Cybersecurity Project

Saying that cybersecurity is a "difficult problem" is like saying that reversing global warming is a difficult problem: it's true, but it doesn't quite capture how devilishly complicated and multifaceted the problems really are. There's no single reason why creating a more secure global network is so difficult; it in part has to do with the radically-distributed architecture of the Net, in part with some deep flaws computer software, and in part just from its sheer size and importance to our daily lives. (For more on this, see the nice Cybersecurity backgrounder.)

So we came in not with the goal of providing a magical elixir that would make all credit card transactions magically secure and make it impossible for hackers to compromise Gmail's security. Instead, we wanted to offer suggestions with minimal implementation headaches and maximal benefit to users, from novices to experts. This page has a short video overview of the ideas, explains some of the details of our proposal, and even has an alpha-release Firefox plugin that you can download and try out (thanks to Elance for this, by the way).

Overview

We discussed this topic at length in an in-class presentation on January 19. This 9-minute video summarizes and extends the presentation we gave that day.

Specific Proposals

Public Service Announcement

We created a Public Service Announcement for generating public awareness for the cybersecurity problem, and showed in class on January 19. It's online here but is password-protected. Please email us if you were in the class and would like the password. In sum, we don't think a direct public awareness campaign will be very effective. We want to nudge users and change their behavior by changing the way browsers and websites work, not by scolding people.

SafeWord

What is SafeWord?

SafeWord is a real, working FireFox plugin designed to nudge users into keeping safer and more unique passwords, though it's too unstable and unrefined to be considered anything buy alpha software. It's available for download here. To install, save that file to your disk, select File --> Open in Firefox 3.5 or above, and install it. You will need to restart Firefox before it takes effect. Thanks to Elance for helping with the coding on very short notice.

We have created a video demonstration of one of the key features of SafeWord here.

What Are The Goals of SafeWord?

SafeWord begins with a simple proposition: online passwords should be strong and different for different sites, and your browser should help you acheie that goal. Studies continue to show that most users use very simple passwords; see, for instance, this New York Times that gets right to the point. "If your password is 123456," reads the headline, "just make it HackMe." Moreover, most users also fall into the "dirty habit" of using the same password across multiple online accounts, which can lead to a disaster if only one of the accounts is able to be compromised. An extremely detailed analysis of a 2009 attack that compromised many online accounts of Twitter employees is here.

More on The Unique Password Feature

A Scary Story, and A Word About Annoyance

Even readers who are all for stronger passwords in general may nonetheless be skeptical of what can happen to "regular people" who can't be bothered to remember so many passwords, here's a very scary story - which is taken directly from the Twitter attack analysis cited above - of what can happen if users employ the same password at multiple important sites:

1. HC [the hacker's alias] accessed Gmail for a Twitter employee by using the password recovery feature that sends a reset link to a secondary email. In this case the secondary email was an expired Hotmail account, he simply registered it, clicked the link and reset the password. Gmail was then owned.
2. HC then read emails to guess what the original Gmail password was successfully and reset the password so the Twitter employee would not notice the account had changed.
3. HC then used the same password to access the employee’s Twitter email on Google Apps for your domain, getting access to a gold mine of sensitive company information from emails and, particularly, email attachments.
4. HC then used this information along with additional password guesses and resets to take control of other Twitter employee personal and work emails.
5. HC then used the same username/password combinations and password reset features to access AT&T, MobileMe, Amazon and iTunes, among other services. A security hole in iTunes gave HC access to full credit card information in clear text. HC now also had control of Twitter’s domain names at GoDaddy.
6. Even at this point, Twitter had absolutely no idea they had been compromised.

It ain't pretty.

We admit from installing SafeWord on our computer that the aspect of the program that requires you to use a different password for each new login is, well, pretty damn annoying. Complying with its demands to keep generating unique passwords might even require some old-fashioned tricks, like the creation of some sort of heuristic for generating memorable but unique passwords or keeping a card in your wallet with your various logins. But we think that the cost/benefit analysis weighs in favor of life being just a little more annoying in this area, because as our scary story illustrates, there are lots of ways in to our various accounts, and lots of random people out there who would love to hack those accounts for financial gain or to get their kicks.

Why Do It This Way?

There are other solutions out there that automatically generate secure, unique passwords for each site you visit; LastPass is a particularly nifty one. But they all share several key points of failure: they rely on a master password, and they store your passwords in the cloud. Relying on a master password is particularly problematic, because a compromise of that password can lead to the same disastrous chain of events that we are trying to prevent. The only way to truly reduce the risk of this type of threat is to decentralize everything. And if that takes encouraging people to work a little harder, we at least want to make people aware that this just might be worth the hassle.

Extension v. Built-in Feature

Initially, we hoped to build this extension to make a pitch to Mozilla that they should think about building this kind of functionality into the browser. But as I have a now-working copy of SafeWord in my browser - admittedly, it's an alpha copy that's not even close to ready for prime-time - I (i.e. jharrow) see that it's just too intrusive for mainstream users. If the average, busy user gets a pop-up every time he comes across a new website and tries to use an old password, he will get angry at the browser. If this happens a few times, he will probably switch. So right now, the idea works best as an extension for people who really believe in password security and want a little nudge. It will be supremely difficult to think of a solution in this area that can truly capture the masses.

More on the Stronger Password Feature

On the other hand, the idea of adding a feature that helps users create more secure passwords is a simple fix that should enhance the browsing experience for most users.

Increasingly, many websites are giving users some guidelines on password security. For instance, Yahoo!'s sign-up page looks like this:

We think that's great. But not all sites have that feature. For instance, you get no visual feedback if you sign-up for an Amazon account with a weak password:

Your browser can change that easily. Here's the new view, with a SafeWord bar underneath the password field reminding you that your password is weak:

SafeWord even lets you customize the password strength options:

We think something like this really could be built into the browser, and would both add to the user experience and increase security.

"Amber Alert" For The Internet

Even if websites invest a lot of time and effort into securing their servers and user data, few sites take a more systematic approach to cybersecurity and view it as "their" problem that so many computers are running nasty malware and are thus compromised in important ways that can cause systemic harm to the Internet (like, say, when a site is taken offline in a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack; a partial list of such incidents is here). There are some promising signs this may be changing.

We think these are encouraging signs, and they can go even further. What if a coalition of leading Internet sites were willing to share certain information about security threats with a third party organization (like StopBadware), and the third-party would vet the information and then issue certain "Amber Alerts" that all the sites would be willing to publicize in some way? When there's a particularly egregious security hole in an old browser, for instance, if all the leading websites actively encouraged its users to patch it, that has the potential to do a lot of good.

We initially proposed this solution as a unilateral move that individual sites could make - Google, say. But we've realize that if the recommendations are filtered through a reliable third-party, perhaps the companies won't be threatened by the embarrassment of having an "Amber Alert" put out. Sure, there would be negative consequences for a company, just as a company who undertakes a product recall generates bad publicity. But ultimate the hope is that companies will realize the net positive value of this transaction, and that consumers will look positively at a new level of honesty and transparency.

Good Cyber-Samaritans

An idea we discussed on January 19 that was related to the "Amber Alert" system for websites involves educated users helping out their less computer-savvy friends and neighbors with computer security problems just...because. Perhaps there could be a network of young people who think security is important who don't mind hanging around their local library for a few hours helping people update software and patch their security holes. This solution becomes ever-more feasible as a greater proportion of users switches to laptop computers and as projects showing that people are willing to assist strangers - from building an encyclopedia to giving them a couch to crash on for free - for the sheer fun and satisfaction of the experience. Relying on people's good natures could be a new way to make progress on this problem.