Best Practices in Online User Authentication: an Analysis
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BEST PRACTICES IN ONLINE USER AUTHENTICATION: AN ANALYSIS AND SURVEY by Fatema Bannat Wala A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering Summer 2015 © 2015 Fatema Bannat Wala All Rights Reserved ProQuest Number: 1602374 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ProQuest 1602374 Published by ProQuest LLC (2015). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106 - 1346 BEST PRACTICES IN ONLINE USER AUTHENTICATION: AN ANALYSIS AND SURVEY by Fatema Bannat Wala Approved: __________________________________________________________ Dr. Chase Cotton, Ph.D. Professor in charge of thesis on behalf of the Advisory Committee Approved: __________________________________________________________ Kenneth E. Barner, Ph.D. Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Approved: __________________________________________________________ Babatunde A. Ogunnaike, Ph.D. Dean of the College of Engineering Approved: __________________________________________________________ James G. Richards, Ph.D. Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To Chase Cotton: Dr. Cotton has given me the great opportunity to work in the cyber-security domain under his supervision, which is my field of interest. He has provided the right direction to my research and guided me throughout my master’s. I feel lucky and, I am grateful to have him as my Advisor, He helped me to choose the courses relevant to my field of study and always provided answers to my queries. When I started, I had very little knowledge in cyber-security, but Dr. Cotton helped me to grow my knowledge base and because of his incredible experience in cyber- security domain, I have learned a lot from him down the road. I would not have been able to achieve what I have achieved without him. He is an amazing mentor and a great person. To Fouad Kiamilev: Dr. Kiamilev always provided moral support and the boost required to achieve what I wanted to. The meetings with him were always focused on how to overcome weaknesses and improve the overall performance in the work environment. The weekly feedback always enhanced my quality of work, and the motivation provided always kept me going. To Willett Kempton: I would like to thank him for giving me the opportunity to work in one of the brightest research groups in the department and to be a part of a group of great individuals, who go out of their way to help anyone out. He helped me to sharpen my programming skills in parallel with my course work. It was an unforgettable experience working with the V2G group. This work was supported in part by NSF CNF FIA funding #1040614. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................. viii ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................. ix Chapter 1 OVERVIEW................................................................................................... 1 2 COMMON ATTACKS ................................................................................... 7 2.1 Motivation ............................................................................................. 7 2.2 Common Attacks ................................................................................... 9 2.2.1 Brute Force............................................................................... 10 2.2.2 Denial of Service (DOS) ........................................................... 12 2.2.3 Phishing Attack ........................................................................ 13 3 SECURITY BEST PRACTICES SURVEY .................................................. 15 3.1 Category: Password Selection .............................................................. 15 3.1.1 Applicable To ........................................................................... 15 3.1.1.1 Best Practice: Minimum Password Requirements ....... 16 3.1.1.1.1 Minimum Length Restriction .................... 16 3.1.1.1.2 Special Character Inclusion ....................... 17 3.1.1.1.3 Number Inclusion ..................................... 19 3.1.1.1.4 Upper & Lowercase Letter Inclusion......... 21 3.1.1.2 Best Practice: Disallow Common String ..................... 24 3.1.1.3 Best Practice: Account Activation Check ................... 27 3.1.1.4 Best Practice: 2FA For Login ..................................... 30 3.1.1.5 Best Practice: CAPTCHA While AccountCreation ..... 34 3.1.1.6 Best Practice: Show Password Strengthbar ................. 36 3.2 Category: Bad logins Protection ........................................................... 38 3.2.1 Applicable To ........................................................................... 38 3.2.1.1 Best Practice: Restrict Maximum Bad logins .............. 39 iv 3.2.1.2 Best Practice: Slowdown With CAPTCHA ................ 41 3.2.1.3 Best Practice: Slowdown with timeout ....................... 44 3.2.1.4 Best Practice: Bad Login ErrorMessage ..................... 47 3.2.1.5 Best Practice: No Timing Difference Loading Pages .. 51 3.2.1.6 Best Practice: Notification Of Bad Logins .................. 52 3.3 Category: Password Recovery .............................................................. 55 3.3.1 Applicable To ........................................................................... 55 3.3.1.1 Best Practice: 2FA For Password Reset ...................... 55 3.3.1.2 Best Practice: Use Of Recovery Email Address .......... 58 3.3.1.3 Best Practice: No Password Hint In Recovery Email .. 61 3.3.1.4 Best Practice: No Account Info In Recovery Email .... 64 3.3.1.5 Best Practice: No Personal Security Questions For Recovery .................................................................... 67 3.3.1.6 Best Practice: No Random emailId/Phone For Recovery .................................................................... 70 3.3.1.7 Best Practice: Timeout The Recovery URL ................ 73 3.3.1.8 Best Practice: No Part Of Email/Phone Shown While Recovery .................................................................... 76 3.3.1.9 Best Practice: Password Reset Notification ................ 79 3.3.1.10 Best Practice: Recovery EmailID/Phone Change Notification ................................................................ 80 3.4 Category: Service Authenticity............................................................. 83 3.4.1 Applicable To ........................................................................... 83 3.4.1.1 Best Practice: User Personal Security Image and Caption ...................................................................... 83 3.5 Category: Suggested New Best Practices .............................................. 85 3.5.1 Applicable To ........................................................................... 85 3.5.1.1 Best Practice: Uncommon Username For Login ......... 85 3.5.1.2 Best Practice: Mandatory Upgrade Of Password After New Password Policy ........................................ 87 3.5.1.3 Best Practice: Mandatory Password Hash Salting. ...... 90 3.5.1.4 Best Practice: Periodic Password Reset ...................... 92 4 ONLINE SERVICE PROVIDERS – A SURVEY ........................................ 94 v 4.1 The Comparison Table as of 1/20/15 .................................................... 95 4.2 Discussion on findings ........................................................................107 4.2.1 Online Cloud service providers ................................................107 4.2.2 Social Media service providers ................................................109 4.2.3 E-commerce service providers .................................................111 4.3 A Discussion on Timeout Versus CAPTCHA (study from the survey) 113 4.4 A Discussion on 2-Factor Authentication (Dropbox case study) ..........115 5 CONCLUSION ...........................................................................................117 5.1 Summary of Best Practices ..................................................................119 6 FUTURE WORK ........................................................................................123 6.1 Tool for Automated Auditing ..............................................................123 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................126 Appendix CURRENT PUBLISHED BEST PRACTICES ............................................129 vi LIST OF TABLES 4.1 Comparing online services with best practices: PasswordSelection ............... 95 4.2 Comparing online services with best practices: Bad P/w Attempts ................ 98 4.3 Comparing online services with best practices: Password Recovery .............101 vii LIST OF FIGURES 3.1 Minimum password requirements .......................................................