"passwords" thru Flash

[rh71]

I know it's not the most secure way to embed password/authentication schemes using Flash only (client side stuff). I've been told the password is kept as plain text.

My question is how would a "hacker" type person find out this password? I'm trying to assess the difficulty by which this is done to see if I should bother with server-side authentication... because it's just a personal site.

[pellepiano]

You can open the swf in notepad for instance and look at the code. Or get a third party program that is specialized to open swf files.

[EvolveDesigns]

yea you can open in notepad and look for natural words as most of it looks pretty code based. Most people name the password field something like password or pass which would make it even easier as you can just do a search for these words and find it. if you named the password field something like 77djdk with a similar passord it may be a bit harder to spot.

If you wanted to make it even harder you could store you passwords in a seperate swf file.

Making your password in swf is fine in my opinion as long as it doesn't have to be totally secure. Most people would never think to try opening an swf in notepad.

[rh71]

Thanks guys.. I guess I'll leave it be since it's just a personal site.