Everything You Need to Know About Cryptographic Failures

Quick Summary: Cryptographic failures weaken the security shield around your data, giving hackers an opportunity to steal or manipulate it effortlessly. This article will provide necessary information about cryptographic failures, including their causes, examples, prevention tips, and more to help mitigate the potential risks. Stay tuned to this article for detailed insights.

In this tech-first world, organizations highly depend on digital systems. This excessive dependence makes them susceptible to cyberattacks. In most cases, cyberattacks occur due to poor security practices and vulnerabilities that make your systems prone to such risks.

Thus, identifying and fixing vulnerabilities is vital in securing your digital landscape. One of the most critical vulnerabilities is cryptographic failure. It is listed as a critical vulnerability in OWASP Top 10 security risks.

It is a security weakness that arises due to improper use of cryptography - a technique used to protect data by coding it in an unreadable format. Cryptography eliminates the risks associated with transferring and storing data in plain text.

Like other vulnerabilities, identifying and resolving cryptographic failure vulnerabilities is crucial to ensure the security of your web app. Failing to resolve this vulnerability leads to various security issues. Most importantly, it will leave your data unprotected and could be easily stolen or compromised.

In this article you can learn more about cryptographic failures to reduce your attack surface and protect your systems against potential security risks.

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Understanding Cryptographic Failure

Cryptographic failures occur when there is no proper mechanism to secure communications or information. It is a critical security flaw that can expose crucial information or data if left unresolved. Cryptography is a word created from “crypt” meaning hidden and “graphy” meaning writing.

Cryptography is a technique to ensure secure communications between two or more devices. It is used to convert plain text into ciphertext. Apart from this, it also uses various protocols and algorithms to ensure data security and integrity. It is used to encode information or data before transmitting it.

Just imagine, you use a social media platform that transmits messages over HTTP without encryption or a weak encryption technique. It isn’t hard to think about the consequences. An attacker can easily intercept these messages and read the content.

It leads to data compromises and hacking because it is unprotected and readily visible. Hence, hackers don't need to put extra effort into gaining access to data or information. So, if we have to summarize “what is cryptographic failures” in a single sentence – it is a vulnerability that occurs due to ineffective cryptography that is used to secure data whether in transit or stored.

What are the Impacts of Cryptographic Failures?

Do you wonder what the consequences could be if your web app has a cryptographic failure vulnerability? Well, it’s not hard to imagine the possible consequences. Certainly, the data, whether stored or transmitted over a network, can be easily accessed by a hacker. But this is not the whole story. There are several other threats that it poses in the case of poor cryptography.

• Inefficient and improper cryptographic features can allow a hacker to modify or steal data.
• Hackers can conduct fraud, identity theft, and other crimes by stealing your data.
• Hackers can steal keys in case of weak cryptography to launch man-in-the-middle attacks.
• It is also possible that hackers can gain access to the entire server by compromising security.
• Data breaches caused by cryptographic failure will also lead to reputational damage.
• It will also result in hefty penalties from regulatory authorities.
• If you fail to secure users’ data, you will lose their trust, resulting in a decreased customer base.

What are the Causes of Cryptographic Failures?

We have got an answer to – what is cryptographic failures and what is their impact? Now, another important question that must be answered is “What causes cryptographic failures?” In this section, we will discover the answer to this question. Let’s get the answer.

Weak Encryption Algorithms

It is the primary reason for cryptographic failure vulnerability. Weak or outdated encryption algorithms fail to secure data or information. Consequently, an attacker can undermine the security of web applications and steal sensitive data. For example, a weak security key opens door to vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit to gain access to sensitive data.

Implementation Flaws

Another reason for cryptographic failures is implementation flaws. Encryption algorithms and protocols might have bugs that could arise due to improper implementation. These implementation flaws could lead to security breaches.

Compromised Endpoints

Encryption is an effective technique to protect data at rest and in transition. However, an attacker can breach the security when endpoints are compromised like applications or devices. In this case, encryption isn’t sufficient to secure web applications. Attackers can exploit unsafe endpoints to gain access to text or information transmitted over a network.

Insufficient Entropy

Another key reason for cryptographic failures is the lack of sufficient entropy. It is the randomness in cryptographic code. Insufficient entropy means that cryptographic code will be easier to decrypt. Consequently, there are chances of hacking.

Some Notable Cryptographic Failure Examples

There are many organizations that have gone through a security breach due to failed cryptographic measures. The following are cases for two of those companies.

Facebook

Yes, you read it correctly. Facebook is among the companies that have faced cryptographic failure. In pre-Covid-19 time, it was reported that over 540 million records of Facebook users were revealed. These records included IDs, photos, location information, passwords, and other information related to Facebook users. This incident occurred because of an accidental leak of data by two third-party apps. These applications stored the data of Facebook users on Amazon cloud services without any encryption. Consequently, the data of Facebook users was revealed unintentionally.

Exactis

In another case, a small data aggregation and marketing firm, Exactis, accidentally revealed data of more than 340 million individuals. The database was put on a public server that could be easily accessed by a non-authorized party. However, this incident could have been prevented, had they used encryption and avoided using a public server. The data exposed in this data breach incident included phone numbers, names, emails, and other information of US citizens.

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Tips to Prevent Cryptographic Failures

There are many ways to prevent potential security risks that arise due to cryptographic failures. The following are the tips to prevent this threat.

Secure Coding

Protection against most cyberattacks begins at the bottom level with the best coding practices and standards. There are various security guidelines that developers must follow to implement security within web applications. Secure coding practices help cryptography from the bottom of your web application, instead of applying them on surface-level. Consequently, your web app will be secure from the root.

Evaluate Risks

Another method you can use to keep cryptographic failure in check is regular security assessments. It involves assessing your web applications and APIs for cryptographic vulnerabilities. You need an advanced DAST tool like ZeroThreat to identify these vulnerabilities and prevent potential security issues.

Regular Auditing

You must closely monitor the data stored within your systems. Plus, perform regular audits of your security protocols and data. This will enable you to keep track of who is in control of the data, locations, governance, and overall security posture of the data. Auditing will uncover potential loopholes that might lead to data exposure.

Encryption Keys

Make sure to create every encryption key with the strong use of cryptography. You must store them as byte arrays. Passwords must be encrypted with these keys, or they must be converted into cyphertext. Use a strong encryption algorithm or technique. You can add additional security by implementing lengthy salts for your data.

Design Secure Protocols

You can pair strong cryptographic encryption with a secure protocol design to ensure greater protection against security threats. Secure protocol design considers potential risks and helps build strong security controls. It ensures robust security for digital systems that reduce the chances of cyberattacks.

Use Salt Hashing

Encoding isn’t sufficient to protect your passwords from all kinds of security threats. It is not difficult to crack unsalted passwords. Hackers can use sophisticated tools and techniques to unravel passwords and gain access to confidential data. So, you must use salting to ensure an additional layer of protection. The salting will add extra length to passwords making it difficult to crack passwords. For instance, a hacker can use a rainbow table to crack passwords.

Update Cryptographic Libraries

Cryptographic features that depend on external libraries must always be updated to ensure they are free of potential loopholes. Any weak spots in these libraries can open the door to security risks and compromise the security of your web application. Without updating these libraries, you can put your data at risk, resulting in exposed information or data.

How to Know If Your Web App is Vulnerable to Cryptographic Failures?

A thorough vulnerability assessment can help you detect all kinds of security issues, including cryptographic failures. However, there are also a few questions that you can ask to determine whether your web app is vulnerable to this risk or not. Let’s check out these questions below.

• Do you use outdated security protocols to transmit data?
• Does data not use any cryptographic approach when in transit or at rest?
• Is sensitive data stored in plain text?
• Is the encryption algorithm used by your web app not updated?
• Are you using default keys and configurations for cryptographic systems?
• Do you not follow secure key management?
• Are there valid certificates and secure connections for your web app?

Your web application is highly likely to have cryptographic failure vulnerability if any of the above questions are answered in ‘Yes’. In that case, you should analyze the weak spots within your web application and fix them to enhance its security.

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To Wrap Up

Cryptographic failures are no joke, as they are one of the most critical security risks. Failing to secure your web application against this vulnerability can leave your data unprotected and could result in data theft, sensitive data exposure, data manipulation, and other risks.

While tips to prevent cryptographic failures can help to mitigate this risk, you should also focus on continuous security testing. It will enable you to test your web application to identify security vulnerabilities that could result in security breaches.

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