Google Storing WLAN Passwords In the Clear

First time accepted submitter husemann writes "Micah Lee from the EFF filed a bug report about Google storing all your WLAN passwords on their application settings backup service without allowing you to encrypt them. So far it's not known whether the passwords are stored encrypted at rest, but just the fact that Google can read them (and disclose them if forced by 'law') is a bit surprising, too put it nicely. Already one German university is concerned enough about this 'feature' that they issued a warning to their users."

Comments

Too much trust

[Linux User 33]

I think this is perfect example again that we put too much trust on Google. They have repeatly broken that trust and yet some people continue to trust them. This data also goes directly to NSA and FBI. I think both FCC and European Commission should hit them hard, upto jailing the top executives.

Re:Too much trust

[gl4ss]

you're wrong, they have time and time assured that the data doesn't go DIRECTLY to NSA. it goes through their servers, see, and they get to bill for it.

Re:Too much trust

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Correct. Meter the tap. That's why we have lobbies, my boy!

Now, what is this item? "Central Services"....

"Have you got a 27B / 6 ?"

Re:Too much trust

[kasperd]

I think this is perfect example again that we put too much trust on Google.

Google isn't the problem. The American government is. Which means if you want to be safe, stay away from USA and don't trust any companies based there.

If you happen to live there already, maybe it is about time you let the government know, you are not satisfied with their work.

Re:Too much trust

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

They care DEEPLY.

They are made rich, by doing so.

Re:Too much trust

[Grishnakh]

Not trusting any American companies with your data is of course prudent, in light of PRISM, however this doesn't mean your data is safe anywhere else either: if it's in France, Germany, or UK, they all have spying programs that are just as bad. And even if you keep your data in a relatively-safe country that probably has no spying at all, such as Switzerland or Iceland, that's no guarantee that the company hosting your data isn't just plain incompetent. If Google can make a mistake like this, anyone can.

Of course, since it's impossible to be 100% risk-free, it does make sense to try to mitigate that risk by avoiding obviously-bad choices, like using American companies.

Re:Too much trust

[St.Creed]

No serious company can afford to move completely offshore, out of touch with its armed defense (the US army), unless it has ties to another set of rulers. Social and economic ties to the USA are all very strong for Google. They could never move.

They could move their HQ - I'm sure they'd find out pretty soon that it would be difficult to get the same access to the rulers as they have locally. They didn't go to school with the players, they aren't married to people who know the players, they don't have the right employees, they don't really know the customs, etc. etc. I'm sure you can rebuild Google somewhere else, if you must, but it will only be the name and not the company that moves.

Re:Too much trust

[PopeRatzo]

the data doesn't go DIRECTLY to NSA. it goes through their servers, see, and they get to bill for it.

And if there is one thing that history has taught us, it's that if they're giving your passwords to the government, then they're also selling it to the highest bidder.

I thought about that with the Edward Snowden/Booz Allen stuff. Now Booz Allen is a firm that, besides the government, has a lot of private clients that hire them to do the data upskirting. If they're collecting stuff for the NSA, how much are you prepared to trust that none of that stuff is also going to their private clients. I know if I was some evil company looking for your personal data, and Booz Allen was my consultant, I'd be expecting a little "benefit" from their relationship to the NSA, know what I mean?

The ugliest part of the corporate/government intrusion into our personal lives and information is the fact that so much of it is being privatized to companies who also work for other companies and maybe other individuals who all have their own reasons for wanting your shit.

Re:Too much trust

[gl4ss]

What the fuck is the difference?

the difference is quite simple: with the french you can just treat them as normal eavesdroppers on your tcp connection. like some dude hanging on the same open AP. the solution to that is to just have encrypted connections to whatever service you want to use..

but with nsa and and ms/google/yahoo whoever.. it doesn't matter that your connection to them was encrypted, as they as your "business partner" sell the data off to nsa(forcibly, but they still get a buck). with them the only way is to not use their services - or any american hosted/owned services.

it's not a great difference, but a difference still.

Re:Too much trust

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

World was created five seconds AFTER this post. Writing it is false memory - implanted at moment that the physical universe WILL BE instantiated.

I think I think, therefore I think I am. ;-)

Re:Too much trust

[lgw]

"Fascist" has never meant that, except in the fantasy of socialists who can't accept that the National Socialist party really was socialist (which, BTW, was very progressive on stuff like minimum wage and universal health care and pensions and so on, at least for non-Jews - didn't stop them from being totalitarian militarists).

The "ism" for government-by-corporation is "mercantilism". Remember, for a couple of centuries it was normal and expected for the government to send the army/navy to protect the interest of the nations corporations (each of which would have a government-granted monopoly in its area of business). We may still have mercantilistic tendencies in the US government, but its not accepted (by most) as normal or desirable, unlike a few hundred years ago when that's what government was for.

Re:Too much trust

[kasperd]

For now at least 51% of the voting shares are owned by Page, Brin and Schmidt. If those three wanted to do it, I'm not sure the rest of the shareholders could do anything about it.

You are probably right about that. And those three are smart people, who will think about what they can expect to achieve with such a move. I believe they have reached the conclusion, that they are more likely to reach a desirable situation for their users by staying in the USA and influencing the political system there.

Remember that moving doesn't mean you can be completely unaffected by what happens in the USA, and certainly users who are still in the USA are not unaffected. And at the same time moving away reduces the influence you can have on the political system in the USA.

This is why I turned off backup

[DigitAl56K]

I turned off Backup on Android after discovering this. They're going to have to store them in the clear (or I guess reversible), so that the "backup" is reversible - i.e. you recover your backup or add a new phone to your account and it "just works" with your wifi.

However, there's no in-between. I can't choose to backup certain things but exclude very sensitive things, like my wifi password and other credentials. Given what we know about government snooping and the constant notices of breached databases these days, I just don't want to use the backup feature at all, and anyone who does is taking a bit of a gamble IMO.

Can't we have a sub-option to "also include credentials", at the very least?

Re:This is why I turned off backup

[gstoddart]

I turned off Backup on Android after discovering this.

I turned it off before I ever knew this, because I'm increasingly finding that I don't trust Google -- either in intent or execution.

All they want to do is collect all of your information and use it to sell advertising, they don't give a damn about your privacy.

And that stupid Google+ might be the last straw since everything is trying to foist it on me and I have no interest in it.

But, I gotta ask ... if we don't trust Microsoft and Google, who is left?

Re:This is why I turned off backup

[DigitAl56K]

But, I gotta ask ... if we don't trust Microsoft and Google, who is left?

I am fine with trusting Microsoft and Google, and indeed anyone with a reliable infrastructure, to provide a backup hosting service that significantly improves the experience with my phone in the event of a disaster. I'm just not fine with entrusting them with access to the contents of those backups, especially when I may not even be aware of or have granular control over what is in them.

A backup passphrase that only I know, and restricting processing to the client-side, would be sufficient to achieve this.

Re:This is why I turned off backup

[dj245]

if we don't trust Microsoft and Google, who is left?

Don't even think about trusting yourself. I made that mistake once, and I slipped myself some roofies and date-raped myself.

Re:This is why I turned off backup

[Zalbik]

But, I gotta ask ... if we don't trust Microsoft and Google, who is left?

Why, Apple of course!

/sarcasm off

Re:This is why I turned off backup

[AliasMarlowe]

I turned off Backup on Android after discovering this.

I turned it off before I ever knew this, because I'm increasingly finding that I don't trust Google -- either in intent or execution.

Likewise. Nothing in particular against Google, but the number of entities in which trust is required should be minimized.

I don't allow any passwords or other information to be "backed up" outside my own domain. All backups are local on our own servers and external disks. Remote administration is switched off for the router, and server administration is allowed only from specific LAN IP addresses (router not allowed). Passwords for external sites may be intercepted en route to their intended sites, but only if the route is compromised (MITM style) or if the destination is compromised (thank you, NSA).

Re: This is why I turned off backup

[hawguy]

And you would trust the encryption implementation to protect your data?

If I'm going to use the device at all, I have to have some level of trust that it's doing what they say it does. Whether they put in a checkbox that says "don't back up my credentials" or let me set a password so only I can decrypt the backups, if I don't trust the manufacturer that the software does what is says, I shouldn't be using the device at all if I'm worried about my privacy or security of my data.

Even if I load my own cyanogenmod operating system that I have personally vetted, if I don't trust the manufacturer, then I don't know if the manufacturer stuck some hidden data stealing "feature" in the firmware that I don't have access to.

Re:This is why I turned off backup

[Grishnakh]

It seems to me this would be a good place for the alternative ROMs like CyanogenMod to offer non-Google versions of Android which they've certified (by making all the source code open and available, at least for the relevant parts) to work properly in this regard, allowing you to back up data on Google's hosts, but ensuring that it's all encrypted by a passphrase which Google has no access to.

Re:This is why I turned off backup

[Grishnakh]

It shouldn't be possible to intercept passwords by snooping on IP connections, as long as you're using encryption such as SSL, and not a shitty password-in-plaintext service like FTP.

However, if the destination is compromised (NSA), there's nothing you can do about that.

Re:This is why I turned off backup

[gl4ss]

well the obvious answer to this would of course be a backup application that would encrypt that stuff and then upload it to google drive or office365 or dropbox or whatever. at least that is still an option on android, on windows phone not so much because.. eh.. only ms has needed access to the phone to do the backups of settings, contacts etc..

Re:This is why I turned off backup

[Anonymous Coward]

very sensitive things

okay...

like my wifi password

dafuq?

Look, this is a password that is literally only useful within a few hundred feet of your house. Assuming that you're not re-using it for anything else, what exactly is your exploitation story, here? If I tell you that my wifi password is "frobulate" (it really is!), what are you proposing that you can do with that information, given that I'm some anonymous asshole on the internet?

Re:This is why I turned off backup

[Darinbob]

You can still trust me. Send me your data and I'll make sure no one will be able to retrieve it.

Re:This is why I turned off backup

[Nerdfest]

The sad part is that Google damn near at the top of the privacy trust-worthiness scale. Almost everybody else is worse. If you really care about your privacy you need to avoid all hosted services and do everything yourself.

Re:This is why I turned off backup

[Nerdfest]

Think again. When it's privacy related they're pretty much at the bottom. They do put a lot of money into marketing though, and based on profit margins, I'd have to say it seems to be a smarter choice than security and privacy related spending.

Have an untrusted network

[PvtVoid]

This kind of shit is exactly why, as soon as I got an Android smartphone, I also installed a second wireless router, with its own encryption password, outside my firewall. Anybody who wasn't already assuming that smartphones and tablets are anything other than hostile network actors is an idiot.

Re:Have an untrusted network

[Russ1642]

I only do my top secret browsing through two separate secure proxy services. NSA will never know that I watch My Little Pony.

more info

[slashmydots]

Strangely missing from the summary is the fact that this only affects Android devices, as far as I read in the article. While most phones allow you to easily "show" aka decrypt and view your wifi password for a network you hopped in ages ago, I happen to know that all desktops and laptops with Windows XP-7 do the same. They're also easily recoverable by third party instant decrypts too. So if you think plaintext or reversible encryption storage of passwords is the problem, that's all devices everywhere, with or without Google. The problem is Google actually having your password.

Re:more info

[husemann]

I think the hoopla is about two things:

- google is not disclosing how they protect our data
- google has full access to data that at least I consider is none of their business, so I'd like to be able to supply my own encryption key.

Re:more info

[aaaaaaargh!]

Well, they have been caught sniffing out WLAN metadata with their street view camera cars in the past, breaking numerous laws in various countries in the process, so the idea that they could attempt to "accidentally store" plaintext WLAN passwords is not that far-fetched.

No need for a tin-foil hat, though, when you can explain the behavior to a simple and straightforward "we don't give a fuck about the security of your data" attitude.

Surprising?

[iYk6]

the fact that Google can read them (and disclose them if forced by 'law') is a bit surprising, too put it nicely.

That's not just nice, that's outright flattery. Seriously, who is surprised by this? Lots of cloud backup storage services don't let you encrypt data (or make it hard to do so), so why would it be surprising that Google, the mother of all data hoarders, would want to store and read this stuff?

Other people leak your guest wifi password

[DigitAl56K]

I think it's worth mentioning one other side-effect of this "send everything" backup policy: I basically cannot safely guest any visitor who has an Android phone onto my secured WiFi network without their phone sending my WiFi password straight to Google.

This puts me in the awkward predicament of denying visitors WiFi access, or constantly changing the guest password on every device I have that uses it.

If you're reading, Google folks, this is fricking annoying.

Re:Other people leak your guest wifi password

[CanHasDIY]

Ever consider a dual radio set up? That way, you can have your secure network, and an open net for guests.

Apple iOS

[EkriirkE]

While not storing cleartext, they do store your WiFi passwords in a reversible encryption. If using WPA I think they should just store the ssid:phrase hash instead of keeping the phrase. WEP can't be helped... Anyhow, Apple stores all passwords in their keychain and this is easily snooped. Jailbroken iOS devices can get "WiFiPass" to reveal all the AP & passwords its ever connected to. It's handy when I pass my device to an AP owner to "privately" enter their password but I want to associate more devices, I just load that program and see what it was and do it myself.

Re:Apple iOS

[blueg3]

While not storing cleartext, they do store your WiFi passwords in a reversible encryption.

Okay, let's get a few things straight here.

First, "reversible encryption" is a stupid phrase. There are basically two kinds of encryption: symmetric encryption and asymmetric encryption. Symmetric encryption uses a single secret key to both encrypt and decrypt data. It's reversible (using the one key). Asymmetric encryption uses two keys: one key to encrypt and a different key to decrypt. It's also reversible, but the encrypt and decrypt operations can only be performed with the corresponding key. They're both reversible. In fact, the point of encryption is that it's reversible.

Hashes are cryptographic operations that are one-way. That is, not reversible. Hashing is not encryption.

Second, WPA, WEP, and all sort of other security protocols are relatively simple (read: usable) in that the security is provided by a shared secret. That is, the two parties (ie., your phone and your wireless router) both have a copy of a secret piece of information. That piece of information might be a password, a key, a key derived from a password, a hash of something or another. It doesn't really matter. The point is that the a key aspect of the protocol is that both sides must have the secret.

For these systems, both sides fundamentally have to store the secret in an accessible form. That is, they "have to store your password in plaintext". Or they have to ask you to input it again every time it needs to be used (ie., you connect to the wireless network). Because both sides need to have the shared secret in its original form in order to perform their protocol. That's how the protocols. So you can't really store those passwords in an irretrievable fashion. Sure, you can store that data in some kind of encrypted database, but the system needs to be able to decrypt that database whenever it needs to access the secrets. This means it needs to either store the encryption key to that database somewhere (in which case the database can hardly be considered "secure") or it needs to ask you for the encryption key (ie., a password) every time it needs to access the database -- meaning that what you can do is replace one secret (the stored data) with another one (the database password).

So don't complain too hard when you find out that you can retrieve your saved Web passwords in Chrome (or Firefox) or that you can retrieve WPA passwords from... well, everything. There is, fundamentally, no alternative. (Storage "in the cloud" is another matter.)

Probably the most effective system that provides some real benefits is using system-level support for encrypted databases that is tied to your login credentials. Even better if this is full-disk encryption below the logical OS level.

Re:Apple iOS

[rsborg]

...And how is the keychain "easily snooped"? That's news to me. Please elaborate....

https://github.com/ptoomey3/Keychain-Dumper

This only works for Jailbroken devices. AFAIK, iOS6.1.3+ is not capable of jailbreak. How are you going to get the keys from my iOS devices running iOS6.1.3?

Do no evil

[sproketboy]

But I guess they do a lot of stupid.

So what?

[__aawavt7683]

So what? Concern where concern is due. Do you really think that Google is going to be fetching your phone backups, hoping for a wireless password, then driving to your house and connecting to your wifi so that they can... sniff your traffic? Impersonate you on the internet?

How does this in any way matter? even if the password _were_ encrypted, it's reverseable encryption -- it _has_ to be. So they could just decrypt it, anyway. This is the same as on Windows: you can get a wireless key viewer that gives you the password of every network that Windows has memorized. Further, your computer is probably a great deal more accessible to anyone, especially those who are interested in your wireless network, than Google's phone backups.

As for those who are going to say, "Let the user encrypt it with a password!" ... most don't do that. Most people won't put one in, many will forget it if they do, you can't link it to a phone identifier because part of the purpose is in case the phone is lost, and part of the functionality is syncing to Google services -- so it has to be decrypted anyway. Wake me up again when Google syncs all the pictures you've taken with your camera to Picasa and posts them on your auto-created Google+. That'll be a fun day.

Re:So what?

[Zalbik]

How does this in any way matter? even if the password _were_ encrypted, it's reverseable encryption -- it _has_ to be. So they could just decrypt it, anyway.

Wrong. It could be encrypted with a key that only the user knew. With proper key choices Google would have no way of decrypting

I know some people like to believe that if Google, the NSA, the Chinese or some other group really really wanted to, they could decrypt any encrypted information, even without the password.

This is false. It is still infeasible for anyone to crack Triple DES info encrypted with a reasonable choice of keys.

Re:So what?

[whois]

If you're a company and anyone associates to your corporate network using an Android phone, you've now got a problem.

And how are you supposed to stop this with policy other than blanket banning android phones? Ignore the fact that google is "good guy google" and think about what happens if the database is somehow exposed to hackers, or if there is a malicious google employee who decides to sell 1.4 million wifi passwords?

Re:So what?

[ancientt]

I'm glad to see a few rational thinkers on this forum, but that's not the end of the story. If the NSA or Chinese government really really wanted to see all you are up to, they wouldn't be trying to decrypt your password. They'd probably just hack into your system because they have 0-day hacks that you can't know about and install a keylogger. If you're really paranoid and you boot from CD and run everything from RAM, they can still install a physical keylogger if they care enough to get physical access. They'd sneak into your office or home and install a keylogger or other monitoring service. If they're really really interested, they'd put a device in your wall or monitor so that they can see what you do as you do it and closed blinds and RAM only OS isn't enough to keep them from getting the info. There could be a device in my monitor and in the keyboard connection and in my mouse connection right now and if they really really care enough to send the very best, I'd have no way of knowing they can see eveything my screen shows and every thing my keyboard types and every movement my mouse makes.

What you can do is determine what level of paranoia is justified:

• Boot only with a password provided to BIOS with password protection for changes and also alarm on case opening - makes the attacker have to have the expense of physical access and expensive parts to see what you're typing or an unusual BIOS hack
• Use a secure unusual system - makes the attacker have to have a less well tested toolset for breaking into the system with bonus points for a custom port knock system
• Run your OS from RAM - makes physical snooping practically required
• Work in a faraday cage - makes the attacker need something complex in order to get a signal sufficient to watch active sessions

So you have carefully reviewed Slax (OS from RAM) and made some modifications, and your computer is set to boot only from CD and only with a password, and you set it to alarm for an opened case and you put it all inside a closet with a variety of secret alarms and you've made the closet a pretty solid faraday cage. You modified a firefox browser and you only connect to the internet through a VPN to Switzerland and only through a proxy in Romania and you only go to secured sites.. now what? How can this system still be compromised by a determined NSA agent?

NSA agent does the following:

• Gives your SSL providers a letter - SSL compromised
• Breaks into your house and BIOS because they're really good at detecting potential alarms and bypassing them
• Sets up a keylogger and remote screen monitor
• Hacks the ISP for the Swiss VPN and substitues their own proxy for the Romanian one, a feat requiring them to pay one of the proxy guys a couple dozen bitcoins
• Wait

The NSA agent now sees everything you do, everything you type and can show you anything they like on your screen.... if they really, really want to.

New device every day

[Overzeetop]

This is why, at the end of each day, I use a sledge hammer to pound my phone, all my computers, my wireless equipment, and my ISP interface into little pieces and then put them all in a 3000 degree furnace before burying them in the backyard. Each morning I get up and install all new equipment, then reinstall everything from the original CDs, creating a day-unique username and password for everything. Sure, it takes a while, and costs a few thousand dollars a day, and restoring my 5TB movie server from backup is a pain, but it's the price I pay for convenience and privacy.

Situation may not be as it appears

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Looking at the comments in the first link in the original post is useful. One comment says that the only thing the panicked bug reporter knows is that the WLAN password was retrieved in the clear, but it could be that this information actually is encrypted but the retrieval decrypted it. In other words, things may not necessarily be as the original post and the bug reporter suggest. There is a chance that things are exactly as bad as suggested though. At this point only Google can say for sure how it is.

Re:Situation may not be as it appears

[swillden]

One comment says that the only thing the panicked bug reporter knows is that the WLAN password was retrieved in the clear, but it could be that this information actually is encrypted but the retrieval decrypted it.

Google uses SSL for basically everything, so it was almost certainly SSL-encrypted in transit.

Works as intended

[Anonymous Coward]

I backup data to a server, I restore data to my phone. OMG!!! They are storing my data noes!!!! This is just fear mongering.

Google Is providing a data backup service (which is opt-in at first boot) that backs up your data and you'd like them to encrypt the data then, what delete the key? Maybe have you type in a second password? Seriously, why make the android first boot process more cumbersome.

Re:wifi route with guest account support

[oPless]

Sounds like what you need is WPA Enterprise :P

Suspicion !== fact

[tomxor]

seriously what the fuck...

Title: "Google Storing WLAN Passwords In the Clear"

Post: "So far it's not known whether the passwords are stored encrypted"

fuck you "husemann", i don't care if this is about google or MS that everyone loves to hate, it's BS and so are you. by your logic I might as well make this post:

Airbags cause heads to fill with raisins and explode:

... it is not yet known if airbags cause heads to fill with raisins and explode.

Encryption is no panacea

[Arker]

Here's the thing. Even if you encrypt the data before giving it to them, and dont keep the key (which is much harder to do than to say) so what? Do you really think any encryption algorithm you are going to use today will stand up to the tools available to script-kiddies in 5 or 10 years? You do understand that once you put something 'in the cloud' it's probably never going away, right?

Re:Encryption is no panacea

[swillden]

Do you really think any encryption algorithm you are going to use today will stand up to the tools available to script-kiddies in 5 or 10 years?

Yes.

http://www.keylength.com/en/4/

Re:Encryption is no panacea

[Arker]

Even assuming there is no way to break it except brute force, processor power has been increasing exponentially for a long time. If that continues, it will indeed be possible for script kiddies to brute force your encryption before many more years have passed.

Re:No passwords.

[dltaylor]

And MAC spoofing has been around since 5 minutes after MACs were invented. The wired is a little better, until they (whoever "they" are) install a passive tap.

Re:Wifi

[Dynedain]

The WiFi standards do. Check for WPA Enterprise in your security config. Every wifi router I've messed with supports it.

Downside is it requires you to run a separate authentication server (usually RADIUS) to support it.