing attacks, but that is likely to change if=20
PassCode gets used more widely and/or protects something of interest to=20
phishers.
Actually I have been waiting for phishing with MITM to appear for some=20
time (I haven't any yet - if somebody has, I'd be interested to hear=20
about), because it has some advantages for the attacker:
* he doesn't have to bother to (partially) copy the target web site
* easy to implement - plug an off-the-shelf mod_perl module for reverse=20
proxy into your apache and add 10 minutes for configuration. You'll find =
the passwords in the log file. Add some simple filters to attack PassCode=
=2E
* more stealthy, because users see exactly, what they are used to, e.g.=20
for online banking they see account balance etc. To attack money=20
transfers protected by PassCode, the attacker could substitute account=20
and amount and manipulate the server response to show what was entered=20
by user.
Assuming that MITM phishing will begin to show up and agreeing that=20
PassCode over SSL is not the solution - what can be done to counter=20
those attacks?
Mutual authentication + establishment of a secure channel should do the=20
trick. SSL with client authentication comes to my mind...
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