Over the past few weeks, the portal has been subject to several brute force attacks on random usernames. In the past few days some accounts have been compromised because they used weak passwords. The attackers didn't do anything with any of the compromised accounts, it was most likely a script collecting valid usernames & passwords for later use.
As a result I have tightened up security and some accounts will tell you that you need to verify your email address when you try to login. Please follow the link to have the verification email sent to you, then follow the instructions in the email when you receive it.
Due to the enhanced security you will notice a CAPTCHA appears if you get your password wrong a few times, if you continually get your password wrong, the response time for the login process will get longer - this is intentional.
It would help greatly if you could use a strong password, one that is at least 12 characters in length and contains a mixture of letters, numbers and punctuation characters, no "real" words and no "numbers instead of letters", e.g. "numb3r".
Thanks, Chris
On Sun, 2014-03-09 at 22:19 +0000, Chris scripted:
(Please trim inclusions from previous messages) _______________________________________________ Over the past few weeks, the portal has been subject to several brute force attacks on random usernames. In the past few days some accounts have been compromised because they used weak passwords. The attackers didn't do anything with any of the compromised accounts, it was most likely a script collecting valid usernames & passwords for later use.
This has been occurring across certain subnets of 44/8 for at least 8-10 months that I know of. Recently it's been so horrible I almost was tempted to shut down. 100,000+ frames/min brute force attacks on spoofed IPs were too much to handle. Most of it was udp 53 and tcp 80, with an occasional icmp frame tossed in for good luck along with a few on 443. Local iptables rules weren't enough because the frames were still getting to the main server here. Installing rules at the router was the only help. They're too fast and furious.
From what I can tell they've moved onto 44.154/16 at this moment.
Another option would be to add 2-factor authentication using TOTP. (Time based One Time Passwords).
Users could use either Google Authenticator or Micorsoft's
Here is a link to some php code to implement it.
http://pablophg.net/2013/06/11/google-authenticator/
On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 5:19 PM, Chris chris@g1fef.co.uk wrote:
(Please trim inclusions from previous messages) _______________________________________________ Over the past few weeks, the portal has been subject to several brute force attacks on random usernames. In the past few days some accounts have been compromised because they used weak passwords. The attackers didn't do anything with any of the compromised accounts, it was most likely a script collecting valid usernames & passwords for later use.
As a result I have tightened up security and some accounts will tell you that you need to verify your email address when you try to login. Please follow the link to have the verification email sent to you, then follow the instructions in the email when you receive it.
Due to the enhanced security you will notice a CAPTCHA appears if you get your password wrong a few times, if you continually get your password wrong, the response time for the login process will get longer - this is intentional.
It would help greatly if you could use a strong password, one that is at least 12 characters in length and contains a mixture of letters, numbers and punctuation characters, no "real" words and no "numbers instead of letters", e.g. "numb3r".
Thanks, Chris
44Net mailing list 44Net@hamradio.ucsd.edu http://hamradio.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/44net
Another option would be to add 2-factor authentication using TOTP. (Time based One Time Passwords).
Indeed, but the RSAsecure fobs are quite expensive and other methods, such as sending OTP’s via SMS have their own issues, i.e. everyone would have to have a mobile phone / cellphone. You can get software to run on PC’s to generate the TOTP’s but that just means everyone would have to install software on their desktop, etc.
In a commercial organisation that has a 24hr helpdesk and money to pay for these things, OTP or TOTP are great security tools and I have used several of them on past projects, but I get enough emails requesting help on a simple username/password login system and I’m not getting paid ;-)
Users could use either Google Authenticator or Micorsoft’s
No thanks, it’s not good practice to rely on third party services, especially free ones. They have a habit of changing / disappearing and any network issue between our server and theirs stops anyone from logging in. You also have the issues I mentioned above, i.e. for Google every user would need a smartphone with the Google app, not everyone has a smartphone!
Thanks for the suggestions though :)
Chris
Here is a link to some php code to implement it.
http://pablophg.net/2013/06/11/google-authenticator/
On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 5:19 PM, Chris chris@g1fef.co.uk wrote:
(Please trim inclusions from previous messages) _______________________________________________ Over the past few weeks, the portal has been subject to several brute force attacks on random usernames. In the past few days some accounts have been compromised because they used weak passwords. The attackers didn't do anything with any of the compromised accounts, it was most likely a script collecting valid usernames & passwords for later use.
As a result I have tightened up security and some accounts will tell you that you need to verify your email address when you try to login. Please follow the link to have the verification email sent to you, then follow the instructions in the email when you receive it.
Due to the enhanced security you will notice a CAPTCHA appears if you get your password wrong a few times, if you continually get your password wrong, the response time for the login process will get longer - this is intentional.
It would help greatly if you could use a strong password, one that is at least 12 characters in length and contains a mixture of letters, numbers and punctuation characters, no "real" words and no "numbers instead of letters", e.g. "numb3r".
Thanks, Chris
44Net mailing list 44Net@hamradio.ucsd.edu http://hamradio.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/44net
-- Neil Johnson http://erudicon.com
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