Categories
security

How White Hat Hackers Stole Crypto Keys from an Offline Laptop in Another Room | Motherboard

The so-called side-channel attacks – in which attackers steal information from a machine they don’t have direct access to – are getting more popular these days. This is another innovative example of a side-channel attack. The target laptop was not connected to any network (either through LAN or Wifi) and yet the attackers managed to obtain the encryption keys from it.

“The attacks are completely non-intrusive: we did not modify the targets or open their chassis.”

Source: How White Hat Hackers Stole Crypto Keys from an Offline Laptop in Another Room | Motherboard

Categories
security

Barcode attack technique (Badbarcode)

Barcode scanners can be hacked via a specially crafted barcode sequence. They can be instructed to execute arbitrary commands including downloading external scripts via FTP.

via Barcode attack technique (Badbarcode)

Categories
privacy security

TrendMicro software allows arbitrary command execution

Also mentioned here, the reported anti-virus software is so full of holes that it should strike fear in any company using TrendMicro Antivirus right now. Not only does it allow privileged command execution, it also exposes passwords that you store using the Password Manager.

The way I see it, it’s a combination of incompetence and lack of proper supervisory oversight. It’s exactly the kind of thing that will result if you ask a developer to just meet the specs, where the specs doesn’t talk about hygiene factors such as security etc.

Source: Issue 693 – google-security-research – TrendMicro node.js HTTP server listening on localhost can execute commands – Google Security Research – Google Project Hosting

Categories
security sysadmin Uncategorized

Under-attack Linode resets passwords after logins leak onto web

First sustained DDoS attacks. Now password leaks. The bad news never ends for Linode, which is unfortunate, since they are a very cheap and viable alternative to AWS especially if you factor in ingress/egress traffic.

Linode’s woes continue: the server hosting biz has just run a system-wide password reset on customer accounts after two Linode.com user credentials were discovered “on an external machine.”

Source: Under-attack Linode resets passwords after logins leak onto web

2016-01-06 11.22 SGT: As of now, the site is still having intermittent access.
Capture

Categories
privacy security

FROST: Forensic Recovery Of Scrambled Telephones

Recovering contents directly from physical RAM of devices has been known for quite some time – it involves esoteric measures such as freezing the device using liquid nitrogen or by putting it in the freezer. It is interesting to see this technique being used to attack Android phones to recover disk encryption keys. Potentially this might defeat on-disk encryption for Android devices, though there are quite some caveats in the technique discussed on the website.

To this end we perform cold boot attacks against Android smartphones and retrieve disk encryption keys from RAM. We show that cold boot attacks against Android phones are generally possible for the first time, and we perform our attacks practically against Galaxy Nexus devices from Samsung.

FROST: Forensic Recovery Of Scrambled Telephones

Categories
privacy security

Unauthorized code in Juniper ScreenOS allows for administrative access

This is bad. Juniper is a major network equipment provider and a backdoor like this could lead to huge security compromise.

During a recent internal code review, Juniper discovered unauthorized code in ScreenOS that could allow a knowledgeable attacker to gain administrative access to NetScreen® devices and to decrypt VPN connections. Once we identified these vulnerabilities, we launched an investigation into the matter, and worked to develop and issue patched releases for the latest versions of ScreenOS.

Source: Important Announcement about ScreenOS® – J-Net Community

Update (2015-12-20): It could be a state-sponsored attack.

Categories
security sysadmin

Let’s Encrypt – Entering Public Beta

Let’s Encrypt goes public beta. No more paying of ridiculous amounts for a simple SSL certificate. Yearly.

The process is still somewhat rough on the edges now. I expect it to get better when it goes 1.0. There’s another important thing to note when you’re using using certificates from Let’s Encrypt. In the interest of transparency, they publish the list of certificates issued by them. So if you’re uncomfortable about your domain appearing in a public website, you may want to reconsider.

Let’s Encrypt is a free, automated, and open certificate authority brought to you by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG). ISRG is a California public benefit corporation, and is recognized by the IRS as a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Source: Entering Public Beta

Categories
security

w00tsec: ARRIS Cable Modem has a Backdoor in the Backdoor

Yet another reason why device firmware must be made open source. This could create a botnet of potentially 600,000 nodes.

Source: w00tsec: ARRIS Cable Modem has a Backdoor in the Backdoor

Categories
security

Malware Found Pre-Installed on Xiaomi, Huawei, Lenovo Phones

Another reason to be wary of cheap mobile phones, especially those from dubious physical or online shops. See full report in the PDF.

These permissions enable extensive misuse: location detection, listening to and recording telephone calls or conversations, making purchases, bank fraud or sending premium SMS. The possibilities are almost endless.

Source: G DATA Whitepaper Vorlage – G_DATA_MobileMWR_Q2_2015_EN.pdf

Categories
privacy security

Who Hacked Ashley Madison? — Krebs on Security

Well, can we say schadenfreude? The hunter becomes the hunted.

Source: Who Hacked Ashley Madison? — Krebs on Security