RE: Account Lockouts

"WebAppSecurity [Technicalinfo.net]" <[email protected]> Thu, 2 Dec 2004 09:51:51 -0000
Newsgroups gmane.comp.security.programming,gmane.comp.security.web-applications
Organization [Technicalinfo.net]
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hi Harrison,

Checkout the section on "Account Lockout" in
http://www.technicalinfo.net/papers/CustomHTMLAUthentication.html

Cheers,

Gunter 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harrison Gladden [mailto:[email protected]] 
> Sent: 01 December 2004 17:52
> To: [email protected]; [email protected]
> Subject: Account Lockouts
> 
> Hello all, 
> 
> My question to the group is about handling account lock outs. 
>  Here's the situation, assume there is a web interface that 
> lets users log in and do stuff, but the log-in process is 
> constrained by the network restrictions as well.. Meaning if 
> a user tries to log in X times in Y seconds and fails each 
> time, then the account get locked out.
> 
> What are successfull techniques that could be used on the web 
> interface to avoid having a script run against it that would 
> potentially lock out 15000 user accounts, and create a 
> headache for the system administrators who have to manually 
> unlock each account?
> 
> Also assume the current user account names are known by everyone.  
> 
> Possible techniques we've thrown around:
> 1)  Allow each user to pick their own username instead of 
> using a standard (i.e. First 3 letters of first name + Full last name)
> 
> 2) Create a set time-out period  for each account of  X 
> (maybe an hour) 
> 
> 
> Hopefully my question makes sense.  
> 
> Thanks,
> Harrison
> --
> ___________________________________
> Harrison Gladden <[email protected]>
> Computer Engineer & Science Major
> ~Past experience: He who never makes 
>    mistakes, never did anything that's worth.~
>