NO.276 You are the security administrator of Jaco Banking
Systems located in Boston. You are setting up ebanking
website (http://www.ejacobank.com) authentication system.
Instead of issuing banking customer
with a single password, you give them a printed list of 100
unique passwords. Each time the customer
needs to log into the e-banking system website, the customer
enters the next password on the list. If
someone sees them type the password using shoulder surfing,
MiTM or keyloggers, then no damage is
done because the password will not be accepted a second
time. Once the list of 100 passwords is almost
finished, the system automatically sends out a new password
list by encrypted e-mail to the customer.
You are confident that this security implementation will
protect the customer from password abuse.
Two months later, a group of hackers called "HackJihad"
found a way to access the one-time password list
issued to customers of Jaco Banking Systems. The hackers set
up a fake website (http://www.e-jacobank.
com) and used phishing attacks to direct ignorant customers
to it. The fake website asked users for their ebanking
username and password, and the next unused entry from their
one-time password sheet. The
hackers collected 200 customer's username/passwords this
way. They transferred money from the
customer's bank account to various offshore accounts.
Your decision of password policy implementation has cost the
bank with USD 925, 000 to hackers. You
immediately shut down the e-banking website while figuring
out the next best security solution
What effective security solution will you recommend in this
case?
authentication database
immediately after they logon and do not store password
histories