full-disclosure - Re: Google Accounts Security Vulnerability

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Date: Thu, 17 May 2012 17:45:07 +0200
From: Mike Hearn <hearn@...gle.com>
To: Michael Gray <mgray@...tcode.com>
Cc: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
Subject: Re: Google Accounts Security Vulnerability

If you provide the name of the account you're logging in to, we can go
take a look what's happening.

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 5:29 PM, Michael Gray <mgray@...tcode.com> wrote:
> Regardless of how you say it works, I can bypass it every time it would
> seem. Again, by using the method in my original post. It's likely you have a
> bug if this isn't the functionality you're after.
>
> I appreciate the statistics but they mean little to me.
>
> Thank you for taking the time to respond. I hope my suggestions and findings
> will assist you in correcting these issues
>
> On May 17, 2012 5:51 AM, "Mike Hearn" <hearn@...gle.com> wrote:
>>
>> I understand your concerns, however they are not valid. You can be
>> assured of the following:
>>
>> 1) We do not see this system as a replacement for passwords. If we
>> block a login the user is notified and asked if it was them, if it
>> wasn't we ask them to pick a new password. In very high confidence
>> cases we will immediately force the user to choose a new password,
>> because passwords are still the first line of defense.
>>
>> 2) We do not see this system as a replacement for 2-factor
>> authentication. However the reality is that the vast majority of our
>> users do not use 2-factor authentication and this is unlikely to
>> change any time soon. 2SV imposes a significant extra burden on the
>> user such that despite heavy promotion many users refuse to sign up,
>> and of those that do, many choose to unenroll shortly afterwards.
>> Therefore we also provide this always-on best effort system as well.
>>
>> 3) In fact it is very effective at stopping the large, botnet driven
>> types of attacks we see on a daily basis and so saying it doesn't add
>> any security is wrong. Since going live the system has successfully
>> defended tens of millions of users who have a compromised password. A
>> single unrepresentative data point based on one account isn't enough
>> for you to judge the utility of the system, whereas we can clearly see
>> the stopped campaigns (and drop in number of attempts).
>>
>> That said, if you have friends and relatives who use Google and you'd
>> like to to make them more secure, by all means encourage them to set
>> up two-factor authentication.



-- 

Mike Hearn | Senior Software Engineer | hearn@...gle.com | Account security team

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