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Password App Developer Overlooks Security Hole to Preserve Ads (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader quotes this report from Engadget:
Think it's bad when companies take their time fixing security vulnerabilities? Imagine what happens when they avoid fixing those holes in the name of a little cash. KeePass 2 developer Dominik Reichl has declined to patch a flaw in the password manager's update check as the 'indirect costs' of the upgrade (which would encrypt web traffic) are too high -- namely, it'd lose ad revenue...
To his credit, Reichl notes that he'd like to move to encryption as soon as he believes it's possible. You can also verify that you're getting a signed download, if you're worried. However, it's still contradictory to develop a security-centric app and decide that security should take a back seat.
An update on the site says the software's version information file is now digitally signed, adding that KeePass "neither downloads nor installs any new version automatically. Users have to do this manually... users should check whether the file is digitally signed... HTTPS cannot prevent a compromise of the download server; checking the digital signature does."
To his credit, Reichl notes that he'd like to move to encryption as soon as he believes it's possible. You can also verify that you're getting a signed download, if you're worried. However, it's still contradictory to develop a security-centric app and decide that security should take a back seat.
An update on the site says the software's version information file is now digitally signed, adding that KeePass "neither downloads nor installs any new version automatically. Users have to do this manually... users should check whether the file is digitally signed... HTTPS cannot prevent a compromise of the download server; checking the digital signature does."
I use KeePass2 on my iPhone. It doesn't push ads. So why is this a problem?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Listen, kid. Encryption is not a silver bullet. A bulk software download can be served just fine by verifying that the bits haven't been diddled with, without encrypting them. Do that properly and encryption is basically just a waste of cycles and in fact best avoided. As a supposedly smart guy, you ought to understand that.
I can't believe that changing the client to use HTTPS URLs when checking for and downloading updates would disrupt the rest of the Web site that badly. And as far as users using HTTPS to browse the site, that shouldn't affect ads unless the ad networks are incapable of serving content via HTTPS. In this day and age, that should be an issue for only the most incompetent of ad networks.
To his credit, Reichl notes that he'd like to move to encryption as soon as he believes it's possible.
It already is possible NOW, it's just that he decided he likes the ad bucks more than keeping his users secure by using the patch.
Glad I don't use any of his products, his attitude to his users sucks and he deserves to lose the lot of them.
The developer made a post 8 mins ago in this thread about the vulnerability.
https://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/discussion/329220/thread/e430cc12/#f398
Use KeePassDroid, free and ad free, by Brian Pellin
Guest98123 5 days ago
I saw an instant 30% drop in revenue when switching my site to HTTPS in April. The implementation was done right, A+ rating from ssllabs, Google reindexed my main pages as HTTPS within a matter of hours, search traffic and overall traffic remained unchanged.
I poked around on my AdSense account to see where I was losing the revenue, since AdSense was still displaying the same number of impressions. It turned out I was seeing a 75% drop in CPC impressions, and AdSense was running low paying CPM impressions instead.
http://i.imgur.com/acy2k0u.png
That's a graph of daily CPC impressions on my account. It's obvious when I switched to HTTPS. That was over a month and a half ago. It hasn't bounced back.
I'm faced with a difficult decision now; whether to go back to HTTP and inform the community we're going to a less secure system for increased ad revenues, or I need to accept a 30% drop in my yearly income, and hope the situation improves as more networks switch to HTTPS.
So it seems that, when using HTTPS, different ads are served. But it doesn't explain why if this revenue is so important, the developer hasn't yet taken the time to find a solution or workaround.
It is not for the base software functionality. It's for the optional upgrade check, which connects to the website and downloads a signed binary. If you're concerned about the integrity of the binary, compare the hashes yourself.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
"There have been some articles about automatic KeePass updates being vulnerable. This section clarifies the situation and its resolution.
First of all, we would like to note that KeePass cannot update itself. KeePass does support checking for updates (optional; by downloading a version information file, comparing the available with the installed version number, and displaying a notification if necessary). However, it neither downloads nor installs any new version automatically. Users have to do this manually.
KeePass can be downloaded from many servers (SourceForge with its many mirror servers, FossHub, etc.). In order to make sure that the downloaded file is official, users should check whether the file is digitally signed (Authenticode; all KeePass binaries are signed, including the installer, KeePass.exe and all other EXE and DLL files). The digital signature can be checked using Windows Explorer by right-clicking the file -> 'Properties' -> tab 'Digital Signatures'. When running the installer, the UAC dialog displays the digital signature information, i.e. users who carefully read the UAC dialog do not have to inspect the file properties separately. This is recommended for all users, independent of where you download KeePass from.
The KeePass website links to SourceForge for downloading KeePass. However, even if SourceForge (or the KeePass website) is compromised and serves a malicious download, users who check the digital signature will notice the attack and will not run the malware. Note that HTTPS cannot prevent a compromise of the download server; checking the digital signature does.
The version information file is downloaded from the KeePass website over HTTP. Thus a man in the middle (someone who can intercept your connection to the KeePass website) could have returned an incorrect version information file, possibly making KeePass display a notification that a new KeePass version is available. However, the next steps (downloading and installing the new version) must be carried out by the user manually, and here users who check the digital signature will notice the attack.
Resolution. In order to prevent a man in the middle from making KeePass display incorrect version information (even though this does not imply a successful attack, see above), the version information file is now digitally signed (using RSA-2048 and SHA-512). KeePass 2.34 and higher only accept such a digitally signed version information file. This solution is more secure than just using HTTPS, because it guarantees version information safety even when the webserver is compromised (the private key for signing the version information is not stored on the webserver)."
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
This whole kerfuffle is a bunch of FUD. I'm a KeePass2 user. As the author points out, the tool does not have an auto-update feature. The so called Man-in-the-middle only allows you to alert the client that there is a "new" version of KeePass. You still have to manually go to the website and download it. The files are Authenticode signed. In short you'd have to be dumb enough to not notice you were downloading the file from a trusted source or in the event that this was man in the middled, not notice that the file isn't signed or is signed by the wrong person.
I'm sorry, sir, but this is the Internet. Your facts and reasonable analysis are unwelcome here.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I understand that advertising has its place in a market economy, but I can't help but think that advertisers have gone completely insane. They've become stalkers and harassers, if not outright sociopaths, who only become more persistent, aggressive, and disconnected from reality each time they are rejected by the object of their obsession, and I truly think they must have many of the same mental health issues. There are a few rare adverts that make an effort to offer a minimum of entertainment value in exchange for your time and attention, but most display an astonishing sense of entitlement with the way they freely impose nuisance and other costs on their victims. And when the tactics turn out to be dysfunctional and counter-productive, they escalate the aggression rather than reconsidering their world view. They've become addicts who have long since stopped caring about the actual business reasons they are advertising in the first place.
Now they have reached a new level of anti-social behaviour with a new way of endangering their victims.
Just today I went to an office supply website and searched for a chair. In their enthusiasm for trying to blindly guess what else I might want to buy, they showed me dozens of items that were vaguely related to office furniture. They did not, however, show me a single item that was actually a chair.
And before anyone asks, no, I'm not suggesting that this is really comparable to the physical danger that a woman (or man) is in from a mentally deranged ex-boyfriend (or ex-girlfriend) who is stalking them in the criminal law sense. But advertisers are catching up.
Keepass doesn't download a signed or any other binary from any website.
It uses http to get a version.txt and if the number in that file differs from its version, it pops up a notice telling you an update is available on the website.
You need to manually do all the rest.
...if an ASUS auto-update delivers a KeePass update do two negatives make a positive?
When the website is compromised with a MITM attack, the attacker can provide a (fake) download link which downloads a compromised binary from the compromised website, instead of the original binary from Sourceforge. In such case, the user does not know that the file should be digitally signed by a certain author. Instead, the attacker can modify the site to provide (fake) MD5 and SHA-1 hashes which validate the (fake) binary, or provide a self-signed binary. In particular, the problem is that the URL to the download binary and the binary validation instructions also need to be validated, as well as the binary itself. This would be solved using HTTPS.
Note that this attack does not particularly target recurrent users (looking for updates; they probably know how the program security works and where it is hosted), but particularly first-time users who don't know how it works.
"It-id." Tough, I know....
In my fuzzy recollection of years gone by, I think slashdot comments were rather more insightful.
It seems that way to me too, but maybe I was just young and stupid and had lower expectations? There is no way for me to know without going back and reading back issues, and there is no way I'm going to spend time on that.
why the economic model of KeePass has failed so badly?
It hasn't, the developer would just make less money with HTTPS ads. He wouldn't stop making money. He'd just make less off this particular residual revenue stream, and he's not willing to milk it for less than the maximum.