Russians say Quicken backdoor could give feds access to finance data

A Moscow-based password-recovery vendor today accused Intuit Inc. of hiding a backdoor in its popular Quicken personal finance program that gives it -- and perhaps government agencies -- access to users' data files.

Intuit called the charges baseless, and said that although there is a way to unlock Quicken's encrypted data, it's only used by the company's support team to help customers who have forgotten their passwords.

In a statement released today, Elcomsoft Co. Ltd., a Russian maker of password-recovery tools, said Quicken versions since 2003 have used strong encryption designed to foil hackers. But those editions also have a backdoor that unlocks the encryption with the 512-bit RSA key that Intuit controls.