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security flaw in UTM One Time Password

I just discovered a security flaw in UTM OTP.  Here is the problem.

You enabled the OPT and enabled OPT for facility "User Portal" and "WebAdmin".

You sign in to the User Portal at the first time with password only, you get the QR code immediately.  This is normal.  You scan the QR code with the authenticator app.

You sign in to the User Portal again with your password following the 6 digit OPT code from the authenticator app.  You got in the portal.  This is also normal.

You sign in to the WebAdmin with the password only, no OPT code, your access is denied.  This is normal, since the OPT code is generated.  You need password & OPT to sign in.

You sign in to the WebAdmin with the password following the OPT code, you are granted access. This is normal.  You can only sign in with password + OPT.

Here is the problem:

You sign in to the User Portal again with only password, no OPT code.  You got in, and QR code is displayed on the screen again.

This is the security flaw.  When an account has no OPT yet, the first time you sign in User portal, it displays the QR code is normal since you don't have the OPT code yet.  Once the OPT code is generated and assigned to an account, if you sign in to the User Portal the second time without the OPT code, the system should deny the access instead of display the OPT code again.  Otherwise, if the admin account password got compromised, the hacker can simply login to the user portal  with only the password and obtain the OPT code. After that the hack can use the password and the OPT code to sign in the WebAdmin.

The software should only display the OPT code when the account has no OPT yet.   Once the OPT code is generated at the first time the account login to user portal, it should require OPT to the user portal when the user try to login the second time.   Otherwise, it will defeat the purpose of the OPT.  Sophos needs to fix this flaw ASAP.



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  • Hi and welcome to the UTM Community!

    Please show a picture of your 'Enable OTP for facilities' selections.

    Cheers - Bob

     
    Sophos UTM Community Moderator
    Sophos Certified Architect - UTM
    Sophos Certified Engineer - XG
    Gold Solution Partner since 2005
    MediaSoft, Inc. USA
  • can't reproduce your problem.
    after rolling out OTP and logging on at webadmin using pw+token I am unable to logon to userportal without otp.
    BTW: after successful token-rollout (portal logon with username+PW+token) the blue arrow within OTP-Setup switching from light blue to dark blue.
    From now, you should never see the OTP after try logging on to portal using PW-only (without OTP)

    ... possible you click this blue arrow? ... now the rollout is possible again (after losing the smartphone)


    Dirk

    Systema Gesellschaft für angewandte Datentechnik mbH  // Sophos Platinum Partner
    Sophos Solution Partner since 2003
    If a post solves your question, click the 'Verify Answer' link at this post.

  • This may be more of a question/observation for me @SLS Support - Are you creating a new browsing session when you see this, or are you opening just a new tab to make an attempt to login again?  From my experiences, if you are keeping an active session, you generally do not get another OTP request because you have an active session from the open browsing session.  When you open a new tab and don't end the session by closing the browser completely, sites I log into keep your login active.

    I'm not familiar with Sophos OTP, and I use OTP on just about everything I have.  I haven't enabled this because I figured this would need a special OTP authenticator from Sophos.

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  • I've experienced the exact same problem like you after setting up OTP+AD in addition to RADIUS authentication. At the moment I can't reproduce this issue.

    The only workaround is to manually select "Hide token information in User Portal" for each token.