Gmail BREACH attack gets much faster but still easy to stop

[sleed]

Security researchers updated BREACH attack that would allow a Facebook Messenger or Gmail breach to be performed much faster, but the overall risk is limited.

 

 

 

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can be performed 500 times faster than the original method.

Dimitris Karakostas and Dionysis Zindros first showed off their BREACH (Browser Reconnaissance and Exfiltration via Adaptive Compression of Hypertext) attack at Black Hat in 2013. BREACH attacks the Deflate data compression algorithm used to save bandwidth in Web communications and allows attackers to perform a Facebook Messenger or Gmail breach to steal secure data. Karakostas and Zindros also made the attack easier to perform with a new "Rupture" framework.

The researchers claim BREACH is now 500 times faster overall, with browser parallelization six times faster and site requests 16 times faster. The attack targets endpoints and uses "new statistical methods that can be used to bypass noise induced by the usage of block ciphers, as well as noise present in usual web applications," as described in their paper Practical New Developments on BREACH.

In practice, this means an attack could perform a Facebook Messenger or Gmail breach and steal secure communications. Zindros said the attack could take weeks to perform although the Rupture framework would make it easier and lower the complexity of the attack.

 

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