back to article Adobe shuts down Connect user forum, confirms passwords raided

Adobe has admitted that its Connectusers.com forum database was compromised, exposing password information about users of its conferencing technology in the process. Potentially exposed passwords were hashed using MD5, but it's not clear whether or not they were salted, an extra security precaution that thwarts brute force …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not adobe related I think, but I received an email today with my [quite frequently used, but not a word, nor based on one] password as the recipient name..... I think it's fairly reasonable to say someone who doesn't hash/salt their passwords at all has been hacked.

  2. PJ H
    Facepalm

    MD5???

    "Potentially exposed passwords were hashed using MD5, but it's not clear whether or not they were salted..."

    At first blush, if all they're using is a single round of MD5, salting will matter very little difference.

    Idiots.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One wonders what they future of Adobe is? they need to get real. Their software is massively overpriced, bloaty and it seems they can't even administer a forum correctly either, what's the "premium" price for?

    It's a shame they bought Macromedia.

  4. dgurney

    What about this stupid policy?

    "An advisory from the software giant goes on remind everyone to use different login credentials across different websites and services."

    Yes, but some amateur-hour companies force you to use YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS as a user ID. This policy is a security disaster, in addition to being annoying for users. Look at the numerous debacles already: http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/forcing-people-to-use-e-mail-address-as.html

    1. pixl97
      Facepalm

      Re: What about this stupid policy?

      In the nature of a full database breech, what would matter then is how many people use the same username across websites. It's not uncommon for people to use the same handle across many websites, in which the outcome is the same. Also, when the full database is taken, they'll get the email account associated with the user anyway.

      That also doesn't stop the more in depth hacker from searching any hacked forums by user to see if they leak other usernames and handles to search.

      It still boils down to not sharing passwords across sites, and if possible, using a different email on each site.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No salt

    These passwords are easily deciphered as Adobe did NOT use any salting at all, only MD5 hashing.

    You can verify this yourself with the dumped password hashes on any MD5 decrypting service online such as http://www.md5decrypter.co.uk.

    Here are some example passwords from this Adobe dump:

    dd1d0b2af2fa511bbf2d779170e48e87 -> hawaii12

    404cd280d0ad67426bf5905b014bf78a -> landoc

    eb412907dbcfed8a86419f8f5e786ca0 -> freed0m

    25ee0c0c5392c0faf8d475917da10ba4 -> murphy

    50be2cd4cd1fa5ecece20d0c73476029 -> austin15

    9bef6a2f98f4033eea83fbd76902fa63 -> boinks

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