• Articles
    • Editorial Articles
    • Research Articles
    • WatchGuard Articles
  • The 443 Podcast
  • Threat Landscape
  • About
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Contribute to Secplicity

Secplicity - Security Simplified

Powered by WatchGuard Technologies

Stealing Passwords By Accident: When Website Analytics Go Too Far

February 28, 2018 By The Editor

hacking code

It shouldn’t surprise you that most websites track user behavior. Certain software products can keep highly detailed records on user behavior called “session replays,” which including input from a user’s keyboard or mouse, logs of network events and console logs, and even the images from a user’s screen. Websites use this information for site optimization and design, and to mine data for marketing and business analysis. However, these replays can sometimes record too much. According to WIRED, a team of researchers at Princeton University found that session replays often accidentally capture user passwords, despite built-in safeguards designed to prevent this very thing.

Different session replay products recorded passwords in different ways. For example, some systems automatically redacted information in fields that include the phrase “pass.” But if a password field was labeled as “pwd” or was labeled using a different language, it wouldn’t be redacted. Other times the password field would be redacted correctly, but the Show Password feature, which displays a password in plaintext as a user types, would create a new field that the session replay would record. In certain cases, third-party tools would interact with the session replay software in an unexpected way, causing passwords to be recorded. The wide range of problems makes this issue difficult to remediate. Here’s an excerpt from the article discussing vendor responses to the research team’s findings:

The researchers don’t believe that any of the analytics firms they’ve studied intend to collect the sensitive data, or do it with malicious intent—unlike some hackers. And working with the companies and impacted websites has motivated a number of improvements. But they note that the privacy concerns are diverse and exist on an increasingly massive scale. “We’ve had responses from the vendors, they promise to do more on detecting these kinds of leaks,” says Günes Acar, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton who studies online tracking. “But these leaks will happen no matter what unless they stop collecting all inputs from fields. I’m not really very optimistic.”

 This report illuminates an interesting tension between security and big data. The more data websites (and companies) can collect, the more they can improve their products and marketing, but they will run a greater risk of accidentally capturing and exposing visitors’ PPI. Read the full article in WIRED and learn about other password theft leaks here on Secplicity.

Share This:

Related

Filed Under: Editorial Articles

Comments

  1. Zuriel says

    March 1, 2018 at 12:36 pm

    We used software like spectorsoft to gather internal data from our end users like Keylogging, screenshots, and web browsing etc to help enforce corporate policies. But that was internal and authorized. When an external none authorized entity does this its called espionage and we would report it to the FBI. Now website based companies are freely gathering this data and since the terminology for this act was changed from espionage to Analytics making it sound safe seems to be widely accepted by the individual?

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The 443 Podcast

A weekly podcast featuring the leading white-hat hackers and security researchers. Listen Now
the 443 podcast

Threat Landscape

Filter and view Firebox Feed data by type of attack, region, country, and date range. View Now
threat landscape

Top Posts

  • Cybersecurity News: Free Cybersecurity Training, TrickBot Group Exposed, Major GoDaddy Breach, and Russia to Legalize cybercrime?!
  • US National Cybersecurity Strategy
  • Here Come The Regulations
  • Cybersecurity’s Toll on Mental Health

Email Newsletter

Sign up to get the latest security news and threat analysis delivered straight to your inbox

By signing up you agree to our Privacy Policy.


The views and opinions expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of WatchGuard Technologies.

Stay in Touch

Recent Posts

  • The NSA’s Guidance on Securing Authentication
  • Cybersecurity News: LastPass Incident Revealed, White House Issues Cybersecurity Strategy, FBI Purchases Leaked USHOR PII Data, and a Slew of Other Breaches
  • An Update on Section 230
  • Here Come The Regulations
  • US National Cybersecurity Strategy
View All

Search

Archives

Copyright © 2023 WatchGuard Technologies · Cookie Policy · Privacy Policy · Terms of Use