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| Exposing the Password Secrets of Miranda |
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Miranda is
open source based Messenger which has become more popular in the
recent times. It's simple interface makes it very easier and faster.
It is universal messenger which supports multiple IM protocols
including Yahoo, MSN, GTalk, Jabber, Facebook IRC, AIM, ICQ,
Gadu-Gadu etc.
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Like most instant messengers,
Miranda also stores the all user account information including
passwords in the profile location. This is to prevent the user from
entering the passwords each time.
Latest version of Miranda
(v0.9.10) stores the user account & password in the profile file at
following location |
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[Windows XP]
C:\Documents and Settings\<user_name>\Application
Data\Miranda\%profile_name%\%profile_name%.dat
[Windows Vista &
Windows 7]
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Miranda\%profile_name%\%profile_name%.dat |
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User can have multiple profiles specific
to office or home environment and corresponding account information
is stored in the respective profile file.
Initial versions of
Miranda stored all account information in .dat file directly within
the base location as shown below, |
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[Windows XP]
C:\Documents and Settings\<user_name>\Application
Data\Miranda\%profile_name%.dat
[Windows Vista & Windows 7]
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Miranda\%profile_name%.dat |
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| Miranda uses modified version of ICQ database format to store all the account details and all of these versions used the same format
to store the account information in the .DAT file. |
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As explained in earlier section,
Miranda stores the account information including passwords in an
proprietary format in .DAT files. Typical information include
protocol name, username, password in encoded format, email etc.
Each of the account information begins with keyword
'AM_BASEPROTO'. Then follows the protocol and other relevant
information.
General structure for each account information
is in below shown format
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struct Miranda_Account
{
//protocol
char strProtoID[]="AM_BaseProto";
char
seperator=0xff;
short protoLength; //2 bytes
char varProtoName[];
"AIM" "YAHOO" "JABBER" "MSN" etc
//username
byte
usernameFieldLength;
char varUserNameField;
char seperator=0xff;
short usernameLength;
char varUserName[usernameLength];
//<Other Fields>
...
...
//password
byte
passFieldLength;
char varPassField; // 'Password' or 'LoginPassword'
for Jabber
char seperator=0xff;
short passwordLength;
char
varEncPassword[passwordLength];
...
...
} |
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This is common structure for most of the protocols but for some
protocols such as IRC, IRQ or Gadu-Gadu it differs slightly around the
username.
Password for each account begins with keyword
'Password' (except for Jabber protocol it is 'LoginPassword') and then
follows the actual password in encoded format.
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Miranda uses simple encryption
algorithm with simple maths to cryptize the password from the spying
eyes. For all protocols except Jabber it uses common algorithm to
encrypt the password.
In this simple encryption mechanism,
Miranda adds the magic number 5 to each character in the password to
encode it and then stores into the profile file.
Here is the
simple decryption mechanism for all protocols (except Jabber)
supported by Miranda
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for(int i=0; i<PasswordLength; i++)
{
clearPassword[i] = encryptedPassword[i]-5;
} |
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For Jabber protocol (as per version v0.9.10) it
uses XOR based encoding algorithm using the magic number 0xC3 to secure
the password, Here is the decryption algorithm for the Jabber Protocol
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for(int i=0; i<PasswordLength; i++)
{
clearPassword[i] = encryptedPassword[i] ^ 0xC3;
}
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| On completion of the above operation with those
magic numbers, you will have the secret in your hands ! |
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MirandaPasswordDecryptor is a dedicated tool to
instantly recover Miranda account passwords. It can automatically
detect the currently installed version of Miranda and recover the
passwords for all stored accounts. |
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| MirandaPasswordDecryptor is portable tool which can be directly run
from portable devices. It also comes with Installer for complete support
for Installation and Uninstallation. You can also use our other tool,
IMPasswordDecryptor
to recover the Miranda passwords along with passwords stored by other
Instant Messengers. |
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Above article explains how Miranda stores the account password using
its own proprietary encryption algorithm and shows how one can manually
decrypt such password to recover the original password.
Note that
it does not mean lapse on Miranda Security as only authorized user can
view and decrypt the stored passwords. But due to nature of its password
storage mechanism, you are advised to exercise caution while handing
over your system to amigos. |
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