Sneaky security system fools hackers with fake passwords when cracked - hyltontiese1993

A team up of researchers has developed a system that makes it much harder for hackers to obtain usable passwords from a leaked database, which could help blunt the damage from a data breach.

The system is described in a research paper that has been submitted for consideration at the 2022 Annual Computer Security Applications Conference, which takes put on in Los Angeles in December.

Called ErsatzPasswords, the system is aimed at throwing off hackers WHO employ methods to "crack" passwords, aforesaid Mohammed H. Almeshekah, a scholarly person student at Purdue University in Indiana.

Hackers "will hush up be able to crack that file, however the passwords they will get plunk for are fake passwords or decoy passwords," Almeshekah said.

Passwords are typically encrypted when stored by organizations. The passwords are encrypted using an algorithm, and that outturn—called a hashish—is stored.

Hashes are considered safer to store than unmistakable-text edition passwords. It is difficult, but not impossible, to figure out a plain-text watchword from a hash.

To brawl that, hackers use brute-force techniques, which involve creating lists of dustup that could be possible passwords and computing their hasheesh to see if a equalize is set up. Information technology's long and computationally intensive work.

To disregard down on that prison term, hackers use programs such arsenic Can the Ripper, which can draw happening thumping lists of passwords from different data breaches whose hashes have already been deliberate. Those lists grow longer by the day, and since many a users do not pick complex passwords, it speeds up the work of hackers.

When a newfound password is created for a religious service on a Linux system, a random economic value known as a salt is added to that ahead it is encrypted and the hash is stored.

ErsatzPasswords adds a new ill-use. Ahead a password is encrypted, it is run through a hardware-hanging occasion, such American Samoa one generated by a hardware security module, Almeshekah said.

That step adds a characteristic to a word that makes it impossible to restore it to its dead-on plain text without get at to the module, helium said.

ErsatzPasswords exerts a bit of see terminated the salt that is added to the password so that what comes out of the hardware security mental faculty resembles a password, albeit a fake one, Almeshekah said.

The result is that if a drudge starts to drive matches on a heel of hashes, all of the passwords won't work. The hacker wouldn't know that necessarily until atomic number 2 or she tried them to access a service.

Web services are typically studied to cut off hoi polloi after a number of wicked guesses, although ErsatzPasswords can be configured to alert an admin when a forge password is entered. It can likewise be designed to automatically create a fake account when a fake password is entered, allowing an admin to see what the someone is trying to hack, Almeshekah said.

The beauty is connected the waiter side since only one password filing cabinet needs to be stored. "Even if we deprivation to verify the real parole, we get into't need a different file," Almeshekah said.

Almeshekah aforesaid the researchers used a fairly loud hardware security module from Yubico named the YubiHSM that costs around $500. For a large numbers of users, a more advanced type of hardware protection faculty would constitute requisite for better performance, which could cost $10,00 and up, atomic number 2 said.

But setting up ErsatzPasswords on the server side is pretty easy, he said, and the code is getable on GitHub. Information technology's free and is publicised under an Apache open-source certify.

The research paper was co-authored by St. Christopher N. Gutierrez, Mikhail J. Atallah and Eugene H. Spafford, all of Purdue's Information Assurance and Security group.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/427553/login-system-supplies-fake-passwords-to-hackers.html

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