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Re: New Hackings Begin ... Security Token or Not.
This. They haven't quite yet reached the point of hacking routers or ISPs to intercept sessions. That would probably allow hacking even PS2, depending on details of how it works. After all, the PC malware can have key loggers too.
But this is why SSH has an initial key exchange the first time you talk to a new host. BOTH sides exchange their unique public key, and store the other key somewhere. Every time you start a session, they send something encrypted with the private key, and if it doesn't match up, it bitches you about the potential MAN IN THE MIDDLE ATTACK and you have to confirm that you want to continue. HTTPS is also designed to identify MITM situations.
FFXI is a bit more complicated, because I think it uses UDP to allow packets to be lost without breaking the connection, so it's not one big stream like SSH or HTTPS. But the main point is that if your protocol isn't secure from a MITM attack, and people are sufficiently motivated, it will happen eventually. And apparently it's easy now on Winderz for malware on your own computer to be MITM.
About the only way you can keep a PIN code secure is to do what the US banks do, and inject an encryption key into the pinpad's RAM, which encrypts the PIN with the pad's own unique key before it ever leaves the (potted) hardware device. And the bank has to have a database of every keypad and what key it's using. The difference with the token is that your PIN is effectively 0000, and the encryption is the same for like 30 seconds, so if they're fast enough, they can use it from somewhere else.
SE needs to go hire some crypto guys, FAST, and figure out how to secure the password/account information related parts of the protocol. (They can't encrypt everything, because that's a lot of extra CPU usage on the server side.) Whenever you have an amateur roll his own security, there's always going to be holes.
So anyhow, I guess this explains the recent drop in RMT gil prices. If SE isn't going to block them from spamming us, the least I can do is watch the price to see how much they're hurting.
(Aside: I remember back in the old days of modems, I was shocked when I found out that AOL's protocol transmitted your password in the clear. Holy WTF Batman. I think when they added TCP/IP connections, it was still in the clear at first.)
Originally posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten
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But this is why SSH has an initial key exchange the first time you talk to a new host. BOTH sides exchange their unique public key, and store the other key somewhere. Every time you start a session, they send something encrypted with the private key, and if it doesn't match up, it bitches you about the potential MAN IN THE MIDDLE ATTACK and you have to confirm that you want to continue. HTTPS is also designed to identify MITM situations.
FFXI is a bit more complicated, because I think it uses UDP to allow packets to be lost without breaking the connection, so it's not one big stream like SSH or HTTPS. But the main point is that if your protocol isn't secure from a MITM attack, and people are sufficiently motivated, it will happen eventually. And apparently it's easy now on Winderz for malware on your own computer to be MITM.
About the only way you can keep a PIN code secure is to do what the US banks do, and inject an encryption key into the pinpad's RAM, which encrypts the PIN with the pad's own unique key before it ever leaves the (potted) hardware device. And the bank has to have a database of every keypad and what key it's using. The difference with the token is that your PIN is effectively 0000, and the encryption is the same for like 30 seconds, so if they're fast enough, they can use it from somewhere else.
SE needs to go hire some crypto guys, FAST, and figure out how to secure the password/account information related parts of the protocol. (They can't encrypt everything, because that's a lot of extra CPU usage on the server side.) Whenever you have an amateur roll his own security, there's always going to be holes.
So anyhow, I guess this explains the recent drop in RMT gil prices. If SE isn't going to block them from spamming us, the least I can do is watch the price to see how much they're hurting.
(Aside: I remember back in the old days of modems, I was shocked when I found out that AOL's protocol transmitted your password in the clear. Holy WTF Batman. I think when they added TCP/IP connections, it was still in the clear at first.)
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