The UK Data Commissioner’s Workplace (ICO) fined the LastPass password administration agency £1.2 million for failing to implement security measures that allowed an attacker to steal private data and encrypted password vaults belonging to as much as 1.6 million UK customers in a 2022 breach.
In accordance with the ICO, the incident stemmed from two interconnected breaches beginning in August 2022.
The primary breach occurred in August 2022, when a hacker compromised a LastPass worker’s laptop computer and accessed parts of the corporate’s growth atmosphere.
Whereas no private knowledge was taken throughout this incident, the attacker was capable of acquire the corporate’s supply code, proprietary technical data, and encrypted firm credentials. LastPass initially believed the breach was contained as a result of the decryption keys for these credentials have been saved individually within the vaults of 4 senior workers.
Nonetheless, the next day, the attacker focused a kind of senior workers by exploiting a identified vulnerability in a third-party streaming software, believed to be Plex, which was put in on the worker’s private gadget.
This entry allowed the hacker to deploy malware, seize the worker’s grasp password utilizing a keylogger, and bypass multi-factor authentication utilizing an already MFA-authenticated cookie.
As a result of the worker used the identical grasp password for each private and enterprise vaults, the attacker was capable of entry the enterprise vault and steal an Amazon Net Providers entry key and a decryption key.
These keys, mixed with the beforehand stolen data, allowed the attackers to breach the cloud storage agency GoTo and steal LastPass database backups saved on the platform.
Buyer knowledge stolen in breach
Private data saved within the stolen database included encrypted password vaults, names, e mail addresses, telephone numbers, and web site URLs related to buyer accounts.
“The menace actor copied data from backup that contained primary buyer account data and associated metadata together with firm names, end-user names, billing addresses, e mail addresses, phone numbers, and the IP addresses from which prospects have been accessing the LastPass service,” defined LastPass CEO Karim Toubba on the time.
“The menace actor was additionally capable of copy a backup of buyer vault knowledge from the encrypted storage container which is saved in a proprietary binary format that accommodates each unencrypted knowledge, resembling web site URLs, in addition to fully-encrypted delicate fields resembling web site usernames and passwords, safe notes, and form-filled knowledge.”
The ICO claimed that the attacker didn’t decrypt buyer password vaults, as LastPass’ “Zero Information structure” doesn’t know or retailer the grasp passwords used to decrypt vaults, and they’re identified solely to prospects.
Nonetheless, LastPass beforehand warned that the security of encrypted vaults trusted the power of a buyer’s grasp password, advising that weaker passwords be reset.
“Relying on the size and complexity of your grasp password and iteration depend setting, you could wish to reset your grasp password,” reads a LastPass help bulletin concerning the cyberattack.
It is because GPU-powered brute-force assaults can crack weak grasp passwords used to encrypt vaults, permitting menace actors to realize entry to them.
Some researchers declare this already occurred, stating their analysis signifies LastPass vaults with weak passwords have been decrypted to conduct cryptocurrency theft assaults.
Password security suggestions
Data Commissioner John Edwards mentioned that whereas password managers stay a crucial software for security, corporations providing such providers should guarantee entry controls and inner programs are hardened towards focused assaults.
He emphasised that LastPass prospects had an affordable expectation that their private data could be protected and that the corporate failed to satisfy this obligation, resulting in the penalty introduced right now.
The ICO encourages organizations to evaluate their gadget security, distant work dangers, and entry restrictions.
Clients must also be certain that they’re utilizing sturdy, complicated passwords, which LastPass recommends be no less than 12 characters and embrace upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, symbols, and particular characters.
Nonetheless, in assaults like these, the place elevated computational energy and offline cracking can happen, it’s safer to make use of a grasp password of no less than 16 characters [1, 2] or a protracted multi-word passphrase to safe extremely delicate data, resembling password vaults.
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