Why are plain text passwords bad, and how do I convince my boss that his treasured websites are in jeopardy?

Question

I\'ve always been of the impression that storing passwords in a database as plain text is (as someone else here put it) a Very Bad Thing™.

Historically, most of our

Answer 1

Besides the security risks, I wonder what your clients would say if they found out every employee of your company has access to passwords. When it comes to possible leaks, the passwords are at risk if:

• the database is backed up by an external company
• the operating system that the db software is running on has any security risks
• security flaws in any other hardware or software firewall
• any users that have access to the db somehow get a virus that could exploit the data
• the db happens to be on a computer or laptop that is stolen
• a disgruntled employee is fired and decides to "get back"

every once in a while you'll hear of businesses that store sensitive information in plain text and it never ends well. we're all human and prone to error, you can't assume perfection when it comes to security. you won't find any large, profitable company leave room for any risk that can be avoided since anything bad that can happen, will happen...

Answer 2

Here are a few reasons:

• Someone might break into your site. It may be unlikely, and this probably won't sway your boss (I can hear the conversation now: "Are you saying that the site isn't secure?") But it happens, and remember, no one ever thinks that their site will honestly be broken in to...
• Casual viewing of the database by insiders (like yourself): You might not be TRYING to look at anyone's passwords, but you might, during the normal course of your work, need to look through the table containing the passwords. Considering that many people use the same password for absolutely everything (including possibly your boss!) you wouldn't want all of those passwords exposed. Ask your boss if he has ever reused a password on two different sites
• If anyone ever found out that your application didn't encrypt the passwords, they might seriously question the trust of your application
• It costs basically nothing to hash a password (preferably with a salt) into the database, so why not?

Answer 3

In the military it's called "Defense in Depth". The theory is that you harden every layer you can rather than hardening just one layer and hoping it's enough.

I've heard databases like yours called "hard on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside". There are a million ways a dedicated hacker can get access to your database. Social engineering, a disgruntled employee, an ex-employee who decides to see if his login still works, or that backdoor he wrote is still there, one missed OS patch... the list goes on.

If a bad actor gets access through any of these methods, instead of just getting the data, he gets access to every username/password combination of every user of your system, and as someone pointed out, people often use the same combo for every website. So your hacker goes out and owns hundreds of people's Paypal, email, and bank accounts.

Have I painted a gruesome enough picture yet?

Answer 4

There are just too many cases of databases with plain text passwords being stolen: If it can happen to reddit, it can happen to you.

Answer 5

Tell him to consider that in many companies, security problems come from inside rather than out.

Now ask him how he's going to explain to his customers how hackers have stolen their passwords (which no doubt they used elsewhere) next time he has to fire someone for some reason.

Also ask him how much he thinks his customers would like to know that their passwords are visible to anyone with read access to the database.

Answer 6

If 'handing your crackers a list of passwords on a silver platter' is not a good enough reason, what constitutes a good enough reason?