Show HN: SHA-PASS, a simple secure app for password management

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alexbecker.sha_pass

by alexbecker • 12 years ago

4 2 12 years ago

play.google.com

smt88• 12 years ago

I may be missing something, but this doesn't seem secure at first glance.

Assume I decompile your app and look at your algorithm. If there are only two inputs (service name and master password), then I'm only missing the master password.

If I get a couple (or more) of your passwords, I can probably figure out your master password, since I know everything else. That could be done via Android malware or several successful hacks.

All of a sudden, I have a universal key to all of your accounts. That's a worst-case scenario in terms of security.

The risk is significantly lower if the master password is sufficiently complex, but not many users use complex passwords.

alexbecker• 12 years ago

"If I get a couple (or more) of your passwords, I can probably figure out your master password, since I know everything else."

Not really. The algorithm returns a portion of the SHA-256 hash of the concatenated master password and service. SHA-256 is widely believed to be a one-way function (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_function for details), meaning that it is essentially computationally impossible to get the inputs from the hash, or even many millions of related hashes. If such an attack exists, it represents a major vulnerability to electronic infrastructure worldwide.

If you want to give it a shot, the first screenshot uses my actual master password (which I've been using for years). The password generated for "app store" is "35463F2465b%". I'll probably put the source for the program on github.com/alexbecker tomorrow.

Granted, if the master password is sufficiently simple to guess the app is not secure. But that's unavoidable; the entire point of having a single password is that you can afford to make it secure.

Show HN: SHA-PASS, a simple secure app for password management

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