A Russian firm that provides password-recovery services says it has found a backdoor in the encryption mechanism that Quicken uses to secure password-protected files, a feature that makes millions of users of the personal finance program more vulnerable to government spooks or other highly determined snoops.
Elcomsoft, which made waves in 2001 after it circulated software that circumvented digital rights management protections in Adobe's eBooks, said the latest version of its Advanced Intuit Password Recovery product allows users to remove password protection from Quicken files.
Intuit said the company is investigating the claims and is prepared to modify password mechanisms in Quicken accordingly.
"We take all these kinds of claims related to information security very seriously," Intuit spokeswoman Jodi Reinman said.
According to a statement issued by Elcomsoft, Intuit since 2003 has secured password-protected Quicken files using "strong encryption" that for practical purposes makes brute-force attacks impossible. But Elcomsoft said the strong encryption is accompanied by a backdoor that lets Intuit unlock encrypted files using a 512-bit RSA key that until recently was known only to Intuit. The key enabled Intuit to deliver retrieval service for customers who could no longer remember their password.
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