They’re likely storing hashes. Which you can derive from the password.
Comment on Former IT contractor convicted for wiping 96 US government databases
floofloof@lemmy.ca 20 hours ago
According to court evidence, the incident began on Feb. 1, 2025, when Muneeb Akhter asked his brother for the plaintext password of a user who had submitted a complaint through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Public Portal. Sohaib allegedly queried the EEOC database to retrieve the credentials, which were then used to access the victim’s email account without authorization.
That shouldn’t be possible. Why were they storing passwords in plain text?
alia@nord.pub 17 hours ago
dabster291@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
You can’t un-hash a hash back into plaintext, though…
Overwrite7445@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
Still possible to find the plaintext using rainbow tables. Especially so if hashed without a salt and using MD5.
Do you really think they implemented proper password hashing?
alia@nord.pub 5 hours ago
From the article: “According to court evidence, the incident began on Feb. 1, 2025, when Muneeb Akhter asked his brother for the plaintext password of a user who had submitted a complaint through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Public Portal.”
shiftymccool@piefed.ca 3 hours ago
Copying and pasting doesn’t prove your point. HOW did they get the plain text password? Hashes aren’t reversible so they must be stored in plain text or are encrypted in a reversible fashion which is an amateur move as well. Either way, they somehow had access to the user’s password which is a huge no-no
deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 18 hours ago
So can tell them what it is when they forget it. Duh.