content
stringlengths 196
523k
|
|---|
The cybersecurity firm Armis Labs has unveiled a cross-platform attack based on Bluetooth technology that affects billions of devices around the world. It gets the name of BlueBorne and can basically endanger the safety of any device compatible with the wireless communication standard.
Is Your Bluetooth Active? You Could Be At Risk From This Deadly Malware
Cybersecurity firm Armis Labs has unveiled a cross-platform attack based on Bluetooth technology that affects billions of devices around the world. It gets the name of BlueBorne and can basically endanger the safety of any device compatible with the wireless communication standard, regardless of whether it uses Windows, iOS, Android or Linux.
More than a single security hole, BlueBorne is a number of exploits and vulnerabilities grouped under the same name (PDF) that can be used to take control of a device.
The most noticeable feature of BlueBorne is that it does not require you to click on any link, start a download or establish a connection to another device. The mere fact of having Bluetooth enabled could be exploited by an attacker.
According to Armis Labs, BlueBorne “is an attack vector by which hackers can take advantage of Bluetooth connections to penetrate and take complete control of the attacked devices” without having to establish a match between attacker and victim. In fact, BlueBorne works even if the device is not configured as visible to other devices. Since it does not require an Internet connection, it could be used to breach tight networks (air-gapped) such as servers and handling sensitive information.
The use of this attack could be particularly useful for launching attacks through middleman or man-in-the-middle, using third party devices as a bridge between the attacker and its target. One of the features that make BlueBorne particularly dangerous is that it allows it to be spread between phones, tablets, wearables and virtually any type of device automatically.
An attack based on BlueBorne would begin with the extraction of a MAC address to determine the operative system of the victim and configure an exploit. Armis Labs has identified several zero day vulnerabilities that would facilitate its launch. The next step would be to take advantage of a vulnerability in the implementation of the Bluetooth protocol for the platform in question. There are a few to choose from.
Armis Labs has been able to verify the operation of BlueBorne using four vulnerabilities of the implementation of Bluetooth in Android, one of which is also shared by Windows (although not Windows Phone, which seems safe). Linux has two vulnerabilities (a data leak and exposure to a stack overflow attack thanks to a vulnerability in the kernel). Finally, iOS is susceptible to be attacked through Apple’s Low Energy Audio Protocol (LEAP) technology, which runs over Bluetooth.
According to Armis Labs, all Android-based devices are exposed to BlueBorne unless they strictly use Bluetooth Low Energy. As for the Windows ecosystem, all versions of Vista are vulnerable to attack by the broker. Devices based on Linux and its derivatives (including Tizen) with BlueZ and version 3.3-rc1 or higher are also susceptible to attack. The case of Apple seems somewhat less serious since it affects devices with iOS 9.3.5 and tvOS 7.2.2 or lower versions. In its case, iOS 10 already solved this problem.
The discovery of BlueBorne has been published in coordination with the tech giant Apple, Google, and Microsoft, who were warned several weeks ago to take time to adopt defensive measures. The tech giant Microsoft has just released a patch for Windows, while the tech giant Google issued a security bulletin last August and a patch on September 9.
So, what do you think about this? Simply share your views and thoughts in the comment section below. |
A new highly critical vulnerability was patched by SAP, that affected the LM Configuration Wizard component in NetWeaver Application Server (AS) Java platform, which could permit an unauthenticated attacker to take control of SAP applications.
The bug tracked as CVE-2020-6287 and dubbed RECON is rated with a maximum CVSS score of 10 out of 10. It potentially affects more than 40,000 SAP customers.
The vulnerability was disclosed by the cybersecurity firm Onapsis.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) stated in an advisory that if successfully exploited, a remote, unauthenticated attacker could easily get unrestricted access to SAP systems through the creation of high-privileged users and the execution of arbitrary operating system commands with the privileges of the SAP service user account, which has unrestricted access to the SAP database and is able to perform application maintenance activities, such as shutting down federated SAP applications. The confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the data and processes hosted by the SAP application are at risk by this vulnerability.
BY default the vulnerability resides in SAP applications running on top of SAP NetWeaver AS Java 7.3 and newer (up to SAP NetWeaver 7.5), putting several SAP business solutions at risk, including but not limited to SAP Enterprise Resource Planning, SAP Product Lifecycle Management, SAP Customer Relationship Management, SAP Supply Chain Management, SAP Business Intelligence, and SAP Enterprise Portal.
Onapsis said that RECON is caused due to a lack of authentication in the web component of the SAP NetWeaver AS for Java, allowing an attacker to perform high-privileged activities on the susceptible SAP system.
It is possible for a remote, unauthenticated attacker to exploit this vulnerability through an HTTP interface, which is usually exposed to end users and in several cases exposed to the internet.
The attacker can exploit the flaw and create new SAP user with maximum privileges and can then compromise SAP installations to execute arbitrary commands, such as modifying or extracting highly sensitive information as well as disrupting critical business processes.
There is no proof of any active exploitation of the vulnerability. Due to the severity of RECON, it is highly recommended that organizations must apply critical patches at the earliest.
The users are also advised to scan SAP systems for vulnerabilities and analyze systems for malicious or excessive user authorizations.
Image Credits : National Cybersecurity News |
A computer worm is a program that repeatedly copies itself and is similar to a computer virus. However, a virus needs to attach itself to an executable file and become part of it. A computer worm doesnt need to do that. It copies itself, travels to other networks and eats up a lot of bandwidth. A Trojan horse is a program that hides and seems to be a legitimate program but in reality is a fake. A certain action usually triggers the Trojan horse, and unlike viruses and worms they dont replicate. Computer viruses, worms, and Trojan horses are all classified as malicious-logic programs. These three are the most common but there many variations which are impossible to list here. You know when a computer is infected by a virus, worm, or Trojan horse if one or more of the following events take place:
This Code and the supplemental Guidelines were developed by the Task Force for the Revision of the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct: Ronald E. Anderson, Chair, Gerald Engel, Donald Gotterbarn, Grace C. Hertlein, Alex Hoffman, Bruce Jawer, Deborah G. Johnson, Doris K. Lidtke, Joyce Currie Little, Dianne Martin, Donn B. Parker, Judith A. Perrolle, and Richard S. Rosenberg. The Task Force was organized by ACM/SIGCAS and funding was provided by the ACM SIG Discretionary Fund. This Code and the supplemental Guidelines were adopted by the ACM Council on October 16, 1992. |
|By Albert Fruz||
|January 3, 2014 09:00 AM EST||
Computer security has become much harder to manage in recent years, and this is due to the fact that attackers continuously come up with new and more effective ways to attack our systems. As attackers become increasingly sophisticated we as security professionals must ensure that they do not have free rein over the systems that we are hired to protect. An attack vector that many people forget to consider is the boot process, which is almost completely controlled by the BIOS.
The BIOS is a privileged piece of software that is generally ignored by day-to-day users and thus they are usually unable to comprehend the importance of it in our computers. The Basic Input/Output System was first invented by Gary Kildall for use in his operating system CP/M and this became what we now know as the conventional BIOS system. The BIOS appeared in IBM-compatible PCs around 1975 and was used extensively in the CP/M operating system. This was later used in the MSDOS systems where it was known as DOS BIOS. These systems were only responsible for basic preboot hardware initializations before handing over control to the bootloader. This was fine 30 years ago, when software was simpler and attacks were not very predominant, thus the BIOS was not designed with security in mind. However, in today's world this is no longer the case. BIOS security lacks several features that make it vulnerable to external attack.
These are some notable attacks carried out against BIOS systems:
Chernobyl Attack (1998) - Also known as CIH or Spacefiller was the first major attack on BIOS systems. This virus installs on the windows memory and hooks into file access calls and infects all the currently executing programs. Then the virus tries to flash the BIOS rom by filling it with zeros. The other payload infects the Master Boot Record (MBR) by filling the first megabyte of the hard disk with zeros.
Mebromi (2012) - Is made up of a BIOS rootkit, MBR rootkit, Trojan downloader and PE infector. This Trojan deletes a specific registry value and checks for the BIOS manufacturer. If it's Award BIOS, it then infects the BIOS ROM and in turn infects the Master BOOT Record (MBR) and alters it allowing the execution of an infected program at each Operating System start-up.
We attempt to prevent such attacks by outlining several attack vectors and also suggest several mechanisms for the mitigation of attacks against the BIOS.
BIOS (Basic Input Output System)
Basic Input/Output System (BIOS), also known as the system BIOS or ROM BIOS, is a standard defining a firmware interface. BIOS software is built into the PC, and is the first software run by a PC when powered on. The fundamental purposes of the BIOS are to initialize and test the system hardware components, and to start the boot loader or an operating system from a secondary storage device. It also takes care of essential system functions such as power management and temperature regulation. It provides an abstraction layer for the underlying hardware by providing a consistent way for operating systems and application programs to interact with various input/output devices.
Changes in system hardware are abstracted by the BIOS from programs that use BIOS services instead of directly accessing the hardware. BIOS software is stored on a non-volatile ROM chip on the motherboard. Its unique design makes it compatible for particular models of computer, interfacing with various devices that make up the complementary chipset of the system. In modern PCs the BIOS contents are stored on an EEPROM chip.
An EEPROM chip or Electronically Erasable Programmable Read only memory is a type of non-volatile memory used by many electronic devices that requires small amounts of data to be stored for quick access. The contents of an EEPROM chip can be flashed, i.e., they can be overwritten with new data. This allows BIOS software to be easily upgraded to add new features and bug fixes. This feature is also one of the reasons that BIOS chipsets are vulnerable to attack.
Why BIOS Is in Blue
Most BIOS Screens will be blue; this is due to how the BIOS Manufacturers implement general BIOS color attributes. BIOS Color Attributes are 8-bit values where the lower 4 bits represent the character color and the higher 4 bits represent the background color. In BIOS, to print a white character in blue background the ‘BIOS colour attribute' would be set to a hexadecimal value of 0x1F.
Under certain conditions, setting the highest bit of the background color may cause the text to blink instead of making the background color intensified. In this context the highest bit of the background color should be kept low according to the BIOS color attribute distribution. As a result the Blue color which comprises value '1′ in hexadecimal is generally used for an uninterrupted BIOS display with intensified background with clear text.
Top BIOS Manufacturers
BIOS software is developed by several companies around the world and are usually deeply integrated with the system motherboard. Several of the most popular BIOS manufacturers are:
- American Mega Trends
Role of BIOS
The BIOS has an essential role in the boot process of the computer also known as bootstrapping. It initializes system hardware, manages ACPI, and regulates CPU temperatures during the booting process. The major responsibilities of the BIOS are listed below:
- Establish Trust: The BIOS is responsible for verifying the integrity of all the hardware components in the system and also to authenticate them before use. This is done with the help of Core Root of Trust Measurement (CRTM), which basically checks if the hardware is valid and that its integrity has not been compromised.
- Test Hardware: The secondary functionality of the BIOS is to initialize and test the hardware present on the computer before it's used. Hardware such as the motherboard, chipset and memory are included in this test. This is generally carried out during POST (Power-On-Self-Test).
- Load additional Modules: Several devices present on the computer may require additional firmware for its proper functioning. The BIOS ensures that such additional firmware modules are loaded and executed. These may be stored in the BIOS chip itself or some secondary storage device.
- Boot Device Selection: After the above steps have been carried out, the BIOS starts to detect a valid boot device, e.g., USB drives, dard disk, etc. Once such a device has been found it executes the bootloader found on that device.
- Start Operating System: After this the actual bootstrapping process begins, the bootloader starts to execute and begins to load the OS kernel into memory. Once the kernel has been initialized the BIOS transfers full control to the Operating System.
System BIOS can be of two types namely:
- Legacy BIOS
- BIOS based upon the UEFI specification
Conventional BIOS (Legacy BIOS)
The Legacy BIOS or conventional BIOS is the tried and true BIOS type that has been around for years. It's generally a 16-bit program that is flashed onto a ROM chip and placed in the motherboard of the computer. This type of BIOS is very outdated and more vulnerable to attack, therefore it's advisable to use a newer and more stable specification.
The key component in conventional BIOS is a boot block. This part is logically separated from other parts of the BIOS and initially executed during the BIOS boot process. Then the boot block checks the integrity of the remaining firmware in BIOS and if any is corrupted recovers those. The boot block then initializes almost all the hardware associated with the system by using a Power-On-Self-Test (POST). During this procedure low-level hardware components like Memory, CPU, Chipset, etc., are initialized.
After this process, it then loads other option ROMS like Video Cards, SCSI Controller Cards, and Network Boot ROM that have their own BIOS software. This Option ROMS could inform the BIOS about its functionality, and then it could be called later on in the boot process depending on the order the user had selected. Then the BIOS checks the Master BOOT Record (MBR) in the order of the boot device's priority. If any storage device has a valid data that relates to MBR, it is selected. MBR then points to a corresponding boot loader of an operating system and thus in turns loads the operating system.
In a conventional Boot process, the System Management Mode (SMM) can be initiated by using SMI handlers and ACPI table's code. System Management Mode is a 32-bit mode that runs on high-privileged mode that can override almost all the hardware security mechanisms of the protected mode. In order to change to SMM mode, BIOS loads SMI handlers and initializes the ACPI tables and codes
Legacy BIOS Boot Process
When a computer is first powered on the BIOS is the first piece of software that is executed. The boot block then executes a POST (Power-On-Self-Test), thereby ensuring that all the hardware on the system is valid and accounted for. After the POST screen the user has the option to load the BIOS screen or to continue booting the current operating system instead. This is done by pressing a pre-designated key on the keyboard. This key may vary depending on the BIOS manufacturer. The BIOS then checks if any additional pieces of firmware have to be loaded for individual devices on the computer if so, then these modules are loaded and executed.
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a specification that was first designed by Intel in the 1990s for its Itanium range of computer systems. It was originally called the EFI specification and was intended to be a better replacement for legacy BIOS systems. UEFI has several advantages over the conventional BIOS and is radically different from these older systems.
The UEFI specification defines a programmable software interface that lies between the device firmware and the operating system. It provides an almost OS-like interface to device firmware. Depending on the manufacturer it may lie on top of the BIOS but it's generally placed in the /EFI/ directory on some form of non-volatile memory. This may either be a NAND chip on the motherboard, a hard drive or even on a network share.
Differences Between UEFI and Legacy BIOS
There are several differences between conventional BIOS and UEFI systems and many of them add greater functionality and power to the computer. It also provides a more efficient and secure booting mechanism.
- Larger Address Space: Conventional BIOS were forced to work in a 16-bit mode with a maximum of 1mb addressable space. UEFI allows running in 32- and 64-bit mode allowing larger and more sophisticated programs to be run by the UEFI.
- Support for Larger File Systems: Traditional BIOS only supports the booting of disks that have MBR partitions. MBR partitioning schemes only support 4 partitions per disk and a maximum size of 2TB. UEFI supports the booting of GPT partitions (GUID partitions), which allow the booting of extremely large disks up to 8Zb.
- Improved Security Capabilities: The UEFI specification also improves on the security aspects of the older BIOS systems. It supports several security features such as secure boot. It also has provisions for providing basic cryptographic and public key infrastructure.
- CPU independent design: UEFI has employed a CPU independent design methodology, i.e., it can run on many different types of architectures. The code available is compiled differently for the required platform.
- Powerful Execution Environment: The UEFI specification provides a much more powerful execution environment for computers. It allows special features such as booting over a network, using the mouse, ACPI control and even browsing the web.
- Improved Performance: UEFI-compliant operating systems have been seen to have a significant performance boost not just during the boot process but also during running and powering off the system.
Windows 8 uses UEFI
UEFI, although supported by several operating system vendors for years, has not seen widespread adoption until the release of Windows 8. Windows 8 has tried to incorporate the best parts of UEFI into their latest operating system release particularly the secure boot feature.
One of UEFI's most interesting feature is called Secure Boot; it allows you to boot only an authenticated OS kernel. Windows 8 relies heavily on this method to ensure that only authenticated firmware with a validated kernel image can be booted. This is quite different from older bootstrapping methodologies where any kind of bootloading code can be loaded and executed by the BIOS.
In secure a boot before the BIOS gives full control to the OS, bootloader makes sure that the firmware has been signed. This is done with the help of cryptographic signatures that are embedded on the firmware by the OEM. During the boot process the firmware will compare the platform key with the key present in the firmware of each device. This comparison is carried out between a database of authenticated valid keys; if the key is allowed then the firmware is allowed to execute, otherwise it is rejected.
This allows only authenticated devices to be loaded and ensures that malicious bootloader code is not loaded and executed. The safe boot mechanism in Windows 8 significantly reduces the chances of boot sector viruses and bootkits from launching and affecting the boot process of the machine.
UEFI Boot Process
The UEFI boot process is much like the boot process in conventional BIOS with a few minor changes. The process is divided into stages that take place sequentially and ends with the complete handover of control to the operating system. UEFI booting runs in a 32-bit or 64-bit protected mode on the CPU, not in a 16-bit mode, unlike legacy BIOS.
UEFI also starts with a small amount of code that begins the execution of the entire booting process. This phase is called the security phase (SEC) and it acts as the core root of trust. This is followed by the Pre-EFI initialization (PEI). This mode is similar to the Legacy bios pre-boot initialization phase in which device firmware is checked before boot. Then the driver execution environment is started where the actual initialization of extra device drivers takes place; devices such as network cards and graphic cards are checked in this phase.
The boot device is selected during the BDS (Boot Device Selection) phase. This then transfers control to the bootloader that is located in a GPT partition; the bootloader handles the loading of the OS kernel into memory.
Common BIOS Threats
BIOS is always written to a non-volatile storage device such as an EEPROM which allows the content of the ROM to be overwritten to introduce bug fixes and updates for the particular BIOS version. However this also has great potential for misuse such that malicious programs may also have the ability to modify the contents of the ROM disk if given enough access.
User Initiated Attack
This type of attack is carried out by an end user who uses an unauthenticated file to update the BIOS.. This can be carried out by an end user who doesn't have prior knowledge about the update file or a user with malicious intent.
Malware attacks can be used to exploit vulnerability in bios. The attacker opens a backdoor to the system and cause a BIOS. crash using a vulnerable update version of BIOS.
Network Based or Organizational Attack
This is a large scale and crucial attack on an organizational basis. An attacker who gets access to a compromised update server can carry out an organizational wide attack and infect all systems by rolling out all authorized BIOS. versions to malicious ones.
How Do We Mitigate Common BIOS Threats
This section describes the security measures that an organization should implement in order to secure the BIOS. Since vulnerability in BIOS is crucial point to a system, it is important that every organization should follow predefined guidelines to secure the BIOS structure. The following method can be implemented in an enterprise structure to enhance BIOS security
In order to overcome the malicious attacks on BIOS, we can implement following methods:
- Digital Authentication Method
- Rollback Prevention Method
- Physical Authentication Method
Automated Authentication Method
In this method, the authenticity of BIOS can be ensured through digital signatures. Here BIOS updates should only be installed if its authenticity is verified. Here digital signature embedded update images by BIOS manufactures will be the last level of authorization. This process can be automated by using a signature verification algorithm that ensures the validity of the digital signatures. This digital authentication method must be integrated by providing strong security features.
Rollback Prevention Method
Implement a mechanism that ensures the update images of BIOS so that it will not be rolled back to previous versions. This method ensures that if an update image is to be installed, it should be ensured that its version number is greater than the current one. This can ensure that the b BIOS version is not roll backed to a previous image that contains vulnerability.
In some cases if the current higher version has to be rolled back to a previous lesser version, i.e., if the current updated version of the BIOS contains vulnerability and there are no higher version updates to be installed and the earlier lesser version is stable than the current one. In this case the corresponding authority has to ensure that the lesser version does not contain any vulnerability.
Physical Authentication Method
This method provides the authenticity of updated images by ensuring the physical presence of the corresponding authority (system administrator). Here the authorities can verify the update images and update the BIOS, if the image is a valid one. This method can be used as a subsidiary to digital authentication method by providing as a recovery mechanism in situations like bios crash.
SYS-CON Events announced today that Intelligent Systems Services will exhibit at the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Established in 1994, Intelligent Systems Services Inc. is located near Washington, DC, with representatives and partners nationwide. ISS’s well-established track record is based on the continuous pursuit of excellence in designing, implementing and supporting nationwide clients’ mission-critical systems. ISS has completed many successful projects in Healthcare, Commercial, Manu...
Jul. 6, 2015 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 467
Internet of Things (IoT) will be a hybrid ecosystem of diverse devices and sensors collaborating with operational and enterprise systems to create the next big application. In their session at @ThingsExpo, Bramh Gupta, founder and CEO of robomq.io, and Fred Yatzeck, principal architect leading product development at robomq.io, discussed how choosing the right middleware and integration strategy from the get-go will enable IoT solution developers to adapt and grow with the industry, while at the same time reduce Time to Market (TTM) by using plug and play capabilities offered by a robust IoT ...
Jul. 6, 2015 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 2,502
The enterprise market will drive IoT device adoption over the next five years. In his session at @ThingsExpo, John Greenough, an analyst at BI Intelligence, division of Business Insider, analyzed how companies will adopt IoT products and the associated cost of adopting those products. John Greenough is the lead analyst covering the Internet of Things for BI Intelligence- Business Insider’s paid research service. Numerous IoT companies have cited his analysis of the IoT. Prior to joining BI Intelligence, he worked analyzing bank technology for Corporate Insight and The Clearing House Payment...
Jul. 6, 2015 10:15 AM EDT Reads: 388
SYS-CON Events announced today that Secure Infrastructure & Services will exhibit at SYS-CON's 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Secure Infrastructure & Services (SIAS) is a managed services provider of cloud computing solutions for the IBM Power Systems market. The company helps mid-market firms built on IBM hardware platforms to deploy new levels of reliable and cost-effective computing and high availability solutions, leveraging the cloud and the benefits of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS...
Jul. 6, 2015 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,775
With major technology companies and startups seriously embracing IoT strategies, now is the perfect time to attend @ThingsExpo in Silicon Valley. Learn what is going on, contribute to the discussions, and ensure that your enterprise is as "IoT-Ready" as it can be! Internet of @ThingsExpo, taking place Nov 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, is co-located with 17th Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the most profound change in personal an...
Jul. 6, 2015 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 823
Today air travel is a minefield of delays, hassles and customer disappointment. Airlines struggle to revitalize the experience. GE and M2Mi will demonstrate practical examples of how IoT solutions are helping airlines bring back personalization, reduce trip time and improve reliability. In their session at @ThingsExpo, Shyam Varan Nath, Principal Architect with GE, and Dr. Sarah Cooper, M2Mi’s VP Business Development and Engineering, will explore the IoT cloud-based platform technologies driving this change including privacy controls, data transparency and integration of real time context wi...
Jul. 6, 2015 09:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,746
The basic integration architecture, as defined by ESBs, hasn’t changed for more than a decade. Most cloud integration providers still rely on an ESB architecture and their proprietary connectors. As a result, enterprise integration projects suffer from constraints of availability and reliability of these connectors that are not re-usable across other integration vendors. However, the rapid adoption of APIs and almost ubiquitous availability of APIs amongst most SaaS and Cloud applications are rapidly redefining traditional integration approaches and their reliance on proprietary connectors. ...
Jul. 6, 2015 09:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,410
Explosive growth in connected devices. Enormous amounts of data for collection and analysis. Critical use of data for split-second decision making and actionable information. All three are factors in making the Internet of Things a reality. Yet, any one factor would have an IT organization pondering its infrastructure strategy. How should your organization enhance its IT framework to enable an Internet of Things implementation? In his session at @ThingsExpo, James Kirkland, Red Hat's Chief Architect for the Internet of Things and Intelligent Systems, described how to revolutionize your archit...
Jul. 6, 2015 09:15 AM EDT Reads: 1,724
SYS-CON Events announced today that Dyn, the worldwide leader in Internet Performance, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Dyn is a cloud-based Internet Performance company. Dyn helps companies monitor, control, and optimize online infrastructure for an exceptional end-user experience. Through a world-class network and unrivaled, objective intelligence into Internet conditions, Dyn ensures traffic gets delivered faster, safer, and more reliably than ever.
Jul. 6, 2015 09:15 AM EDT Reads: 2,091
To many people, IoT is a buzzword whose value is not understood. Many people think IoT is all about wearables and home automation. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Mike Kavis, Vice President & Principal Cloud Architect at Cloud Technology Partners, discussed some incredible game-changing use cases and how they are transforming industries like agriculture, manufacturing, health care, and smart cities. He will discuss cool technologies like smart dust, robotics, smart labels, and much more. Prepare to be blown away with a glimpse of the future.
Jul. 6, 2015 08:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,918
"We have a tagline - "Power in the API Economy." What that means is everything that is built in applications and connected applications is done through APIs," explained Roberto Medrano, Executive Vice President at Akana, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 16th Cloud Expo, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Jul. 6, 2015 08:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,711
WebRTC converts the entire network into a ubiquitous communications cloud thereby connecting anytime, anywhere through any point. In his session at WebRTC Summit,, Mark Castleman, EIR at Bell Labs and Head of Future X Labs, will discuss how the transformational nature of communications is achieved through the democratizing force of WebRTC. WebRTC is doing for voice what HTML did for web content.
Jul. 6, 2015 08:15 AM EDT Reads: 1,604
The 17th International Cloud Expo has announced that its Call for Papers is open. 17th International Cloud Expo, to be held November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, brings together Cloud Computing, APM, APIs, Microservices, Security, Big Data, Internet of Things, DevOps and WebRTC to one location. With cloud computing driving a higher percentage of enterprise IT budgets every year, it becomes increasingly important to plant your flag in this fast-expanding business opportunity. Submit your speaking proposal today!
Jul. 6, 2015 07:30 AM EDT Reads: 1,604
The 5th International DevOps Summit, co-located with 17th International Cloud Expo – being held November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA – announces that its Call for Papers is open. Born out of proven success in agile development, cloud computing, and process automation, DevOps is a macro trend you cannot afford to miss. From showcase success stories from early adopters and web-scale businesses, DevOps is expanding to organizations of all sizes, including the world's largest enterprises – and delivering real results. Among the proven benefits, DevOps is corr...
Jul. 6, 2015 07:15 AM EDT Reads: 1,637
17th Cloud Expo, taking place Nov 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. Cloud computing is now being embraced by a majority of enterprises of all sizes. Yesterday's debate about public vs. private has transformed into the reality of hybrid cloud: a recent survey shows that 74% of enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy. Meanwhile, 94% of enterprises are using some form of XaaS – software, platform, and infrastructure as a service.
Jul. 6, 2015 05:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,605
The 4th International Internet of @ThingsExpo, co-located with the 17th International Cloud Expo - to be held November 3-5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA - announces that its Call for Papers is open. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the biggest idea since the creation of the Worldwide Web more than
Jul. 5, 2015 08:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,744
SYS-CON Events announced today that ProfitBricks, the provider of painless cloud infrastructure, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. ProfitBricks is the IaaS provider that offers a painless cloud experience for all IT users, with no learning curve. ProfitBricks boasts flexible cloud servers and networking, an integrated Data Center Designer tool for visual control over the cloud and the best price/performance value available. ProfitBricks was named one of the coolest Clo...
Jul. 5, 2015 04:30 PM EDT Reads: 2,096
Internet of Things is moving from being a hype to a reality. Experts estimate that internet connected cars will grow to 152 million, while over 100 million internet connected wireless light bulbs and lamps will be operational by 2020. These and many other intriguing statistics highlight the importance of Internet powered devices and how market penetration is going to multiply many times over in the next few years.
Jul. 5, 2015 03:00 PM EDT Reads: 2,472
Buzzword alert: Microservices and IoT at a DevOps conference? What could possibly go wrong? In this Power Panel at DevOps Summit, moderated by Jason Bloomberg, the leading expert on architecting agility for the enterprise and president of Intellyx, panelists peeled away the buzz and discuss the important architectural principles behind implementing IoT solutions for the enterprise. As remote IoT devices and sensors become increasingly intelligent, they become part of our distributed cloud environment, and we must architect and code accordingly. At the very least, you'll have no problem fillin...
Jul. 5, 2015 11:45 AM EDT Reads: 2,546
The Internet of Things is not only adding billions of sensors and billions of terabytes to the Internet. It is also forcing a fundamental change in the way we envision Information Technology. For the first time, more data is being created by devices at the edge of the Internet rather than from centralized systems. What does this mean for today's IT professional? In this Power Panel at @ThingsExpo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, panelists addressed this very serious issue of profound change in the industry.
Jul. 5, 2015 09:30 AM EDT Reads: 1,789 |
A security issue has been reported in cURL/libcURL, which can be exploited by malicious people to bypass certain security restrictions.
The security issue is caused due to cURL following HTTP "Location:" redirects to e.g. "scp://" or "file://" URLs, which can be exploited by a malicious HTTP server to overwrite or disclose the content of arbitrary local files and potentially execute arbitrary commands via specially crafted redirect URLs.
Successful exploitation requires that automatic redirection following is enabled.
The security issue is reported in versions 5.11 through 7.19.3.
Solution: Update to version 7.19.4 or apply patches.
Do you have additional information related to this advisory?
Please provide information about patches, mitigating factors, new versions, exploits, faulty patches, links, and other relevant data by posting comments to this Advisory. You can also send this
information to [email protected] |
Improve accessibility support
Initially reported in https://bugs.kali.org/view.php?id=7062
from version 2020.1 orca is no longer included after installing the system
Indeed, after comparing Debian and Kali in this regard, I noticed that
orca is not installed on the various desktops provided by Kali.
More specifically, looking into the 3 desktops proposed by the Kali Installer: XFCE, GNOME, KDE.
In Debian, orca comes as a Dependency of the
gnome package, and a Recommendation for
In Kali, we don't install those metapackages. Instead we install:
kali-desktop-gnome, which depends on
gnome-core(a much smaller metapackage, compared to the
None of these packages depend or recommend
orca, so basically Kali does not provide accessibility support at all.
A possible improvement, suggested by @rhertzog, is to add
Recommends: orca to the metapackage
kali-desktop-core, which is itself a dependency of all the Kali desktops. That would make sure that orca is installed for all desktops.
$ apt show orca | grep-dctrl -s Description -
Description: Scriptable screen reader
A flexible, extensible, and powerful assistive technology that
provides end-user access to applications and toolkits that support the
AT-SPI (e.g., the GNOME desktop).
Orca defines a set of default behaviors (reactions to application events) and
key bindings (reaction to user key presses). These default behaviors and key
bindings can be overwritten on a per-application basis. Orca creates a script
object for each running application, which merges both the default behaviors
and key bindings, and the application specific ones. Orca provides the
infrastructure to activate and deactivate scripts, as well as a host of
services accessible from within the scripts. |
Mouseover’ technique relies on users hovering over hyperlinked text and images in Microsoft PowerPoint files to drop Trojan.
Researchers have found a new form of attack that abuses the action of hovering over hyperlinked text and images in a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
Trend Micro researchers discovered the “mouseover” technique, used by a Trojan downloader also found in a spam campaign hitting EMEA businesses in the manufacturing, education, pyrotechnics, logistics, and device fabrication industries. The downloader they analyzed delivers a version of the OTLARD banking Trojan, also known as GootKit.
“This is the first occurrence of malware using the ‘hover’ method to initiate a download that we know of,” says Mark Nunnikhoven, Trend Micro’s VP of cloud security.
“While GootKit is known malware, businesses should be more concerned about this latest technique as it shows none of the usual indicators of an infected document,” he explains. This is novel because it abuses the previously safe user practice of hovering over a link before clicking.
The malware arrives as a spam email disguised as a purchase order or invoice with a malicious PowerPoint Open XML Slide Show (PPSX), or PowerPoint Show (PPS) file attached. These two file types differ from PowerPoint presentation files (PPT or PPTX), which can be edited. A PPS or PPSX file directly opens into presentation mode.
This tactic won’t work in Microsoft PowerPoint Online or “Web mode” in Office 365 because neither have the same actions functionality as offline/desktop versions. Office 365 users can still get hit if they access their accounts and open the bad file via locally installed PowerPoint.
The mouseover tactic is a more streamlined vector for cybercriminals because it doesn’t rely on additional or initial vectors to deliver the payload. Office documents are popular in malware attacks because of how often they are used to send information throughout the enterprise, says Nunnikhoven. PDF files are frequently used by cybercriminals for the same reason.
There are ways businesses can protect themselves. “The most effective technique against this attack is Web filtering,” says Nunnikhoven. “Preventing systems from reaching the sites where malware is hosted is the best way to stop this attack.”
End users should use Protect View, which lets them read content while cutting the chance of infection. IT and system admins can lessen the risk by disabling macros, OLEs, and mouse hovers by disabling these features on machines or employing group policies that block users from running them.
If features like mouse hover and macros are critical to business processes, Trend Micro suggests enabling them only in the applications and software that use them, or only allowing signed or approved macros. |
This is not the only "live" attack that was discovered last week. On November 3, an interesting description of an attack on computers with the BlueKeep vulnerability was published on the Kryptos Logic blog. This issue in the Remote Desktop Services feature in Windows 7 and Windows 2008 Server was discovered in May. Despite the fact that the patch was released not only for these (relatively) modern OSs, but also for unsupported Windows XP and 2003 Server, at the time the patch was released, there were about a million vulnerable systems. In September, an exploit for BlueKeep was published as part of the Metasploit package. Even on an unpatched system, you can change the settings to make exploitation of the vulnerability impossible. Nevertheless, the researchers proceeded from the high probability that many systems would not be updated and configured correctly. How then to determine when they will begin to attack for real?
With the help of hanipots – deliberately poorly configured systems on which the vulnerability allows arbitrary code to be executed remotely and without authorization. On November 2, researcher Kevin Bumont announced (his version of events is here) that the chanipots belonging to him began to fall spontaneously “into the blue screen”. Analysis of the crashes showed that attacks on Remote Desktop Services are actually being carried out, and their nature corresponds to the capabilities of the code published as part of Metasploit. After successful penetration from the attacker’s server, PowerShell commands are sequentially loaded and executed, until finally the payload is downloaded – the cryptominer. Naturally, after the publication of the exploit, such “pranks” were inevitable, but in this case we also have an interesting example of attack analysis, which begins as the administrator’s usual headache – the system crashes and no one knows why. (For a long time) it’s time to update, but the number of systems with the BlueKeep vulnerability has not decreased much in five months and is now estimated at 700+ thousand.
What else happened:
Information about 7.5 million Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers was shared for a week. The incorrectly configured database contained detailed information about customers, but there were no passwords and credit card numbers. The Web.com registrar's customer base has also leaked.
The 30th anniversary of the Cascade virus. This is the first malware program studied back in 1989 by Eugene Kaspersky. A post with a digression into history and detailed infographics about the evolution of threats over three decades is published here.
According to Akamai, 90% of phishing sites live no more than a day. The top phishers include Microsoft, Paypal, and LinkedIn. |
Here’s where you can download the tool. BlogsHome Adware Browser Hijackers Unwanted Programs Ransomware Rogue Software Guides Trojans ForumsCommunity NewsAlerts TutorialsHow-To’s Tweak & Secure Windows Safe Online Practices Avoid Malware Malware HelpAssistance Malware Removal Assistance Android, iOS and Minehp.com is one of those browser hijackers that can automatically modify settings of your browser and set itself as your homepage. Portions of this content are ©1998–2017 by individual mozilla.org contributors. http://yeahimadork.com/browser-hijacker/ff-google-hijack.php
Having trouble entering Safe Mode? Follow the on-screen instructions. You may have a browser hijacker Click To Tweet Double check your proxy settings Some browser hijackers can even change what Internet server you use to connect to the web. If there are some other entries found, delete them. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/526562/further-problems-after-hijack-removalfix/
When removing the files, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware may require a reboot in order to remove some of them. Browser Hijack Blaster is compatible with Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP. Ideally, your settings should look like this: How to remove malware-based browser hijackers This one is a more serious issue and requires specialized software to properly remove the damaging malware. 1.
Thank you. If such files exist, they may or may not be malicious. If you had ViRobot Expert installed and then used HijackThis to remove all IE modifications, you would be removing ViRobot Expert's IE component, thus weakening your security.StartupList: Another handy HijackThis toolIntegrated Browser Hijacker Virus It's highly likely that one of these items is the hijacker.
When it's done, a window will list the information that was imported. Browser Hijacker Removal Chrome A whole list of things came up. We do recommend that you backup your personal documents before you start the malware removal process. https://malwaretips.com/blogs/fix-no-internet-after-malware-removal/ You have important stuff to do. “Hmm?” *click* *click* “This is so fascinating.” *click* *click* “I don’t remember installing any of these.” “Ah, browser hijacking, my old friend!” How to protect
Your web browser becomes unstable and crashes occasionally. Browser Hijacker List Warning: Anti-virus and anti-spyware software may sometimes generate false positives. You can use the SearchReset extension to reset some preferences to the default values. When Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is scanning it will look like the image below.
Click OK. Everything seems to be in good order now. Browser Hijacker Removal Click OK. Browser Hijacker Removal Android Firefox crashes or hangs a lot.
Yes, Norton Power Eraser has detected and removed the threat No, Norton Power Eraser didn't detect any threat I cannot download Norton Power Eraser I cannot run a scan with Norton http://yeahimadork.com/browser-hijacker/google-hijack-firefox-ie.php The reason is simple: they fail to find out and delete all traces related to the browser hijacker. Behaviors Change browser settings; Redirect search results; generate popup ads; collect personal information Removal Solution Download and use an exclusive malware removal tool If you have used computer to surf the Threat Name Minehp.com Category Browser Hijacker Threat Level Medium Target Browser Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, etc Spreading Ways Freeware, spam emails, malicious websites, supicious ads, etc. Browser Hijacker Removal Firefox
Double check how secure and legit a free program is before you download it. Then SpyHunter will start scanning for malware threats in your system. Google is set as my default search engine & I have removed all other search engines. have a peek at these guys For more information on problems with Facebook, see Fix problems with Facebook games, chat and more.
Malware can also take advantage of the software flaws to infect your machine. What Is Home Hijacking Besides, SpyHunter provides 24X7 online assistance that you can get help from the highly experienced technicians if you have any malware problems which cannot be fixed by the program automatically. However, if your real problem is actually a malware infection, then you will probably need some specialized tools and a bit more patience.
Click the Connections tab, and then click LAN settings. All rights reserved. Here's how we did it.One size doesn't fit all It's a sad truth that malicious individuals can hijack a Web browser in a variety of ways. Browser Hijacker Removal Windows 10 Any other ideas PLEASE.
How to fix "No Internet After Malware Removal" (Virus Removal Guide) This page is a comprehensive guide which should restore your Internet access and remove any malicious program from Windows. For this reason, you’ll need to use a process killing software to freeze the malware while you go ahead and wipe it out of from your PC. Under Shortcut tab, locate Target, and then delete the unwanted website link located after "…firefox.exe". check my blog You know, preventing is always better than repairing. |
During October 2022, the Menlo Labs research team posted details on camouflaged template injection documents that contained a decimal IP address or used an obscure URL format to fetch the remotely hosted template. This article was a follow-up to the post detailing how weaponized template injection attacks work and how these attacks can be prevented. The weaponized documents used RTF exploit templates to deliver malware like FormBook, Snake Keylogger, and SmokeLoader.
Because the TTPs used by the weaponized document attacks had identical footprints, we performed a deep dive on the IOCs in order to fingerprint and attribute the data points to a single threat actor. Based on the attribution of the attacks and the trail of data points we uncovered, we assess with high confidence that the threat actor is operating out of North Korea and is likely tied to the Lazarus group.
History of Attacks and Attribution
During our analysis, we noticed that North Korean threat actors have used TTPs similar to the TTPs that were mentioned and seen in the IOCs from our previous blogs.
A 2020 article by Fortinet detailed how North Korean threat actors leveraged a seemingly benign Word document on South Korea’s response to Covid-19 that had a malicious macro inside to trick victims into downloading the BabyShark malware. North Korean threat actors also sent malicious emails spoofing FedEx, encouraging readers to open a PDF that was actually an executable LokiBot exflitrating data to kbfvzoboss[.]bid/alien/fre.php. This IOC can be seen being used by LokiBot in very similar attacks going back to 2018.
We also found the sample shown below on Joe Sandbox while doing research. Curiously, it shows that North Korean is the resource language, and it contains both the LokiBot URL mentioned above and a similar URL structure to the LokiBot sample: http[://]sempersim[.]su/gj8/fre.php. This sample is also related to ones we analyzed for the previous two blogs mentioned above (it is the secondary malware of this infection chain that the malicious template downloads). We noticed many of the malicious documents tended to download only a handful of secondary malware.
Image from Joe Sandbox
Inside the malicious documents we saw metadata that was repeated in all 57 samples we analyzed for both of the previous Menlo Labs blogs on template injection attacks.
While the metadata matched, we noticed some samples used camouflaged URLs with periods, while others did not. All samples analyzed also used template injection TTPs and exploited CVE-2017-0199.
Similar TTPs were observed being used by a North Korean APT, BlueNoroff, which is currently focusing on targeting cryptocurrency companies. Throughout its SnatchCrypto campaign, BlueNoroff stalks and studies successful cryptocurrency startups before abusing trust in business communications. The infiltration team builds a map of interactions between individuals to understand possible topics of interest. This lets them mount high-quality social engineering attacks that look like totally normal interactions. BlueNoroff compromises companies through precise identification of the necessary people and the topics they are discussing at a given time. This allows the threat to fly under the radar and not trigger any suspicion.
By manipulating trust in this way, BlueNoroff can rely on regular macro-enabled documents or older exploits. One exploit that they stick to is CVE-2017-0199. The vulnerability initially allowed automatic execution of a remote script linked to a weaponized document. The exploit relies on fetching remote content via an embedded URL inside one of the document meta files. The document fetches a remote template that is another macro-enabled document. The first one contains two Base64-encoded binary objects (one for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows) declared as image data. The second document (the remote template) contains a VBA macro that extracts one of these objects, then spawns a new process (notepad.exe) to inject and execute the binary code. The VBA macro does a cleanup by removing the binary objects and the reference to the remote template from the original document and saving it to the same file, essentially de-weaponizing the document.
Image from SecureList
In another separate malicious campaign that used similar TTPs, North Korea used malicious emails that appeared to be from job recruiters. Inside the malicious email was an even more malicious document, which also exploits CVE-2017-0199, just as our other samples mentioned thus far. This document executes a malicious DLL that steals victims’ information, which is then exfiltrated to one of the four command and control servers (C2). The exfiltrated data is compressed, XOR encrypted, and then Base64 encoded before being transmitted to the C2 server.
One of the malicious domains that the above malware will exfiltrate to is shopandtravelusa[.]com. It hosted a webmail login that appeared to possibly be a phishing site. This suggests that this may have been a multi-use C2 when it was being used.
If this was indeed a phishing site, it would not have been the first that North Korea had used.
On June 27, 2022, Twitter user “Phantom XSec” reported a North Korean phishing site (naver[.]challengedrive[.]42web.io) targeting “defectors” in South Korea. The link contains a Base64-encoded Google drive URL and victim email.
The site asks you to identify yourself before you can download the malicious document, which is hosted on a Google drive link. This is a common TTP for North Korea. Analysis of the Google drive link revealed the following information:
Document ID : 1YdiX8eN2O-fiJeauLnAM8TUq4SauCGeG[+] Creation date : 2022/04/01 01:02:00 (UTC)[+] Last edit date : 2022/04/01 01:02:12 (UTC)Public permissions :reader[+] Owner found !Name : SungJi LeeEmail : [email protected]Google ID : 05253374549522814493[+] Custom profile picture !=> https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/default-user=s64
North Korea’s threat actor activity is well known for its repeated reuse of aging malicious infrastructure. We don’t anticipate a change in TTPs. While new malware and infrastructure may be added to their arsenal, the continued overlap in TTPs enables analysts to keep a close eye on cyberthreats from this nefarious nation-state.
The post Template injection attacks part 3: Following the bread crumbs to North Korea appeared first on Menlo Security.
*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Menlo Security authored by Ashwin Vamshi. Read the original post at: https://www.menlosecurity.com/blog/template-injection-attacks-part-3-following-the-bread-crumbs-to-north-korea/
Source: Read More |
Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, have published a report after taking over a massive botnet called Torpig aka Sinowal. The malware network was able to collect 56,000 passwords and hour as well as 70GB of financial and personal data.
The researchers found that most users reused passwords for multiple sites and that the malware was able to steal credit card numbers and bank logins. They were able to control the system for ten days before the malware was updated.
To crack the malware, the researchers noticed that the program would search for domains to attack. Sometimes the domains would be unregistered and the researchers registered those domains and masqueraded as a control node. |
Vulnerability Details : CVE-2007-2593
The Terminal Server in Microsoft Windows 2003 Server, when using TLS, allows remote attackers to bypass SSL and self-signed certificate requirements, downgrade the server security, and possibly conduct man-in-the-middle attacks via unspecified vectors, as demonstrated using the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) 6.0 client. NOTE: a third party claims that the vendor may have fixed this in approximately 2006.
Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2007-2593
Probability of exploitation activity in the next 30 days: 2.01%
CVSS scores for CVE-2007-2593
|Base Score||Base Severity||CVSS Vector||Exploitability Score||Impact Score||Source| |
How to Prevent Man-in-the-Middle Attacks
8 Min. Read | March 31, 2022
A man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack is a type of cyberattack where a perpetrator positions themself in a conversation between two parties — two users, or a user and an application or server — so that all communications are going to or through the attacker. The attacker can also play both sides, stealing the information a user sends to a server (such as login credentials, account details and credit card numbers) while also sending corrupted packets (such as malware or HTTP requests in a DDoS attack) to an innocent third party.
Also known as adversary-in-the-middle (AitM), these attacks are becoming increasingly common and increasingly difficult to prevent. Sophisticated phishing kits that include tools to launch man-in-the-middle attacks to steal MFA tokens are readily available for purchase. Remote workers on unsecured networks present a particularly soft target. Knowing how to recognize and how to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks is essential for effective enterprise and personal cybersecurity.
Preventing Man-in-the-Middle Attacks
Types of Man-in-the-Middle Attacks
Although the overall concepts are generally the same, the execution and processes of different MitM attacks can vary significantly. These nuances mean that knowing what to look for and how to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks can be difficult. Let’s take a look at the most common tactics and later we'll provide some tips for man-in-the-middle attack prevention.
1. IP Spoofing
In an IP Spoofing attack (a type of MitM), the hacker manipulates its network packet information to present themselves as having the IP address of a legitimate device or application. This allows them access to restricted networks and its resources. The attacker can also spoof the IPs of both user and server to intercept and snoop on all communications between them.
2. ARP Spoofing
The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) attempts to match IP addresses to MAC addresses where it does not know them. By using a forged ARP message, an attacker can resolve the request with its own MAC address, allowing them to steal important traffic, including session cookies. ARP Spoofing is only possible on 32-bit IP Addresses (IPv4) and not on IPv6, however most of the internet still works on IPv4.
3. Session Hijacking
When you log in to an account, a session token is used to confirm your identity. The session token continues to confirm your identity until you log out or the token expires. If an attacker can hijack or steal the token, they can pass as a legitimate user and bypass all authentication procedures.
4. Rogue Access Points
An attacker can set up a network access point close to a device by taking advantage of devices set to connect to the strongest open signal. This allows the attacker to manipulate all traffic to and from the user.
5. Public WiFi Eavesdropping
Like rogue access points, a fake “public” network is a classic MitM attack. The attacker sets up a legitimate-sounding WiFi network in a hotel, restaurant or even inside a workplace. Users connect to it thinking it is the correct one, giving the attacker the ability to eavesdrop on traffic or escalate the attacks, such as forcing users into SSL stripping. As it is difficult to identify such networks, man-in-the-middle prevention can be tough for these types of attacks.
6. DNS Spoofing
This is where the attacker manipulates traffic using the domain name system (DNS) to direct a user to their website instead of the one the user wanted. The user will usually be greeted by a fake version of the legitimate website, such as their online bank, with the details entered visible to the attacker.
7. HTTPS Spoofing
The counter to DNS spoofing is to ensure sites use HTTPS instead of HTTP. HTTPS encrypts the HTTP requests and responses using TLS (SSL), making it far more secure than HTTP. The SSL certificate authenticates the web server identity so an HTTPS-secured site is harder to spoof. However, attackers can get around this by using non-ASCII characters or languages like Cyrillic or Turkish as part of the URL, which are virtually indistinguishable from valid characters.
8. SSL Stripping
Another way around HTTPS encryption is to force traffic to HTTP sites instead. This can be done if the attacker has already successfully infiltrated a router or controls the WiFi network the user is connected to. The hacker becomes the party communicating directly with the HTTPs site, and connects the user to an HTTP version of the site. They can now see all the user’s communications in plain text, including access credentials. Strategies on how to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks often rely on creating security obstacles for attackers, but this type of attack shows how they can get around them fairly easily.
If an attacker has successfully installed a trojan horse on a user’s device, they can observe all online actions and exfiltrate that data to perform attacks. This attack is referred to as a man-in-the-browser attack since it specifically relates to web browser communications. As malware is the culprit here, a good antivirus can be the best man-in-the-middle attack prevention for this type of threat.
10. Email Hijacking
This is a man-in-the-middle attack where the attacker gains access to a user’s email, usually through a phishing attack. This then allows them to monitor all incoming and outgoing communications. This also allows them to act as the user if they wish, such as to request to change bank details or demand payment of an invoice.
How to Prevent Man-in-the-Middle Attacks: 4 Best Practices
Once underway, MitM attacks are notoriously difficult to spot since hackers disguise themselves as a legitimate endpoint in a line of communication. However, best practices in how to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks can go a long way in protecting organizations. From education to strong authentication, read on for tips for man-in-the-middle attack prevention.
Educate employees, particularly remote workers, about the dangers of MitM attacks and man-in-the-middle attack prevention techniques. Remind them to always check the address of websites they are logging into to ensure that users never exchange data or fill out forms on websites that do not use SSL (HTTPS), always heed network security warning messages, and to look for misspellings, unnecessary capitalization and erroneous number sequences (ex: FreeATLAirport vs. FreeATLairPort123). Employees should be trained on the dangers of connecting to public WiFi networks from any device accessing corporate data, and only use up-to-date, high-security browsers.
2. Intrusion Detection
Firewalls and intrusion detection systems constantly monitor networks for suspicious activity and attempts at infiltration. These systems are effective at blocking external attempts to compromise a network. Unfortunately, remote workers’ devices often live outside these protections.
Enterprises can prevent some types of man-in-the-middle attacks by deploying virtual private networks (VPNs). A VPN encrypts data, helping stop attacks from infiltrating your network attack and if an attack occurs, rendering any data gathered unreadable. They also provide protection for employees connecting to public WiFi. By setting VPNs to “force HTTPS,” all traffic goes through the most secure versions of sites. VPNs themselves, however, are an increasingly popular attack vector.
4. Strong Authentication
Most modern cyberattacks stem from compromised passwords and account takeover. Attackers then have complete access to networks and will never show up on intrusion detection systems. The counter to this is to deploy more secure authentication protocols, at a minimum multi-factor authentication (MFA) which requires users to provide two or more proofs of their identity. The highest level of authentication security, mandated as part of the Zero Trust architecture delineated by the federal government, is phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication, thus completely removing one of the most vulnerable points in your security posture.
How Passwordless MFA Prevents Man-in-the-Middle Attacks
MitM attacks are hard to detect and prevent, making them a nightmare scenario for any CISO. VPNs can help, but only if access is protected through strict authentication protocols. This is why any man-in-the-middle attack prevention strategy needs to start with a phishing-resistant passwordless MFA (PMFA).
Phishing-resistant PMFA uses public-key cryptography for the authentication process so there are no secrets or credentials that can be intercepted and leveraged in MitM attacks. FIDO-based passwordless MFA is considered the gold standard by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) as well as the OMB and other regulatory bodies. Solutions that are FIDO Certified end to end don’t use OTPs, SMS codes, compromisable push notifications or any other phishable factor.
To Sum Up
MitM attacks come in various forms, but all involve the attacker surreptitiously positioning themselves to monitor data and communication exchanges. Many also allow attackers to pretend to be one or both parties in the exchange. Understanding how to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks requires education and best practice as well as security measures that include intrusion detection, VPNs and secure authentication protocols.
One of your strongest defense pillars against these attacks is to remove passwords completely by deploying phishing-resistant passwordless MFA. HYPR’s Passwordless MFA is fully FIDO Certified in all of its components and provides a seamless, secure login experience from the desktop through to applications, including VPNs and other remote access points To learn how HYPR helps secure your networks and users against MitM attacks, talk to our team. |
The Encrypt Only boot mode in the Zynq UltraScale+ device requires system level protections to be resistant to Differential Power Analysis (DPA) attacks.
This is documented in version 1.8 of the Technical Reference Manual (TRM) that introduced the Encrypt Only boot mode, (UG1085): Zynq UltraScale+ Device Technical Reference Manual, which was released 8/3/2018.
This advisory notifies customers that the system level protections referenced in the TRM should also take into consideration that the Boot and Partition Headers are not authenticated in the Encrypt Only boot mode.
Without authentication of these headers it is possible for an adversary who has access to the boot image to modify the control fields resulting in incorrect secure boot behavior.
One such example is modification of the destination execution address. This address represents the start instruction address for a loaded partition.
An adversary with access to the boot image could modify the address, causing the device to jump to an arbitrary memory location to modify or bypass the secure boot process.
For more information on how to sign up to receive notifications of new Design Advisories, see (Xilinx Answer 18683).
Xilinx continues to recommend the use of the Hardware Root of Trust (HWRoT) boot mode when possible. The HWRoT boot mode does authenticate the boot and partition headers.
For systems that must use the Encrypt Only boot mode, customers are advised to consider system level protections that take into account DPA, unauthenticated boot, and partition header attack vectors. |
//Blogs - 01 February 2021
Emotet, now neutralised, may have friends you'll want to clean off your systems.
April 25th 2021 is now going to be on everyone’s mind in the Cyber Security industry.
This is the day the Emotet botnet, as we know it, would be “reset”. However, the method of the reset is interesting and places CERTs, the police forces and criminals in a strange interaction that may create friction within their shared end-goal of protecting end-users.
Emotet is arguably a botnet that deserves the attention it has gotten - to be taken down.
It seems that it has gained that attention from operation “Ladybird” in neutering the botnet as it now stands. But what now? And what about the efforts to protect end-users by parties from the various non "law enforcement agencies”.
The amount of attention that the Emotet botnet has congregated the effort of some amazing groups of people to be able to feed details to the information security industry about what domain and connections should be deemed indicative of infected end-points. Cryptolaemus is one such a group that comes to mind that provides such information. Under normal circumstances, information such as this - about indicators of compromise (IoC), are sent to the security team who then most likely blocks connections and identify affected end-points.
But this very action of trying to block connection(s) may now be working against the actions taken to neuter the Emotet botnet. The controlling servers that distribute updates of the botnet, have been seized and are now controlled by the Dutch Police, and the Emotet code has been altered and allowed to then have that new code distributed. This new code is said to include a kill-switch, which is controlled by a date, and that date is April 25th 2021 at 12:00 and the new code is now being delivered.
So now we have an industry that protects by not letting end-points to connect or interact with command and control servers, and another industry hoping that there will be further interactions so that the latest version of Emotet will be downloaded that will contain the kill-switch code!
If this does not sound as complementary efforts then you may have a point for conversation. Also add to this mix - the signal sent to management and leadership teams around the world - that the botnet is neutered, may provide a false sense of security. It's worth noting and reiterating at this point that Emotet is not a be-all and end-all malware but rather more of a platform that allows other malware to be installed.
Threat hunting should not be halted, rather it should be given more resources due a piece of contrarian fact. If you did not block connections with Emotet’s C2 then you may now have a neutered, kill-switched version of Emotet from the Dutch police - otherwise it is still lingering in its present active form. As for anything Emotet has downloaded before that neutered version is installed, the additional malware may still remain active on end-points.
Now that it is clear that threat hunting has no break from this botnet takeover, there are a few twists to this event that needs to be investigated. Although this blog piece may not be able to provide all the answers, here are some questions a takeover of a botnet raises and possible reasons behind it.
Why the choice of April 25th 2021 at 12:00? for the kill-switch and why should the sector wait so long?.
The idea behind such a long wait is now that the botnet has been neutered there is a window to look for "...Emotet malware and see if other gangs used it to deploy other threats...” as stated by Randy Pargman to ZDNet. In essence, the use of Emotet as a beacon to find other installed malware may work. What also works is that media attention on Emotet botnet takeover may incite management and leaders to provide threat hunting teams with extra resource(s) over the next two months in chasing Emotet infected end-points.
What will the kill-switch do?
The name of the sub-routine “uninstall_emotet()” looks promising. Beyond that any service call implication of a software having a self-destruct code written by extra-judiciary entities and distributed by a botnet is beyond the scope of this article. It may be safe to say that one should get ready for service calls in case there are issues. Looking on the positive side, there are two months lee-way to find the infected end-points.
Will using a kill-switch, which alters the end-point behaviour without the owner consenting to the change, have any legal ramifications?
You may have to talk to your lawyers about any issues that deals with advice around the law of the jurisdiction within which you are operating in. Note that altering software code on an end-point without the owner’s consent may find this action foul to some regulations around some jurisdictions. Even if the nations involved in the coordinated action are in agreement to waive responsibilities; Emotet knows no boundaries.
And last but not least ...
What about the seized data from the C2’s?
Yes, the Dutch police may now possibly have all your data that the Emotet botnet exfiltrated. The Dutch police has set up a function where the entry of an email address on their site will invoke an email back to the email address tested about whether it is in the data set seized. This may work for savvy individuals but enterprises may need to consider enterprise questions such as the deliberation of all email addresses of the organisation to an extra-jurisdiction law enforcement agency. Also, the collation of response(s) from that agency needs to be considered, before it gets flagged as spam or received by the user of the email account. No matter how the enterprise wants to re-route or act on the response, there will be lots of thinking and planning to be done!
The takeover of the Emotet botnet by law enforcement agency may signal the end of one botnet. Yet, today only means that this botnet is no longer a threat, but all the damage and installs it has made over time is still a clear and present threat. The clean-up process on one of the most prominent botnets of this decade has only just started.
It is hoped that after such media attention, organisations will take this opportunity to inject a bit more resources in cleaning affected end-points, and possible compromised accounts. Perhaps after the clean-up there are some resources still allocated to implement well deserved preventative and detective measures. After all - an “Ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!”.
CERTs, cops, and criminals Peter Zinn Sr. High Tech Crime Advisor,KLPD (National Crime Squad), NL on Monday 13th June 2011 https://www.first.org/conference/2011/program/index.html
International police operation LadyBird: global botnet Emotet 27th Jan 2021 dismantled https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://www.politie.nl/nieuws/2021/januari/27/11-internationale-politieoperatie-ladybird-botnet-emotet-wereldwijd-ontmanteld.html |
To overcome daily issues, it’s interesting that a network professional know some tools which can increase his productivity and make his work easier.
Although some tools - especially ARPSpoof, nmap, TCPTraceroute and AirCrack - can be used in malicious contexts - as to perform reconnaissance and probe for weaknesses in preparation for attacks - they also have value for legitimate purposes.
AirCrack – Can reveal who’s using the wireless network and can be used to troubleshoot issues. Also it’s a great tool for discovering nearby wireless networks.
ARPSpoof – Hackers use it to send spoofed ARP requests trying to pair MAC and IP addresses of networked devices. But it can also be used to create man-in-the-middle monitoring of activity without having to install a device on the span port of a router, for instance.
Cacti – It gathers and graphs SNMP values over time, giving a picture of device utilization.
cURL – Basically this tool moves data to and from servers and it is really useful in measuring the response time of Web sites.
Elasticsearch – It is a search server that can be paired with Logstash and Kibana (ELK) to gather log data and create dashboards. Elasticsearch provides the search capabilities and Kibana renders the data to create the dashboards.
fprobe – Listening to specified interfaces and gathering NetFlow data about traffic going through is the primary purpose of fprobe. It can be used to detect undesired traffic types, such as video streaming services in a corporate environment.
iperf – This tool measures throughput, packet loss and jitter, and supports both UDP and TCP packets to determine quality of connections between devices on a network. It can graph the data it gathers to see how network conditions vary over time.
nfdump – Flow information gathered by fprobe can be exported to nfdump, which stores it in a file system that it can read and use to display the data based on protocols and rank top users. One kind of application is to discover time-of-day congestion issues, for example.
Nmap – This is a powerful tool for network, device and service discovery useful for network scanning and for performing security audits. It can scan for specific ports and determine, for example, whether they are open or not. It can scan devices by subnet and deliver valuable information such as what type of traffic devices are putting out. In addition to discovering what devices are on the network, Nmap can scan for services that are active and perform pointer-record lookups and reverse DNS lookups which may help ID what kind of device it has found.
OpenNMS – This tool, which monitors devices and services, issues alerts when they go down and can write availability reports on devices.
Smokeping – It measures latency and packet loss that can be analyzed over time to reveal changes in latency that can be used for troubleshooting or network planning. It does this by firing off Ping packets at regular intervals and recording the response times. Spikes that show up on graphs of the data gathered indicate when response-time troubles arise and can help narrow down investigations into their causes.
Snort – This is a intrusion detection ID tool that can be used to live-monitor networks, but it can also be used to apply rules to a set of trace files captured. It can be paired with logging tools like ElasticSearch and LogStash, and the gathered data can be analyzed, with rules set to look for specific conditions and send alerts.
TCPTraceroute – This tool traces paths through networks using TCP rather than ICMP. It’s good for finding what’s blocking traffic in transit, such as firewalls configured to block the ports the traffic needs to use.
Wireshark – It captures and analyzes packets to find malformed frames, mis-ordered packets and the like. Users can write rules to capture only certain protocols such as wireless, TCP or http to troubleshoot slow server response time, for example. |
Note: This blog has been updated as of 19 November 2020 to incorporate additional material, which is preceded by an asterisk.
On 22 October, 2020, the U.S. government issued an alert (AA20–296A) for a widespread campaign of malicious activity by a Russian state-sponsored cyber operations entity tracked under a variety of industry monikers. This activity took place between at least September 2020 and October 2020, with its targeting focused on a large volume of entities associated with U.S. state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) networks and aviation sector networks. The Russian entity named as responsible has been linked to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) by the Washington Post in connection to past activity attributed by the U.S. government to “Russian government cyber actors” and by the New York Times in relation to AA20–296A; for the sake of argument let’s say that attribution is plausible, if not correct. (*For additional context, Joe Slowik has also published an exceptional blog on the history and implications of this entity and its operations.) I’d rather not try to summarize all the activity described in the alert here, but instead to address its operational logic and how it can be taken as a likely exemplar of Russian active measures: an insidious blend of offensive counterintelligence and influence operations that, in the words of George Smiley, “would be beautiful in another context.”
The operation’s apparent targeting parameters provide our first clear clue. While the scope was clearly focused geographically on the United States and sectorally on SLTT-related entities, the described scale — in both the text of the alert (e.g., “wide variety of U.S. targets”, “targeted dozens of SLTT government and aviation networks”, a one-off reference to at least one apparent education sector target likely related to SLTT networks) and a *subsequently published heat map — is relatively large. To my eye, an operation so large against that target scope casts some doubt on as to how much actual value its operators reasonably could have expected to draw from the activity if the intention was intelligence collection in advance of the U.S. presidential election in November 2020. Regardless of if it relied on the same logic, the U.S. government seems to have arrived at a similar conclusion, not mentioning a possible collection motive but rather that “…the actor may be seeking access to obtain future disruption options, to influence U.S. policies and actions, or to delegitimize SLTT government entities.”
I would take that conclusion a bit further. I believe these targeting parameters suggest a different motive than either intelligence collection or acquiring network/system disruption options, because in either case — facing the election day time crunch — the actor would focus their targeting much more narrowly if they really needed to deliver results. I am disinclined to believe the FSB (for the sake of argument) would invest the time and effort required of such a large operation, so close to a major event of strategic significance (i.e., the U.S. presidential election), if it was really meant as a shotgun approach to acquire options or data. If those requirements existed, they would’ve certainly predated September 2020 and been the subject of more highly-targeted activity before autumn.
Our second clue is the tradecraft employed: exploit-chaining that relies on the “CVE greatest hits” of the last few years. Given the aforementioned asymmetries within the targeting parameters, the picture I see emerging is something akin to the actor artificially constructing a game reserve and then opportunistically hunting within it. The targeting parameters are the game reserve: entities in the United States, associated with SLTT government no matter how tangentially. The heavy reliance on exploit chaining — easily enough automated — is the opportunistic hunting, so opportunistic that it borders on indiscriminate. Yet it remains confined to the boundaries of the artificial reserve. With that kind of model, a viable goal emerges in my mind: the offensive counterintelligence effect known as degradation.
I have previously talked about the potential degradation functions of large-scale targeted intrusion campaigns. Such campaigns require defensive efforts to be expended by a large group of particular public and private sector entities. From initial incident responders potentially all the way up to senior government officials, this effort ripples upward and outward as it gathers steam. From a counterintelligence perspective, this exertion and the anxieties that accompany it serve the function of frustrating an adversary on multiple levels. (In an academic sense, it is an interesting example of capitalizing on Clausewitzian friction.) The anxiety element of such friction also presents further exploitable possibilities.
Specifically, an actor could harness the collateral psychological effects of such a degradation-oriented campaign for the purpose of active measures, including influence operations, against a wide variety of audiences. In essence, the psychological stress endured by blue team personnel and decision-makers is both the core degradation effect as well as the first-order influence impact. The second-order influence impacts would be directed at any individuals that responders et al. would tell about their trials and tribulations, including individuals who may inform the press or general public. Thus, the third-order influence impacts could affect at least a portion of the wider public. And once you are trying to get average people to wrap their heads around a campaign like that, you can count on pitfalls of the domestic information environment to help do some of the heavy lifting for the adversary when it comes to FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) generation. The anxiety that was primarily designed to wear down security and government communities now has actual potential to cause alarm among a susceptible percentage of the public.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
I personally think there’s a good chance that the reported activity was intended primarily as a degradation operation targeting the U.S. government and secondarily as an influence operation against both the U.S. government and the American public. In that sense, I’m advocating for the potential motives of “influence U.S. policies and actions” and “delegitimize SLTT government entities” as described in AA20–296A. I base this on the reported targeting parameters and tradecraft employed, as well as the effects possible from both counterintelligence- and active measures-oriented operational planning perspectives. To return to my earlier metaphor: the opportunistic hunting within the chosen game reserve in such close temporal proximity to the election would present ideal conditions for that ripple-upward-and-outward anxiety that is so ripe for exploitation. In particular, the politicization of the integrity of the election presents some extraordinary opportunities for undermining faith in democratic institutions — to include elections and their outcomes — and maybe sow a little general chaos in the process. It would be most Chekist in its logic.
There is, again to paraphrase le Carré’s Smiley, a last clever knot. I think of it as a dead man’s switch for the influence operation goals of this activity. It revolves around whether or not the activity is disclosed and ensuring some level of effects across a variety of scenarios. If the activity is discovered but not publicly disclosed, at least the first-order targets and some of the second-order targets have been impacted. If the activity is made public by entities other than the U.S. government, then first-order, second-order, and third-order target sets are impacted to at least some degree. If the U.S. government chooses to disclose the activity, all three orders of targets are impacted and the potential for general alarm among the public increases because an official government announcement almost guarantees a greater minimum level of public consumption (including via media amplification). It even may be the actor’s intent to make this latter potential evident in some way to government decision-makers as an attempt to create a disclination to disclose or attribute the activity, knowing that internal debate over what course of action to take could intensify friction within relevant government entities.
However, that third option — disclosure and attribution by the U.S. government — offers significant positive trade-offs that could counter the some of the intended effects of such activity, if done properly. Being the first to disclose, and disclosing in sufficient detail, would grant the U.S. government a strong opportunity to set the narrative and in doing so potentially engage in some meaningful inoculation of the general public against misunderstanding, manipulation, and panic. It also presents a chance to throw the adversary off their operational timelines, as a bit of retaliatory degradation. There of course remains the very real risk that the actor responsible may still leverage knowledge gained in this activity in a variety of ways both during and after election day (e.g., so-called “perception hacks”, hack-and-leak operations, website defacements, system/network disruptions, etc.); however, those possibilities would exist regardless of if the underlying activity was disclosed or not.
*There also exists the risk that domestic actors, not just the foreign ones associated with the SLTT-targeted intrusion activity, could attempt to use the existence of the aforementioned activity to bolster independent efforts (e.g., legal challenges, influence narratives, etc.) meant call into question the validity of the outcome of the election. Kudos to Kyle Ehmke for pointing out this very important point. It is likely that the actor responsible for the activity covered in AA20–296A anticipated, and even desired, that their actions could be potentially exploited in such a manner by domestic actors.
In the spirt of that third option well-executed, I believe the 22 October disclosure represents a meaningful response to Russian active measures. Some may view it as a pyrrhic victory in the absence of some kind of tangible cost imposition like indictments or disruption of adversary networks, but to take that stance ignores the more intangible, subtle dynamics likely at play. To be clear — I do not attempt to say the theory I’ve outlined definitely is what this activity represents, merely that I think there is sufficient evidence to make a good case for it. In the same vein, I must acknowledge there are details about the reported activity that I do not know and those details could weaken or outright contradict my theory. However, at the end of the day, I fundamentally remain impressed with the adversary’s apparent logic — at least from how I perceive it — and feel further secured in the belief that to not respect your adversary’s capacity for cunning is hubristic.
Disclaimer: As a reminder, all views expressed on this blog, including this post, solely represent my personal views and not those my employer. |
Unrestricted file upload vulnerabilities enable attackers to upload malicious scripts to a web server for later execution. We have built a system, namely UFuzzer, to effectively and automatically detect such vulnerabilities in PHP-based server-side web programs. Different from existing detection methods that use either static program analysis or fuzzing, UFuzzer integrates both (i.e., static-fuzzing co-analysis). Specifically, it leverages static program analysis to generate executable code templates that compactly and effectively summarize the vulnerability-relevant semantics of a server-side web application. UFuzzer then “fuzzes” these templates in a local, native PHP runtime environment for vulnerability detection. Compared to static-analysis-based methods, UFuzzer preserves the semantics of an analyzed program more effectively, resulting in higher detection performance. Different from fuzzing-based methods, UFuzzer exercises each generated code template locally, thereby reducing the analysis overhead and meanwhile eliminating the need of operating web services. Experiments using real-world data have demonstrated that UFuzzer outperforms existing methods in either efficiency, or accuracy, or both. In addition, it has detected 31 unknown vulnerable PHP scripts including 5 CVEs.
& Li, C.
(2021). UFuzzer: Lightweight Detection of PHP-Based Unrestricted File Upload Vulnerabilities Via Static-Fuzzing Co-Analysis. RAID '21: Proceedings of the 24th International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses, 78-90. |
Discover Security Trends News
BlackBerry: Cyberattacks Are Being Launched Once Every Minute
Threat actors are evolving to target a wide variety of systems and infrastructure, BlackBerry says in a new report. "In addition, attacks against Linux systems and cloud infrastructure will increase as threat actors look to install backdoors on target systems and gain visibility into organizations for further activities."
A new report from BlackBerry reveals that threat actors are launching an attack about once every minute, with the resurgence of the Emotet botnet, phishing attacks and infostealers dominating the attack landscape.
The Ontario-based intelligent security software and services provider’s first Global Intelligence Report on the fourth quarter of 2022 find that the company’s AI-driven prevention-first technology stopped more than 1.75 million malware-based attacks.
According to BlackBerry, the most common tools used in attacks include the Emotet botnet, the Qakbot phishing threat and an increase in infostealers such as GuLoader. |
Amazon button leaked user traffic
Shopping button let sneaks snoop
Amazon is the latest company to come under fire for misusing its browser extension bar, with security researcher Krzysztof Kotowicz accusing the company of invading privacy via its 1Button extension for Chrome.
The blogger, in a post entitled Jealous of PRISM? Use "Amazon 1 Button" Chrome extension to sniff all HTTPS websites! says 1Button not only provides a side-channel attack for SSL encrypted data on user machines: it sends some user Web activity information over plain text.
And even worse: as he points out, if you're a 1Button for Chrome user, you've given the extension permission to do all of this stuff.
Kotowicz's accusations are extensive and specific. He says the Chrome extension:
- Reports URLs users visit to Amazon (using HTTPS);
- Attaches an external script (currently harmless) to Websites users visit;
- Reports the content of some Websites users visit back to Alexa – including Google searches over HTTPS and some search results.
It's this last that Kotowicz describes as “evil”: URLs and extracted page information travelled to widgets.alexa.com as plain text over HTTP.
Then there's the configuration files. As Kotowicz writes: “upon installation (and then periodically) [the 1Button extension] requests and processes two config files.
“[The] first file defines what HTTPS sites can be inspected. The second file defines URL patterns to watch for, and XPath expressions to extract content being reported back to Alexa. The files are fetched from these URLs:
“Yes. The configuration for reporting extremely private data is sent over plaintext HTTP. WTF, Amazon?”
He posted exploit code at github, an action was sufficient to persuade Amazon to repair one flaw: data is now sent over HTTPS instead of HTTP.
Check your permissions: why would you click 'yes'?
However, extent of the data captured by the button suggests it's far more invasive than is necessary for a shopping button. ®
Sponsored: Network DDoS protection |
The rate at which high profile cybersecurity breaches happen every day; it is clear that the adversaries have turned the digital world into a war zone. We, at Infopercept, call it “The Digital Warfare”. Every day when a breach occurs, it is a win for the adversaries and a loss for our businesses and cybersecurity professionals who take care of the security of the businesses.
The problem lies in understanding the way adversaries behave. They have launched a full-fledged war and their attacks cannot be combated without understanding the rules of this cyber war. In one of the great books written on War - the author of the book says, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Unfortunately, in this war against the adversaries, nearly half of the organizations neither know their enemy (cybercriminals) nor themselves; and the majority of the organizations don’t know their enemy. Hence, we see large scale data breaches happening all across the world.
With years of experience in successfully running “Security Operations Centers” for various organizations worldwide; Infopercept has designed a platform called Invinsense. Invinsense is an integrated tool which combines security solutions, services and strategy- all revolving around an attacker’s mindset. The threat intelligence that is generated with this integrated platform, helps organizations to predict an attacker’s behavior and gives enough scope to take action to combat such attacks before they create irreparable damage to organizations. On the surface it seems that adversaries are unpredictable, and they change their way of attacking each time. However, with research and study it has become clear that some portion of their behavior remains the same.
Any adversary has two aspects of their behavior- Techniques and Tactics. Often cybersecurity strategies are aligned in line with the techniques of adversaries and that is where the problem lies. Adversaries can change their techniques every time and can surprise cybersecurity tools and professionals. With Invinsense we have focused on the tactics of adversaries and the platform with its attacker sense, which helps organizations to combat cyberattacks by killing attack chains based on the tactics of cybercriminals.
Invinsense has integrated the cybersecurity innovations of the open source community into its solutions and has designed an integrated approach towards cybersecurity that can think and behave like adversaries.
In digital warfare, you always face an indefinite, evolving and advancing adversary. You need so much more than basic senses – you need command of the unknown; you need sense of the unrevealed, you need…invincibility. Advancing from basic senses, we have gone beyond the sixth sense, we have uncovered the unified sense of experience, knowledge, and intuition – we have discovered Invinsense – the unrivalled formula for undefeated success – the blueprint of invincibility. Invinsense breaks the status quo of focus on techniques alone and works on the new exemplar of Tactics. All imaginations of the adversary are objective centric which is pre-empted by Invinsense’s Tactic based approach - modelled on Neuroscience and data backed experiences.
Combining strategy, services, and solutions, and its unique sense, Invinsense excels in optimizing your security with integrated processes and platforms, including a strong evangelism and applicability of open-source platforms and unleashes a new era of digital weaponry and is your invincible force in digital warfare.
Cyber Security is an evolved space and adversaries in this space are the most intelligent and evolved forms of the human species, just a lot astray. They have already mastered all the techniques you may apply in the war that they will engage you in. They use a deadly combination of diverting your generals in perceiving false battlegrounds and using your soldiers to lead them to your business treasures, which they then easily procure. Some damage may go completely unnoticed and few may take months, if not years to be even perceived. They do not stop here as they are not just here to breach security, they are here to ruin your reputation.
The key to break the status quo of Adversaries overpowering cybersecurity war is adoption of Tactics over Techniques. Invinsense is designed using a Tactic based approach - modelled on Neuroscience and data backed experiences. As an ultra-modern security product, it counteracts on the adversaries by its ability to integrate with the attacker’s mindset. Invinsense comes in with a unique sense that metamorphosizes everything into a winning Edge for Businesses. Invinsense brings businesses the benefits of optimization and tactics along with great ROI and cutting-edge technologies with help of the best of Open-Source Platforms and winning cybersecurity professionals.
You will never be defeated with Invinsense – your path towards success and your journey towards invincibility. Offering a heightened game plan combining strategy, services, and solutions, Invinsense optimizes your security with expertise, intelligence and innovation, while empowering you with infinite senses – making you invincible:
Being able to decide and counterattack your enemy is vital in every battle.
In open war, your SEIM will observe the field, taking in every enemy, every weapon, and every tactic, and then alert your SOAR.
Visualising all possible points of assault, your SOAR will then orient the perfect counterattack.
Your soldiers will gear up with security solutions and EDR, to decide and launch your attack on the enemy and destroy them.
All battles are a game of deceit, and with ODS you will perfect the art of deception and moving target defence.
The enemy will fire at you, aiming to destroy your Data Centre. But at the moment of breach, you will unveil your decoy and change the game by shooting your shooter.
Your army will also master moving target defence to engage and lure the enemy to attack you, and when they do ODS will misguide their aim with a moving target, rendering your enemy confused and vulnerable.
In digital warfare, we need to combine the skills of humans with the resilience of robots.
While your soldiers will use human intelligence to penetrate the battle wars, your robots will proceed to breaking through barriers, entering where humans are unable to.
This combined collaboration between man and machine will help you simulate multiple environments and contexts, to keep you armed in strategy and execution.
The RBAS simulation will keep your armies ready and rehearsed to face the adversary when he attacks.
Your organisation gets its own Strategy Dashboard where your C-suite holds the reins and has clear visibility of the battlefield.
Infopercept’s GSOS sense provides an overall management view of your organisation’s cybersecurity, aligned with OODA, ODS and RBAS, offering you an all-inclusive dashboard.
With the Enterprise Risk Module to assess risks, the Culture User Awareness module to protect users from phishing, social engineering etc. and Table Top Attack Simulation to enable table top dry runs of cyberattacks, the SOS module empowers your leadership to strategize, optimise and strengthen your Cyber War Quotient. Invinsense helps top management assess its path towards a Green SOS, proactively, while keeping the organisation away from a Red SOS. |
This script is Copyright (C) 2010-2014 Tenable Network Security, Inc.
The remote web server may be affected by multiple vulnerabilities.
According to its self-reported version number, the instance of Apache
Tomcat 5.x listening on the remote host is earlier than 5.5.21 and,
therefore, may be affected by one or more of the following
- The remote Apache Tomcat install is vulnerable to a
cross-site scripting attack. The client supplied
Accept-Language headers are not validated which allows
an attacker to use a specially crafted URL to inject
arbitrary HTML and script code into the user's browser.
- If the remote Apache Tomcat install is configured to use
the SingleSignOn Valve, the JSESSIONIDSSO cookie does
not have the 'secure' attribute set if authentication
takes place over HTTPS. This allows the JSESSIONIDSSO
cookie to be sent to the same server when HTTP content
is requested. (CVE-2008-0128)
- The remote Apache Tomcat install is affected by an
information disclosure vulnerability. The doRead method
fails to return the proper error code for certain error
conditions, which can cause POST content to be sent to
different, and improper, requests. (CVE-2008-4308)
Note that Nessus did not actually test for the flaws but instead has
relied on the version in Tomcat's banner or error page so this may be
a false positive.
See also :
Update Apache Tomcat to version 5.5.21 or later.
Risk factor :
Medium / CVSS Base Score : 5.0
CVSS Temporal Score : 4.1
Public Exploit Available : true |
The Singapore Cyber Security Group’s team of IT experts discovered a total of seven dangerous vulnerabilities in Riverbed’s network software, four of which turned out to be critical (CVE-2021-42786, CVE-2021-42787, CVE-2021-42853 and CVE-2021-42854).
The vulnerable software is SteelCentral AppInternals (formerly called AppInternals Xpert) for monitoring and diagnosing application performance. Customers usually use this software in data centers and on cloud servers to collect information about performance, transaction traces, etc.
In particular, the vulnerable code is located in the dynamic sampling agent, which is a component of the AppInternals collection. The problem affects software versions 10.x, versions up to 12.13.0 and versions up to 11.8.8.
Critical vulnerabilities received ratings of 9.8, 9.4, 9.1 and 9.8 points, respectively, out of 10 on the CVSS scale. The exploitation of the most dangerous of the problems allows an unauthorized user to remotely inject and run malicious code on the victim’s system.
CVE-2021-42786 — vulnerability of remote code execution in the software API related to the lack of proper validation of the URL path input data. CVE-2021-42787 is a vulnerability of the lack of proper verification of file name input, allowing attackers to use characters such as “../” as a name. Exploiting the vulnerability can lead to potential directory crawling and unauthorized access to limited resources. CVE-2021-42853 and CVE-2021-42854 are also represented by directory vulnerabilities in API endpoints.
Experts informed Riverbed about their findings, and the company released fixes for the vulnerabilities found. Users of Riverbed software are strongly advised to upgrade to the latest version. |
Several European firms that create software that controls industrial facilities, including nuclear reactors, have been hit by a virus that extracts information from their systems, The New York Times reports.
The virus, known as Duqu, appears to have been made by the same people who made the Stuxnet virus, an infamous cyber weapon that attacked the Iran nuclear program last summer.
Duqu is essentially the precursor to a future Stuxnet-like attack. The threat was written by the same authors (or those that have access to the Stuxnet source code) and appears to have been created since the last Stuxnet file was recovered. Duqu's purpose is to gather intelligence data and assets from entities, such as industrial control system manufacturers, in order to more easily conduct a future attack against another third party. The attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help them mount a future attack on an industrial control facility.
One key point outlined by Systemac is that whoever created the file has access to the source code of Stuxnet, and is likely the creator of the previous virus.
Vikram Thakur of Symantec told the Times, “This is extremely sophisticated, this is cutting edge.” |
Arrays and objects are used to store and organize data. PHP includes a large number of functions that enable you to create, modify, and manipulate arrays, which you will use frequently throughout the procedural programming method described in this book. However, the object-oriented programming structures found in many programming languages are also evident in PHP, and you will catch a glimpse of them in this chapter.
In this chapter, you learn the basics of working with arrays and objects, including
How to create and manipulate arrays using the myriad array-related functions built into PHP
How to create and manipulate objects and the data they contain
You’ve already learned about and used ... |
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2017 09:11:16 +0100 From: "Simon Steiner" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]> Cc: "'Pierre Ernst'" <[email protected]> Subject: [CVE-2017-5662] Apache Batik information disclosure vulnerability CVE-2017-5662: Apache Batik information disclosure vulnerability Severity: Medium Vendor: The Apache Software Foundation Versions Affected: Batik 1.0 - 1.8 Description: Files lying on the filesystem of the server which uses batik can be revealed to arbitrary users who send maliciously formed SVG files. The file types that can be shown depend on the user context in which the exploitable application is running. If the user is root a full compromise of the server--including confidential or sensitive files--would be possible. XXE can also be used to attack the availability of the server via denial of service as the references within a xml document can trivially trigger an amplification attack. Mitigation: Users should upgrade to Batik 1.9+ Credit: This issue was independently reported by Lars Krapf of Adobe and Pierre Ernst at Salesforce. References: http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/security.html The Apache XML Graphics team.
Powered by blists - more mailing lists
Please check out the Open Source Software Security Wiki, which is counterpart to this mailing list.
Powered by Openwall GNU/*/Linux - Powered by OpenVZ |
Cross-Site Request Forgery, commonly known as CSRF, is a type of attack that tricks an end-user into executing unwanted actions on a web application where they're currently authenticated. In a CSRF attack, the victim unknowingly sends a malicious request to a site where they're authenticated, potentially causing damaging actions such as changing account settings, initiating transactions, or any other unintended function.
Imagine you've logged into your online banking platform and, without logging out, you decide to visit another site. If that site contains a malicious script designed to trigger a transaction on your bank site, you might unknowingly send money to an attacker's account.
CSRF attacks leverage the trust that a website has in the user's browser, exploiting the fact that the browser retains authentication credentials like session cookies.
For CSRF attacks to be successful, certain conditions must be met:
A typical CSRF attack follows this sequence:
While CSRF and Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) might sound similar, they exploit web applications in different ways.
The major difference lies in the trust exploitation. CSRF exploits the trust that a website has in the user's browser, while XSS exploits the trust that a user has in a particular website.
The most common method to prevent CSRF attacks is to use anti-CSRF tokens. These are random, unique values assigned to users' sessions, ensuring that any request made to the web application is legitimate and initiated by the user.
Steps to implement anti-CSRF tokens:
This method ensures that even if an attacker can forge a request, they won't have the unique token required to validate it.
Introduced in 2016, the
SameSite attribute provides a way to declare if cookies should be restricted to a first-party or same-site context. This attribute can play a pivotal role in CSRF prevention.
Cookies with this attribute set can have one of three values:
By setting the
SameSite attribute appropriately, developers can reduce the risk of cookies being exploited in CSRF attacks.
Modern web applications prioritize user experience and seamless interactions, often meaning continuous sessions without frequent logins. This continuous authentication elevates the risks associated with CSRF.
While CSRF attacks target end-users of web applications, it's worth noting the broader landscape of security challenges, particularly in the realm of open source. Socket, with its focus on protecting the open source ecosystem, employs deep package inspection to shield against supply chain attacks.
Although CSRF and supply chain attacks differ in their mechanisms and targets, they underline the necessity for proactive, comprehensive security solutions. Socket's capability to detect and block supply chain attacks before they strike showcases the proactive approach required in today's cybersecurity landscape.
Throughout the years, many reputable websites have fallen victim to CSRF attacks, emphasizing the importance of robust security measures.
These incidents highlight the importance of always being vigilant, adopting security best practices, and continuously updating them as threats evolve.
For developers, it's essential to implement robust CSRF prevention methods from the inception of a web application.
SameSitecookie attribute effectively to minimize risks.
In the ever-evolving world of cybersecurity, staying one step ahead is crucial. As CSRF attacks exploit the trust between web applications and users' browsers, awareness and proactive measures are the keys to mitigation.
Socket's approach to supply chain security illustrates the importance of anticipating threats rather than reacting to them. Similarly, understanding CSRF, its mechanics, and prevention methods ensures the safety of both developers and end-users in the modern web ecosystem.
Table of ContentsIntroduction to CSRFHow CSRF Attacks WorkCSRF vs. XSS AttacksPreventing CSRF AttacksThe Importance of SameSite Cookie AttributeImpacts of CSRF on Modern Web ApplicationsSocket's Role in Detecting and Preventing Supply Chain AttacksCase Studies: Real-World CSRF AttacksBest Practices for DevelopersConclusion: Staying Ahead of CSRF |
Lazy loading is a design pattern commonly used in computer programming to defer initialization of an object until the point at which it is needed. It can contribute to efficiency in the program's operation if properly and appropriately used. The opposite of lazy loading is eager loading. (Wiki)
Contao supported versions
Extension is supported for latest Contao 3 and Contao 4.
Lazyloading images with LazySizes.js without the disturbing reflow of the website, whenever an image is loaded.
Several options are available in the generic contao settings: |
It would be awesome to get some feedback or better suggestions from people much smarter than myself -- like you!
Since the attacker also knows this value he/she will refresh their browser and the resources mapped to that session ID (the victim's resources) will be served to them. This will no doubt cause a new cookie to get generated but it will be on the user's browser before they login.
So if an attacker can edit the "prelogin" cookie again, the attack still persists, as the same cookie will be used even after the user logs in. What this means, is that even if an attacker manages to trick you into using a controlled value prior to logging in, you're still protected.the application forcibly changes the value after you log in.
i had another owasp link, which confused me because it says "Session ID should be regenerated after login" :owasp.org/index.php/Session_Fixation_in_Java.. I can't comment on @cherouvim's answer above as I don't have enough points.
The new session ID should be set "after" the user successfully logs in, to avoid session fixation. Session fixation effectively means that an attacker somehow tricked a user into using a value known to the attacker.
The problem is that the JSESSIONID cookie is set in the browser and visible in the Firefox cookie viewer (for example). If you are using the older version of jboss like jboss 4 then simply calling the Session(true) after session.invalidate() call will not change the session id. |
Curiosity around 'exec_id' and some problems associated with it
The logic responsible for handling ->exit_signal has been changed a few times and the current logic is locked down since Linux kernel 3.3.5. However, it is not fully robust and it’s still possible for the malicious user to bypass it. Basically, it’s possible to send arbitrary signals to a privileged (suidroot) parent process (Problem I.). Nevertheless, it’s not trivial and more limited comparing to the CVE-2009-1337. |
Back to blog home
A Practical Guide To Adversarial Robustness
Why discuss Adversarial Robustness?
Machine learning models have been shown to be vulnerable to adversarial attacks, which consist of perturbations added to inputs designed to fool the model that are often imperceptible to humans. In this document, we highlight the several methods of generating adversarial examples and methods of evaluating adversarial robustness.
History of Adversarial Attacks
Adversarial examples are inputs to machine learning models designed to intentionally fool them or to cause mispredictions. The canonical example is the one from Ian Goodfellow’s paper below.
While adversarial machine learning is still a very young field (less than 10 years old), there’s been an explosion of papers and work around attacking such models and finding their vulnerabilities, turning into a veritable arms race between defenders and attackers. Attackers essentially have the upper hand because breaking things is easier than fixing them. A great analogy to adversarial ML is cryptography in the 50s: researchers kept trying convoluted ways of securing systems, and researchers kept trying to break them, till they invented a convoluted algorithm that was probably too computationally expensive to break (DES).
To that end, let us try to define what an adversarial sample on a model looks like. Mathematically, let us assume that we have a model f with an input x that can produce a prediction y. Then, an adversarial example d for the model f and input x can be defined such that:
- f(x+d) != y, implying that the perturbation d added to x does not produce the same prediction as x
- L(d) < T, where L is some generic function that measures the norm of d, and where T is some upper bound on this norm.
Based on the above parameters, there is a large family of algorithms that can be used to generate such perturbations. Broadly, they can be split up as follows:
We model the threat of adversaries as follows:
- Gradient access: Gradient access controls who has access to the model f and who doesn’t.
- White box: adversaries typically have full access to the model parameters, architecture, training routine and training hyperparameters, and are often the most powerful attacks used in literature. White box attacks use gradient information to find adversarial examples often.
- Black box: adversaries have little to no access to the model parameters, and the model is abstracted away as an API of some sort. Black box attacks can be launched using non-gradient based optimization methods, such as (1) genetic algorithms, (2) random search, and (3) evolution strategies. They are usually not very efficient in terms of computational resources but are the most realistic adversary class.
- Perturbation bound: Perturbation bound determines the size of the perturbation d, and is usually measured with some mathematical norm such as the Lp norm.
- L0 norm: An L0 norm bounded attack typically involves modifying a certain number of features of an input signal to a model. L0-norm bounded attacks are often very realistic and can be launched on real-world systems. A common example is a sticker added to a stop-sign that can force a self-driving car to not slow down – all the background is preserved, and only a tiny fraction of the environment is modified.
- L1 norm: An L1 norm bounded attack involves upper bounding the sum of the total perturbation values. This attack is quite uncommon.
- L2 norm: An L2 norm bounded attack involves upper bounding the Euclidean distance/Pythagorean distance of the perturbation d. L2 norm bounded attacks are used quite commonly due to the mathematical relevance of L2 norms in linear algebra and geometry.
- L_infinity norm: An L_infinity norm bounded attack involves upper bounding the maximum value of the perturbation d, and was the first attack to be discovered. Linfinity attacks are studied the most out of all because of their simplicity and mathematical convenience in robust optimization.
At a very high-level, we can have 8 different kinds of attacks (2 x 4) highlighted below if we use the Lp norm as a robustness metric. There are several other domain-specific ways to quantify the magnitude of the perturbation d, but the above can be generalized across all input types. Note that the attacks cited below are strictly for images, but the general principles can be applied to any model f.
|Access to compute gradients?||L0 norm||L1 norm||L2 norm||Linfinity norm|
|Y – White Box||SparseFool , |
|Elastic-net attacks ||Carlini-Wagner ||PGD , |
|N – Black Box||Adversarial Scratches , |
|–||GenAttack , |
|GenAttack , |
As machine learning models become increasingly embedded in products and services all around us, their security vulnerabilities and threats become ever more important, and monitoring becomes even more critical. We’ve highlighted different methods an adversary might launch an adversarial attach against a pre-trained model, but as we find more examples, we will make sure to write another post and share the findings. In the meantime, check out our other data science blogs.
Modas et al., SparseFool: A Few Pixels Make a Big Difference, CVPR 2019
Papernot et al., Practical Black-Box Attacks against Machine Learning, ASIA CCS 2017
Sharma et al., EAD: Elastic-Net Attacks to Deep Neural Networks. AAAI-2018
Carlini et al., Towards Evaluating the Robustness of Neural Networks, IEEE Security & Privacy, 2017
Madry et al., Towards Deep Learning Models Resistant to Adversarial Attacks, ICLR 2018
Goodfellow et al., Explaining and Harnessing Adversarial Examples, ICLR 2015
Jere et al., Scratch that! An Evolution-based Adversarial Attack against Neural Networks, arxiv preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.02316
Croce et al., Sparse-RS: a versatile framework for query-efficient sparse black-box adversarial attacks, ECCV’20 Workshop on Adversarial Robustness in the Real World
Alzantot et al., GenAttack: Practical Black-box Attacks with Gradient-Free Optimization, GECCO ’19
Guo et al., Simple Black-box Adversarial Attacks, ICML 2019 |
Stack-based Buffer Overflow Affecting mariadb-embedded package, versions <3:10.3.35-1.module+el8.6.0+20730+e6b28fc7
Do your applications use this vulnerable package?
In a few clicks we can analyze your entire application and see what components are vulnerable in your application, and suggest you quick fixes.Test your applications
- Snyk ID SNYK-ORACLE8-MARIADBEMBEDDED-2969887
- published 4 Aug 2022
- disclosed 18 Feb 2022
Introduced: 18 Feb 2022CVE-2022-24048 Open this link in a new tab
How to fix?
mariadb-embedded to version 3:10.3.35-1.module+el8.6.0+20730+e6b28fc7 or higher.
This issue was patched in
Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply to the upstream
How to fix? for
Oracle:8 relevant versions.
MariaDB CONNECT Storage Engine Stack-based Buffer Overflow Privilege Escalation Vulnerability. This vulnerability allows local attackers to escalate privileges on affected installations of MariaDB. Authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability. The specific flaw exists within the processing of SQL queries. The issue results from the lack of proper validation of the length of user-supplied data prior to copying it to a fixed-length stack-based buffer. An attacker can leverage this vulnerability to escalate privileges and execute arbitrary code in the context of the service account. Was ZDI-CAN-16191. |
Skip to Main Content
A new code-reuse attack, named Just-in-time (JIT) spraying attack, leverages the predictable generated JIT compiled code to launch an attack. It can circumvent the defenses such as data execution prevention and address space layout randomisation built-in in the modern operation system, which were thought the insurmountable barrier so that the attackers cannot construct the traditional code injection attacks. In this study, the authors describe JITSafe, a framework that can be applied to existing JIT-based virtual machines (VMs), in the purpose of preventing the attacker from reusing the JIT compiled code to construct the attack. The authors framework narrows the time window of the JIT compiled code in the executable pages, eliminates the immediate value and obfuscates the JIT compiled code. They demonstrate the effectiveness of JITSafe that it can successfully prevent existing JIT spraying attacks with low performance overhead. |
A company looking to beef up the security of its wireless operations should start with its own policies and standards, according to Ken Newman, director of security and risk management at Deutsche Bank AG. That’s because standards and policies form the foundation upon which all security efforts are built, he said during a case study demonstration at Computerworld’s Mobile & Wireless Conference in Palm Desert, California.
For example, employees need to understand that something as simple as setting up a wireless access point can pose a threat to company security.
As for Deutsche Bank, it faced a business problem of needing a system that provides confidentiality and data integrity that would meet government-imposed security considerations. Complicating the effort: Fears that advances in technology meant the entire security program would only have a life span of 12 to 18 months.
After strengthening its policies and standards, the next step in the process was “hardening” PCs and laptops from security breaches with personal firewalls, updates and patches for existing software, upgrades to security software, the use of low-level encryption and the prevention of simultaneous wireless/wired connections, he said.
After taking those steps, Newman said the company set out to go after its own network with the same tools attackers would use. That way, Deutsche Bank could determine what information could be detected, what could be accessed and from where could it be accessed.
The company’s physical security force was also brought into the operation, with security guards regularly patrolling corporate offices at night with special carts looking for rogue access points employees might have set up on their own. Newman called this “cart stumbling” a play on Netstumbler, which is a tool many attackers use to look for access points. “We have a limited staff, and we can’t be everywhere,” he said.
The company also regularly monitors Web sites where attackers regularly post discovered access points, such as www.netstumbler.com and www.wigle.net, to see if any Deutsche Bank access points are listed.
On the wireless side, Newman said the bank
– Limits connectivity to the network by placing access points in a DMZ outside the company firewall.
– Limits the types of applications and data available via firewall rules.
– Sweeps for malicious code and viruses.
– Provides for two-layers of encryption — LEAP and IPSec VPN Tunnel.
– Commits to being a one-vendor shop to eliminate problems associated with using multiple encryption protocols and standards.
– Builds-in strong user-based authentication, such as systems that require secure ID tokens.
Newman said the bank has also looked into setting up fake access points to confuse would-be attackers and to make it harder for them to distinguish between what is real and what is not. He suggested anyone interested in that idea look online at www.blackalchemy.to/project/fakeap/.
The bank may also create “honey pots” designed to find out what potential attackers are using and to discover trends and innovations the bank could use down the road. More information about honey pots is available online at http://home.attbi.com/~digitalmatrix/honeypot/, he said.
Newman also urged attendees to take a close look at their company’s Service Set Identifier, a 32-character identifier that is attached to data packets sent over wireless LANs. He said many of these codes allow attackers to learn the names of companies, what the company does and other sensitive data that could attract more attackers if it were published. It would be better, he said, if a company used something generic that would not draw attention. |
Multiple buffer overflows in web.c in httpd on the ASUS RT-N56U and
RT-AC66U routers with firmware 220.127.116.11.374_979 allow remote attackers
to execute arbitrary code via the (1) apps_name or (2) apps_flag
parameter to APP_Installation.asp.
Note:References are provided for the convenience of the reader to help distinguish between vulnerabilities. The list is not intended to be complete.
Disclaimer: The entry creation date may reflect when
the CVE-ID was allocated or reserved, and does not
necessarily indicate when this vulnerability was
discovered, shared with the affected vendor, publicly
disclosed, or updated in CVE.
This is an entry on the CVE
list, which standardizes names for security |
Siemens has updates available to mitigate a protection mechanism failure vulnerability in its SCALANCE X switches, according to a report with CISA.
Successful exploitation of this remotely exploitable vulnerability, which Siemens self-reported, could allow an attacker to perform administrative actions. The following versions of SCALANCE X Switches, used to connect industrial components, suffer from the issue:
In the vulnerability, the device does not send the X-Frame-Option header in the administrative web interface, which makes it vulnerable to click-jacking attacks.
CVE-2019-13924 is the case number assigned to this vulnerability, which has a CVSS v3 base score of 4.2.
The product sees use mainly in the critical manufacturing sector. It also sees action on a global basis.
No known public exploits specifically target this vulnerability. However, an attacker with low skill level could leverage the vulnerability.
Siemens released updates, which are recommended to be applied when possible:
Siemens identified the following specific workarounds and mitigations users can apply to reduce the risk: Only access links from trusted sources in the browser you use to configure the SCALANCE X switches.
As a general security measure, Siemens recommends users protect network access to devices with appropriate mechanisms. In order to operate the devices in a protected IT environment, Siemens recommends users configure the environment according to Siemens’ operational guidelines for Industrial Security, and follow the recommendations in the product manuals.
Click here for additional information on industrial security by Siemens.
For more information see Siemens security advisory SSA-951513. |
New! Vulnerability Priority Rating (VPR)
Tenable calculates a dynamic VPR for every vulnerability. VPR combines vulnerability information with threat intelligence and machine learning algorithms to predict which vulnerabilities are most likely to be exploited in attacks. Read more about what VPR is and how it's different from CVSS.
VPR Score: 6.7
SynopsisThe remote Scientific Linux host is missing one or more security updates.
DescriptionThe glibc packages provide the standard C and standard math libraries used by multiple programs on the system. Without these libraries, the Linux system cannot function properly.
Multiple errors in glibc's formatted printing functionality could allow an attacker to bypass FORTIFY_SOURCE protections and execute arbitrary code using a format string flaw in an application, even though these protections are expected to limit the impact of such flaws to an application abort. (CVE-2012-3404, CVE-2012-3405, CVE-2012-3406)
This update also fixes the following bug :
- A programming error caused an internal array of nameservers to be only partially initialized when the /etc/resolv.conf file contained IPv6 nameservers.
Depending on the contents of a nearby structure, this could cause certain applications to terminate unexpectedly with a segmentation fault. The programming error has been fixed, which restores proper behavior with IPv6 nameservers listed in the /etc/resolv.conf file.
All users of glibc are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which contain backported patches to fix these issues.
SolutionUpdate the affected packages. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.