Bank Changes Man's Password After They Realize It Insults Them
from the encrypted-passwords? dept
Usually, when you're dealing with a bank, they encrypt your passwords so that no one else can read them. However, apparently that isn't always the case -- and this allowed an employee at Lloyds TSB to change the password of one member from "Lloyds is pants" to "no it's not". The customer actually found the story to be amusing -- but it does seem slightly troubling that the bank, for whatever reason, was reviewing and changing a customer's password. They also forbade him from switching the password to "Barclays is better" and "censorship." Lloyds has apologized, and said the employee in question no longer works for the firm. It also explains why the guy was able to see the password in the first place by noting that on certain business accounts with multiple users, account reps can read the password. This seems pretty weak, though. If it's a business account with multiple users, why not let each user set up their own username and encrypted password? Also, it's still not explained why the guy was looking at users' passwords in the first place.
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Filed Under: changing, cleartext, insults, password
Companies: lloyds tsb
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Password
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Re: Password
Exactly how does Mike propose that this be encrypted?
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Re: Re: Password
And a clear text passphrase is good security ?
What types of financial transactions are "protected" in this manner ?
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Re: Re: Password
By using the common (and as far as I aware) industry standard method of only asking for certain letters from your password
Usually, with other banks you ring up and the computer picks 2 or three letters at random from your password, displays them to the agent who asks you, for example to confirm letters 1, 5 and the last letter
The agent is able to verify you over the phone and does not get to see the entire password
This part I am summising but I would imagine additional checks are put in place to ensure individual agents do not attempt to access the same account enough times to get the entire password and flag if they do
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Good point
I mean, if their system is so slipshod that the password field is not encrypted in the first place then how good could the rest of the database design be?
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Admittedly, that's a small time web hosting company. But I can also attest from looking over the shoulder of my local Sprint representative that when I'm asking them questions about my account, their billing system shows them my password in plain text and requests that I recite it to them for verification.
That was in summer 2007, and they did have a huge billing system revamp earlier this year, so perhaps that particular insecurity has been dropped.
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Passwords
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Verbal verification
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Re: Verbal verification
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After several frustrating episodes with my university's html email service, I changed my password to something similar to "this university sucks balls" and it was the only password the system would accept after several of the common passwords I use were rejected as "not unique".
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This tells me one thing...
EtG
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Security 101
The employee should type the password into a form, which encrypts it, compares that version against an encrypted version stored by the bank, and reports whether the password is good. Likewise if the system is that you tell the bank just part of your password.
Any system that stores or displays unencrypted passwords is not secure.
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Pants?
I always thought that the definition of that word meant; "an outer garment covering each leg separately and usually extending from the waist to the ankle - usually used in plural".
So in the UK, does it also mean something different?
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Re: Pants?
pants Noun/Adj. Nonsense, rubbish, bad. From the standard British English of pants, meaning underwear; also a variation on 'knickers'. E.g."The first half was pants but I stayed until the end and it was actually a great film." [1990s]
Exclam. An exclamation of annoyance or frustration. From the noun, (above).
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