@maple said in Password Changing Policy:
using ip addresses for authentication is extremely risky, even if switch users may not be able to easily access email. ill label a few reasons.
(1.) often, residential ip addresses are dynamic, so theyll change often. this can prevent someone from authenticating.
(2.) when a user requests a password change via email and doesnt receive an email, they are encouraged to contact bdns and submit their ip address. what if an attacker ip logs a user to take over their account? will the sender email address be verified, and what if the user registered with an email address they can no longer access? how will any of this be verified?
(3.) user accounts could be stolen if an attacker on a local network impersonates them.
while the attack scenarios can be considered edge cases, they still need to be considered, especially in a forum this large. someone is bound to run into one of these issues eventually.
instead of ip authentication, i suggest any of the following:
- knowledge based authentication. such as having multiple security questions that the user creates upon registration.
- access based authentication. force users to register with email addresses. for switch users, provide suggestions on email providers that are minimal and work with low resource consumption.
i dont mean to complain or whine about this password reset policy, im just concerned it could backfire and cause future issues.
Thanks for the post.
If you are locked out of the email that is connected to your account, unfortunately there is nothing we can do and you'd be forced to make a new account. I do believe that with dynamic IP changes, we could always look for IP address details, if they do not match then you'll see the same result.
All I will say is I do have a few tricks up my sleeve so I am well aware of the security risks that come from this. If your account is hacked that is a completely different street, typically once we receive a message (or) email that the account is hacked we would begin with ip address information and obviously the rest of the verification things that I will keep strictly for myself and for Maribitt to hear.
The administrators are likely to provide other verification steps as they control our contact emails, this is just a start of what you'd be asked.
I would be looking for users with emails to use 2 step authentication...
I do not believe this hacking situation is a problem as of now. However, I will also look at the administrators guidance on this as it is a very tricky and serious thing to try to fix.
I'm positive our backend is tough to hack into, same with the accounts and the administrators are always quick to respond to these situations.
All reports of hacked accounts are taken seriously, first we will ban the account and leave it up to the administrators to handle.
Catfishing is completely unrelated and I highly doubt we'd have an issue when it comes to password changes. This is why it is extremely important to use emails and use 2 Step Authentication on your emails that are connected to your account!
I have not really talked about these hacking problems you all have stated and we have never encountered these issues.
We could do somekind of co-account thing so you could registered it as a backup account and we'd take note of it, that way it would be completely private and a safe way to do this.
Edit: To be clear, I will look for email services for Switch users to use when I get home from work.
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