this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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Basic cyber security says that passwords should be encrypted and hashed, so that even the company storing them doesn't know what the password is. (When you log in, the site performs the same encrypting and hashing steps and compares the results) Otherwise if they are hacked, the attackers get access to all the passwords.

I've noticed a few companies ask for specific characters of my password to prove who I am (eg enter the 2nd and 9th character)

Is there any secure way that this could be happening? Or are the companies storing my password in plain text?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The most secure way this could happen is them storing the specific character separately. It reduces security of your password if that plaintext character is compromised but you could still store the rest of the password securely.

You could even salt and hash the one character with a large salt to keep it behind a one-way function, and then the agent would need to enter it and confirm via the system, but that would reduce any downside of the one or two characters being compromised.

It's weird either way though.

[–] slazer2au 1 points 1 year ago

Something fun you can do is set your password to an eicar test string. That should break things of they are running any av and storing the password in clear text

[–] breadsmasher 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’ve only seen this as a second factor after entering a full password. Although it has mostly been replaced by actual 2FA now. Last time I remember this type was on the uk gov student finance website

[–] pandarisu 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The 2 occasions I can think of, it was characters from my main password. Both were during contact with the Support teams. I no longer have service with either of the companies (due to unrelated reasons)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did you have to give those characters directly to the support staff?

[–] pandarisu 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On one occasion, yes, over the phone.

The other I was in a web chat on the company's website and they provided a link to a page on the same website where it asked for the characters

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

There are at least two components relevant for entering credentials:

  • the webclient running on your pc/phone

  • the company server

You open a registration page on a website and your browser downloads the application to your device (just like downloading an app from a store).

The application gives you a form to create an account or a login page where you enter the password/username.

The client then checks if the credentials you entered contain the correct amount of special characters and numbers.

Only after that the credentials are hashed/encrypted and send to the server.

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