Re: PostgreSQL Password Cracker - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Tom Lane
Subject Re: PostgreSQL Password Cracker
Date
Msg-id 1331.1041357853@sss.pgh.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: PostgreSQL Password Cracker  (Devrim GUNDUZ <devrim@tr.net>)
List pgsql-hackers
Devrim GUNDUZ <devrim@tr.net> writes:
> I had no time to search throug the code; but as far as I understood, it
> *attacks* the database servers with TCP/IP on, right?

No, the program itself simply takes an MD5 hash value and does a
brute-force search for a password that generates that MD5 string.

The comments at the top suggest sniffing a Postgres session startup
exchange in order to see the MD5 value that the user presents; which the
attacker would then give to this program.  (Forget it if the session is
Unix-local rather than TCP, or if it's SSL-encrypted...)

This is certainly a theoretically possible attack against someone who
has no clue about security, but I don't put any stock in it as a
practical attack.  For starters, if you are talking to your database
across a network that is open to hostile sniffers, you should definitely
be using SSL.
        regards, tom lane


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