1Password ios pbkdf2 goodness

1Password 3.6.5 for iOS is out with PBKDF2 goodness!

1Password for iPhone, 1Password for iPad, and 1Password Pro (for both iPhone and iPad) have just been updated to version 3.6.5. All of the changes are behind the scenes, but they include a great security enhancement to how your Master Password is protected. Different versions may become available at different times in different locations, so if your free update isn’t ready for download just yet, try again in a little bit.

In addition to the security enhancements discussed below, there are a few bug fixes, more syncing in the background, and some images tailored for the Retina display in the new iPad. If you just want the cliffnotes, here we go:

• Improved security. Now using 10,000 PBKDF2 iterations to protect the encryption key.
• Dropbox authentication tokens are now stored in the system keychain.
• Better support for iPad retina display.
• Improved Login filling.
• Bug fixes.

But if you want to learn a little more about what we’re doing under the hood to protect your 1Password data, venture on.

10000 PBKDF2 iterations

Your Master Password on your device is now protected with 10,000 iterations of PBKDF2. What this means is that if an attacker were somehow to get hold of your encrypted 1Password data from your phone (not an easy thing to do if you take proper precautions), it will be even harder for them to run automatic password guessing software against your master password. PBKDF2 makes the mathematical process of checking whether a Master Password is correct much longer and more difficult.

Your secrets are very well encrypted and protected by your Master Password, but these new measures strengthen that protection. You can read about PBKDF2 in an old article, Defending against crackers: Peanut Butter Keeps Dogs Friendly, Too to get more details as it applies to 1Password on the desktop; the same ideas work on iOS devices.

Why change things now?

We’ve long considered using PBKDF2 in 1Password for iOS. The advantages of using it are clear: It provides substantial additional resistance to attacks by password guessing software if your encrypted data falls into the wrong hands. There are a few reasons why now was the right time.

We have faster devices

The principle reason this didn’t come sooner is that, with PBKDF2, unlocking your 1Password data on older devices will take noticeably longer and will consume more power than not using PBKDF2. People running 1Password on first generation iPhones will now have an unlocking delay that may last up to a couple of seconds, and a delay of about one second on the iPhone 3G and on the first generation iPod touch. Delays should not be particularly noticeable on newer devices, and the vast majority of our customers now use 1Password for iOS on said newer devices.

A great feature of iOS 5 and OS X 10.7 is that the number of PBKDF2 iterations can be calibrated to the particular device. We will be making use of that in 1Password 4 for iOS, and we already make use of that in 1Password 3.9 on Lion.

Finding the right implementation

A lesser reason is that the development toolkits for iOS 3 don’t include functions for performing PBKDF2. We try to work with established tool kits as much as possible. iOS 4 (and particularly iOS 5) contain built-in features that make it easier to write programs that perform complicated encryption functions.

That said, we are still able to bring PBKDF2 to 1Password running on iOS 3. Yes, it will be slow and power hungry on older devices, but it is possible because we found a way to take the PBKDF2 function from the OpenSSL libraries and incorporate it into our code. So even though this isn’t in the Apple supplied SDK for iOS 3, we are able to use a well tested and reviewed implementation.

Changes in the threat landscape There has also been a change in the threat landscape since we first developed 1Password 3 for iOS. There are several “forensic” tool kits on the market for breaking into iOS devices. As new ways in which data can be taken from iOS devices come to light, we need to provide even better protection against off-line attacks on your 1Password data.

It is probably far less likely that that someone will capture your encrypted 1Password data from your iOS device than your 1Password data from your computer. A stolen computer, unless you use FileVault or some other disk encryption, means that your 1Password data will be available to who ever gets a hold of your disk. This is why we built PBKDF2 into 1Password on the desktop a long time ago.

But it is also the case that most people use better Master Passwords on their desktop systems than on their mobile devices. And so, in the less likely event that the data gets captured from an iOS device, the master password could do with extra protection. If everyone had sufficiently strong Master Passwords, PBKDF2 wouldn’t be necessary. But let’s face it: a very strong Master Password on an iPhone is a Master Password that won’t get used much.

Elcomsoft analysis

Although we have long been aware of the benefits of using PBKDF2, a recent report (PDF) by researchers at Elcomsoft highlighted how quickly a master password could be cracked without the additional protection of PBKDF2.

Other security improvements

Dropbox OAuth tokens

1Password stores your Dropbox username and password very securely on iOS for automatic syncing, but it hasn’t been quite as careful with the OAuth tokens used when connecting with Dropbox. If this data is copied and used on another device, it would grant access from that other device to a Dropbox account. We have fixed this in 1Password 3.6.5 for iOS.

We’ve discussed this issue extensively in a recent blog post: OAuth, Dropbox, and your 1Password data.

Padding, integrity, and standards

We try to stick to standards when it comes to encryption and protocols, but even well established standards can later be discovered to be flawed. There turns out to be a design problem with the padding scheme used as parts of the PKCS standards. Introducing PBKDF2 (also defined in the same set of standards) gets around the problem.

I won’t go into much detail, but here is a little background into the issue. An encryption algorithm like AES works on a block of data at a time. In the case of AES the blocks are 16 bytes (128-bits) long. Because the data to be encrypted won’t always be a multiple of 16 bytes, some extra data gets added to the end to “pad” it out to a multiple of 16 bytes. The details of the padding scheme have to include some clever tricks so that when the data in decrypted, the decryption process can recognize where the pad begins, so it knows what to remove.

The problem is that the padding scheme has also been used as an integrity check. That is, it provides a signal to the one decrypting the message whether the data has been modified. Padding is not well suited to that purpose, but that usage means that under certain circumstances it can be used to very quickly verify whether something has been decrypted correctly. The attacker is saved an extra decryption trial in testing whether they have “guessed” the right password.

The simple solution is to make use of cryptographically appropriate integrity checks, Message Authentication Codes (MACs) after encrypting the data. That is, the integrity check is performed on the encrypted data instead of on the plaintext. By using PBKDF2 we are forcing an attacker to go through a large number of extra steps with each “guess”, overwhelming any advantage an attacker might gain through the PKCS padding problem.

Processes and products

All this allows me to bring up a point that we’ve made before but will continue to make: Security is a process, not a product. One aspect of this is that a tool that your security depends on is never “done”. This is not the first security improvement we’ve made over the years, and it certainly won’t be the last. But process isn’t only in updating product. Process is about how people do things. That includes our own testing procedures, and it also includes always working to understand how people use 1Password so that we can continue in our effort to make the easy thing to do also the secure thing to do for people.

[Update April 11: Several people, including Quirks In Tech, have correctly pointed out that I should have been much more explicit in this post about the role that the Elcomsoft report played in our decision to start using PBKDF2. Earlier drafts of this included an extensive section on exactly that, but it got lost as I tried to cut this down to size. I’ve added a short section back into this post. -jeff]

Jeffrey Goldberg

Principal Security Architect