1. How Safe are Oracle Passwords?
Quick Tip
Session UGF9198
Troy Ligon

2. Who is Troy? Over 35 years experience in the IT field
Focused on Oracle systems since 1983 (version 3)
IBM – Developer Robot Communications and Complier Design
Ligon Solutions – President and CEO
CitiBank – VP Global Database Systems
PriceWaterhouseCoopers – Senior Principal DBA
Nielsen – Principal Architect
President of the SOUG in Tampa, Florida
IOUG Collaborate Track Manager for High Availability track

3. How do I gain access to an Oracle database?

4. Authentication Methods
Password:
Stored in the database
Externally:
O/S Authentication (OPS$)
as ‘PKI_Cert_Distinguished_Name’ (from ssl wallet)
as ‘Kerberos_Principal_Name’ (from Kerberos server)
Globally (LDAP):
Shared Global Schema in Enterprise Directory
Schema in Enterprise Directory Distinguished Name

5. Classic Password Attacks
Guess
Social Engineering
Watching the keyboard (shoulder surfing, camera)
Keylogger (software, USB, built into the keyboard)
Network sniffer (wireshark)
Dictionary attack (checkpwd – Red Database Security)
Brute force attack (woraauthbf – László Tóth)
Rainbow Table attack (ophcrack – Objectif Sécurité)
Dictionary / Rainbow Table Hybrid attack

6. With a simple PROFILE setting,
What’s the Big Deal?
With a simple PROFILE setting,
wouldn’t the account get locked due to too many failed login attempts?

7. What if I have access to USER$?
ORA10g:
sys.dba_users.password = pre-11g version, case-insensitive hash
ORA11g:
sys.user$.password = pre-11g version, case-insensitive hash
sys.user$.spare4 = SHA1(pwd concat with salt) concat with salt
select password hash10g,
substr(spare4, 3, 40) hash11g,
substr(spare4,43,10) salt
from sys.user$
where name=&USERNAME;

8. SHA1 – Secure Hash Algorithm
Well known algorithm, developed by the NSA, published in 1995, based on Message Digest MD4 and MD5, 160-bit / 20-byte / 40 char HEX hash

9. Of Course it’s Easy if I’m SYS! What if I don’t have access
to the database?

10. Stealth Password Cracking Vulnerability
Esteban Martinez Fayo – AppSecInc.com
Q & A

12. https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/flaw-oracle-logon-protocol-leads-easy-password-cracking-092012

13. https://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/flaw-oracle-logon-protocol-leads-easy-password-cracking-092012

14. What does this Look Like?
After the client sends its username, the server responds with the AUTH_SESSKEY and AUTH_VFR_DATA:

15. So How Would This Work?
Get the SALT (available through AUTH_VRF_DATA field)
Get the encrypted server session key (available through AUTH_SESSKEY field)
Brute force the AES 192-bit encrypted AUTH_SESSKEY to determine the SHA-1 password hash
Once you have the SALT and the SHA-1 hash value, brute force the password.

16. Flaw Leaks Unencrypted version of this Key
So How Would This Work?
Get the SALT (available through AUTH_VRF_DATA field)
Get the encrypted server session key (available through AUTH_SESSKEY field)
Brute force the AES 192-bit encrypted AUTH_SESSKEY to determine the SHA-1 password hash
Once you have the SALT and the SHA-1 hash value, brute force the password.
Flaw Leaks Unencrypted version of this Key

17. So How Would This Work?
Get the SALT (available through AUTH_VRF_DATA field)
Get the encrypted server session key (available through AUTH_SESSKEY field)
Brute force the AES 192-bit encrypted AUTH_SESSKEY to determine the SHA-1 password hash
Once you have the SALT and the SHA-1 hash value, brute force the password.
With the SALT, you can loop thru possible passwords, generating SHA-1 hashes and comparing them to captured hash. A brute force crack of this type can discover an 8-character password
in about 5 hours.

18. So How Would This Work?
Get the SALT (available through AUTH_VRF_DATA field)
Get the encrypted server session key (available through AUTH_SESSKEY field)
Brute force the AES 192-bit encrypted AUTH_SESSKEY to determine the SHA-1 password hash
Once you have the SALT and the SHA-1 hash value, brute force the password.
Now 4. is moot, as it is the password from the brute force loop that generated a matching hash.

19. 5 Hours? Really? A 3-GHz Pentium 4 brute forces the
26-character ASCII namespace in:
LENGTH
TIME
5-character-combinations
10 seconds
6-character-combinations
5 minutes
7-character-combinations
2 hours
8-character-combinations
2.1 days
9-character-combinations
57 days
10-character-combinations
4 years

20. One AMD Radeon HD7970 GPU can average 8.2 billion password trys/sec
5 Hours? Really?
One AMD Radeon HD7970 GPU can average 8.2 billion password trys/sec
oclHashcat-plus can utilize multiple GPUs for exponential performance improvement
Rainbow tables can utilize pre- calculated values to cut even more time

21. 5 Hours? Really?
Here’s an 8-Radeon card computer for about $12k that can brute force the entire 8-character namespace (upper/lower/digit/symbol) in 12 hours!!!

22. Why is this so Insidious?
Wouldn’t the account get locked due to too many failed login attempts?

23. Why is this so Insideous?
Wouldn’t the account get locked due to too many failed login attempts?
No!
You don’t get locked because once you grab the AUTH_VRY_DATA and AUTH_SESSKEY, the rest is offline activity.

24. How to Protect Against This?

25. How to Protect Against This?
Note that this is a flaw in O5LOGON protocol
O5LOGON came out with Oracle 11.1 (client and server)

26. Go back to O3LOGON protocol
How to Protect Against This?
Upgrade to Oracle 12c
- or –
Go back to O3LOGON protocol

27. How to Go Back to O3LOGON?
alter system set sec_case_sensitive_logon=FALSE scope=BOTH;
orapwd file=pwdSID.ora ignorecase=y
grant sysdba to USER1;
grant sysoper to USER2;

28. So Now I’m Safe…Right?

29. So Now I’m Safe…Right?
WRONG!!!

31. Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Alex Kornbust
Pete Finnigen
David Litchfield
Paul Wright
Zsombor Kovács
Ettienne Vorster
László Tóth
Ferenc Spala

32. Troy Ligon tligon@soug.org
If you don't know neither the enemy nor yourself,
you will succumb in every battle.
If you know yourself but not the enemy,
for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
But if you know the enemy and know yourself,
you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Session UGF9198
Troy Ligon