Login without HTTPS, how to secure?

Solution 1:

HTTPS is absolutely vital in maintaining a secure connection between a website and a browser. Public wifi networks put users at risk, and when used correctly, HTTPS is the only tool that can protect user accounts from this vulnerability.

If your host doesn't support HTTPS then a service like Cloudflare Universal SSL can be used to ensure all browsers connect to your site using HTTPS, even if your server doesn't support SSL/TLS. The connection between Cloudflare and your website will still be unprotected, but this Cloudflare service is intended to protect users against threats found on public wifi networks. From the perspective of a penetration tester, not providing HTTPS is highly suspect, if you aren't providing a basic security requirement as delivering traffic, then what other security requirements are you missing? HTTPS certificates can be obtained for free using Let's Encrypt or Start SSL, there is no legitimate reason not to support HTTPS.

HTTPS is vital because it does lot more than just "encrypt passwords". Another important role is that it should prevent the user from giving logging into a malicious server that is impersonating a real server. Using a system to protect the password alone is still a violation of OWASP A9 - Insufficient Transport Layer Protection because you would still be transmitting session credentials in plain text which is all the attacker needs (Firesheep).

1. JavaScript-based cryptography cannot be used to construct a secure transport layer.

2. "Tokenize logins": If an attacker is sniffing the traffic, they'll have the plain text username/password and then they can just login with these new credentials. (Replay attack)

3. "Somehow encrypt the transmitted password": After the person has logged in an attacker can sniff the traffic to get the valid session id (cookie) and then just use this instead of logging in. If the entire session was protected with SSL/TLS then this is not a problem.

There are other more complex attacks that affect both this system and our current SSL infrastructure. The SSLStrip attack goes into greater detail. I highly recommend watching Moxie Marlinspike's Blackhat 2009 talk, which lead to the HTTP-Strict-Transport-Security standard.

Solution 2:

The short answer is that without SSL endpoint to endpoint encryption, it's impossible to do it securely...

One of the primary reasons for this is that you can't do secure crypto in a browser. See this reference - Javascript Cryptography Considered Harmful.

Additionally, there's no way that you can be sure that the source of the credentials are indeed who you're talking to. Meaning that there's absolutely no way without SSL to be sure that there's not a Man-In-The-Middle Attack going on.

So no, you can't do it.

Additionally, don't even try. Get SSL. You can get free certificates. Hosts will usually give you a dedicated IP for a few $$$ per month. And if you really care about security, you'd be using at least a VM with a dedicated IP address anyway.

To even attempt this would be Security Through Obscurity at best, and nothing at worst. SSL is a solved problem. Why not use that solution. Security is not something to guess at. Use the proper techniques. Don't try to invent your own. It won't work...