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6449_70326 | , The GandCrab was advertised in Russian hacking communities, researchers noticed that authors leverage the RIG and GrandSoft exploit kits to distribute the malware., Partners are prohibited from targeting countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine). Security experts believes that the hackers behind the ransomware are likely Russia-based., It has been estimated that the GandCrab ransomware has managed to infect approximately 50,000 computers, most of them in Europe, in less than a month asking from each victim for ransoms of $400 to $700,000 in DASH cryptocurrency., Earlier March, a joint operation conducted by Romanian Police and Europol allowed to identify and seize the command-and-control servers tied to the GandCrab ransomware campaigns., The Romanian Police (IGPR) under the supervision of the General Prosecutor’s Office (DIICOT) and in collaboration with the internet security company Bitdefender and Europol released the GandCrab ransomware decryptor., Even after the success of the operation conducted by law enforcement, crooks behind the GandCrab ransomware are still active., According to experts at Check Point security firm, the gang has already infected over 50,000 victims mostly in the U.S., U.K. and Scandinavia. It has been estimated that the revenues in two months have reached $600,000., “GandCrab is the most prominent ransomware of 2018. By the numbers this ransomware is huge,” explained Yaniv Balmas, security research at Check Point. , Balmas compares the ransomware to the Cerber malware, the expert also added that GandCrab authors are adopting an agile malware development approach, and this is the first time for a malware development., “For those behind GandCrab, staying profitable and staying one-step ahead of white hats means adopting a never-before-seen agile malware development approach, said Check Point.” reported Threat Post., “Check Point made the assessment after reviewing early incarnations of the GandCrab ransomware (1.0) and later versions (2.0).”, Researchers have analyzed both GandCrab ransomware (1.0) and later versions (2.0) and have deduced that vxers are continuously improving the malicious code adopting an Agile approach., “The authors started by publishing the least well-built malware that could possibly work, and improved it as they went along. Given this, and given that this newest version was released within the week, the bottom line seems to be: It’s the year 2018, even ransomware is agile,” reads an upcoming report to be released by Check Point., The code for early versions of the GandCrab ransomware was affected by numerous bugs, but the development team has fixed them., According to the researchers, the authors of the GandCrab ransomware doesn’t conduct any campaign, instead they are focused on the development of their malware., “They have been diligent about fixing issues as they pop up. They are clearly doing their own code review and fixing bugs reported in real-time, but also fixing unreported bugs in a very efficient manner.” explained Michael Kajiloti, team leader, malware research at Check Point., The researchers believe that future versions will address several major bugs that currently allowed experts to decrypt the files locked by the ransomware., “GandCrab itself is an under-engineered ransomware that manages to still be effective. For example, until recently, the malware accidentally kept local copies of its RSA private decryption key – the essential ingredient of the extortion – on the victim’s machine. This is the ransomware equivalent of someone locking you out of your own apartment and yet leaving a duplicate of the key for you under the doormat,” continues Check Point., “If you monitor your internet traffic while you are infected for the private key, this means you can easily decrypt your files,” Balmas said. “The private key is encrypted in transit. But it is encrypted using the same password every time. And the password is embedded in the malware code.”, The developers also focused on improving evasion capabilities, a continuous development process like the one used in Agile allows the GandCrab to easily bypass signature-based AV engines., “Cosmetics and incremental code changes keep the core of the malware behavior essentially the same. This comes to show the core differentiator of dynamic analysis and heuristic-based detection, which is signature-less,” states Check Point report., “With agile development and the infection rate and affiliates, GandCrab will keep making money,”, Only monitoring the evolution of the threat, we can prevent infections., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – GandCrab RaaS, cybercrime) |
162_3845 | Recently experts monitored several targeted attacks against Tibetan activist organizations including the International Campaign for Tibet and the Central Tibet Administration. Researchers suspect the involvement of China and on groups of hackers sponsored by the Beijing government. In multiple cases, we have seen how the Chinese government promotes and supports from the economic point of view these initiatives., The experts of the AlienVault Lab have hypothesized that the group of Chinese hackers was the same responsible for the attacks against chemical and defense companies late last year in an operation named ‘Nitro’., The attacks carried out using a tested scheme starting with a spear phishing campaign that uses an infected Microsoft Office file to exploit a known vulnerability in Microsoft. As usually the content of the email refer a topic of interest for the final target, in this case, related to the Kalachakra Initiation, a Tibetan religious festival that took place in early January. The vulnerability that has exploited is known Office stack overflow vulnerability (CVE-2010-3333)., The malware used is a variant of Gh0st RAT, a well know remote access Trojan, that enables to acquire the total control of the target allowing documents theft and cyber espionage. Gh0st RAT was the tool also used in the Nitro attacks and the instance isolated in the last attacks against Tibet is correlated to it, the intent this time is to infiltrate organizations for political reasons., Researchers identified five families of malware, free Web hosting services for their command and control machines and also a malware called TROJ_WIMMIE. This malware exploited Rich Text Format Stack Buffer Overflow Vulnerability (CVE-2010-3333) and also Adobe Reader and Flash Player vulnerabilities., Don’t forget that Chinese Government has always done an oppressive policy against the nation, in April of 2008 protests erupted hard in some cities in Tibet that have been repressed by the government in Beijing with the use of force. During last years have been detected in numerous cases of violations of human dignity in Tibet by the Chinese government. According to the Dalai Lama in Tibet, we are assisting to cultural genocide., Trend Micro, the famous security firm, has released a research paper that demonstrates the relationship between attacks against the computers of Tibetan activists and companies in Japan and India and the activities performed by a group of Chinese hackers., The operations are known as part of the “Luckycat” cyber campaign began around June 2011, more over 90 attacks against targets in India, Japan and Tibetan activists., Last week on the New York Times has been published an article that announced that the responsible of the attacks has been identified, he is a Chinese former graduate student who seem to work for Tencent, China’s leading Internet portal company., The hacker is named Gu Kaiyuan, once a graduate student at a Chinese university he receives government financial support for its computer security program and currently an employee at Chinese portal Tencent. Kaiyuan was involved in recruiting students for his school’s computer security and defense research., Trend Micro researchers have also found that the group attacked also military research institutes and aerospace, energy, engineering, and shipping companies., The Trend Micro researchers, led by Nart Villeneuve, traced the hacks to an e-mail address used to register one of the command and control servers the malware accessed. That e-mail address was then found to map to a Chinese instant messaging account belonging to a Chinese hacker, ““dang0102.”,
, A reconstruction made by Trend Micro’s experts revealed that in 2005 the hacker was already operating as a recruiter:, “The same hacker also published a post on a student BBS of the Sichuan University using the nickname, “scuhkr,” in 2005,” the report stated. “He wanted to recruit 2-4 students to a network attack and defense research project at the Information Security Institute of the Sichuan University then. Scuhkr also authored articles related to backdoors and shellcode in a hacking magazine that same year.”, Of course this the involvement of Gu Kaiyuan doesn’t prove the campaigns are officially sponsored by the Chinese government but the target choosen let the expert believe that behind the hacker there is the Bejing government. The former diplomat James A. Lewis, actual director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, declared on the events:, But “(t)he fact they targeted Tibetan activists is a strong indicator of official Chinese government involvement,”the Times quotes. “A private Chinese hacker may go after economic data but not a political organization.” ., Personally, I’m sure of the involvement of the Chinese Government for the nature of the targets attacked and the way in which the attacks were carried out. The involvement of young hackers is part of a aggressive cyber strategy carried out by China, which has long invested in youth resources involving them in cyber espionage and hacking activities., To conclude the event in question I remark that this is just the tip of the iceberg, similar activities are conducted daily by cyber militia in China and very often due the nature of attacks are involved young professionals in the IT sector … probably we have to learn by this approach., Pierluigi Paganini, (SecurityAffairs – cyber espionage, luckycat), |
7576_79333 | A malware-based attack originated outside the US hit US major US newspapers delaying their hardcopy distribution., According to the LA Times, the attack was carried out on Saturday, it hita computer network at Tribune Publishing which is connected to the production and printing process of multiple major US newspapers. Initially, the experts assumed it was a server outage, but further investigation revealed the problems were caused by a malware infection., “What first arose as a server outage was identified Saturday as a malware attack, which appears to have originated from outside the United States and hobbled computer systems and delayed weekend deliveries of the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers across the country.” reported the LA Times., “Technology teams worked feverishly to quarantine the computer virus, but it spread through Tribune Publishing’s network and reinfected systems crucial to the news production and printing process. Multiple newspapers around the country were affected because they share a production platform.”, The delivery of the Saturday editions of the LA Times and San Diego Union Tribune was delayed due to the cyber attack,, Delays were also reported for the distribution of West Coast editions of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, both printed at the printing plant of the LA Times., At the time it is not possible to estimate how many subscribers were impacted by the cyber attack, but a majority of LA Times customers received their newspapers with several hours of delay., “We believe the intention of the attack was to disable infrastructure, more specifically servers, as opposed to looking to steal information,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. The source would not detail what evidence led the company to believe the breach came from overseas. , The paper cited officials as saying it was too soon to know whether it was carried out by state or non-state actors., “We are aware of reports of a potential cyber incident effecting several news outlets, and are working with our government and industry partners to better understand the situation,” said Katie Waldman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security., Pierluigi Paganini, (SecurityAffairs – US newspapers, malware), |
1101_23489 | While the Internet users continue to claim their right to online privacy condemning the numerous surveillance program and the censorship conducted by governments all around the world, it seems that the pressure operated on principal IT firm to access users’ data still increasing., An excellent source of information to better understand the phenomenon is represented by the Google Transparency Report, a document produced regularly by the Giant that analyzes the requests from Government agencies to Google companies seeking information about Google users’ accounts or products. The report also includes data on National Security Letters sent by the United States government to Google. , A National Security Letters (NSL) is defined as “a request for information that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) can make when they or other agencies in the Executive Branch of the U.S. government are conducting national security investigations. An NSL can’t be used in ordinary criminal, civil or administrative matters.”, Let’s consider, for example Google, the number of requests for user information the company receives from governments is increasing at a dizzying rate, climbing by 120 percent in the last four years. The requests to Google in the majority of cases are served by the company, on the overall 27,000 requests received in the last six months of 2013 the company has provided user’s information in 64 percent of the cases., , , In H2 2013, Google received between 0-999 NSLs considering that the US Government only allows companies to report them in ranges of 1,000, the concerning news is that this time is affected more users or accounts respecting previous semesters. The Google Transparency Report also provides data on recent and ongoing disruptions of traffic to Google products and information of the overall requests from Governments to remove content., Google reported 4 events characterized by traffic disruption to its product, Turkey is obviously one of them, other cases were observed in China, Iran and Pakistan., , , , US law enforcement and Intelligence agencies were the entities that most of all submitted requests for user data nearly 10,574 requests covering 18,254 accounts, France was second, with 2,750 requests for information about 3,378 accounts., , “We consistently push back against overly broad requests for your personal information, but it’s also important for laws to explicitly protect you from government overreach. That’s why we’re working alongside eight other companies to push for surveillance reform, including more transparency. We’ve all been sharing best practices about how to report the requests we receive, and as a result our Transparency Report now includes governments that made less than 30 requests during a six-month reporting period, in addition to those that made 30+ requests.” explained Richard Salgado, Legal Director, Law Enforcement and Information Security at Google., Let me suggest you to give a close look to the Google Transparency Report., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Google Transparency Report, surveillance) |
5757_63563 | Mining cryptocurrencies is a profitable business, but it is also expensive because it needs significant investment in computing power. Crooks are using malicious code that steals computing resources of victims’ machine and the number of attacks aimed to mine cryptocurrencies continues to increase., Security researchers at security firm ESET have discovered a malware campaign that infected hundreds of Windows web servers with a malicious cryptocurrency miner. According to the experts, the criminal gang behind the attack made more than $63,000 worth of Monero (XMR) in just three months., , Crooks modified a legitimate open source Monero mining code and exploited a known buffer overflow vulnerability (CVE-2017-7269) in Microsoft IIS 6.0 to deploy the miner on unpatched Windows servers., “One such operation has been going on since at least May 2017, with attackers infecting unpatched Windows webservers with a malicious cryptocurrency miner. The goal: use the servers’ computing power to mine Monero (XMR), one of the newer cryptocurrency alternatives to Bitcoin.” states a report published by ESET., “To achieve this, attackers modified legitimate open source Monero mining software and exploited a known vulnerability in Microsoft IIS 6.0 to covertly install the miner on unpatched servers. Over the course of three months, the crooks behind the campaign have created a botnet of several hundred infected servers and made over USD 63,000 worth of Monero.”, The impact of the CVE-2017-7269 vulnerability is significant, according to data provided by the W3Techs, Microsoft’s IIS is currently the third most popular web server solution in the wild (11.4% of all websites). IIS 6.0 accounts for 11.3%, roughly 1.3% of all websites on the Internet. According to BuiltWith, IS 6.0 version is currently used by 2.3% of the entire Internet, over 8.3 million live websites are using IIS 6.0., The vulnerability doesn’t affect newer versions of Microsoft Internet Information Services., In order to mitigate the risk of cyber attacks, it is possible to disable the WebDAV service on IIS 6.0 installations., Crooks are focusing their efforts on Monero cryptocurrency because of its focus on privacy and because it has a good mining profitability, it leverages on the proof-of-work algorithm called CryptoNight, which suits computer or server CPUs and GPU without requiring specific mining hardware., Recently security experts have detected an increasing number of miners, in August a new fileless miner dubbed CoinMiner appeared in the wild, it uses NSA EternalBlue exploit and WMI tool to spread., On May 2017 security experts at Proofpoint discovered that many machines weren’t infected by WannaCry because they were previously infected by the Adylkuzz cryptocurrency mining malware that uses the NSA EternalBlue exploit.to spread and infect machines to involve in a Monero botnet., In the same month, GuardiCore malware experts discovered a new botnet malware, dubbed BondNet, that at the time infected an estimated 15,000 Windows server computers worldwide for mining Monero., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – mining, hacking) |
5408_60613 | According to a plea agreement, filed on April 28, 2017, Clinton Scott Bass of Georgia (US) tried in a first time to purchase a car bomb. The man, who was using two different pseudo names, contacted an undercover FBI agent on a darknet marketplace., , Later on, the man decided to acquire a mail bomb from the undercover officer. The agent agreed to sell the explosive to the suspect who paid $550 in digital currency, likely Bitcoin or Monero., “He was keen, at first, to buy a car bomb that would explode as soon as the vehicle’s door was opened or closed. But he then decided he wanted a mail bomb, which would go off on being opened.” reported Thomas Fox-Brewster from Forbes., “The undercover agent agreed to sell him a bomb, which was in fact inert and delivered to an address provided by one of Bass’ monikers, who paid $550 in virtual currency for the service. Hidden in the fake explosive, however, was a location tracker.”, The police sent an inert device to the address provided by the suspect, they have also hidden a location tracker in the pack., The location tracker allowed the agents to discover the real Bass’s target, they tracked the pack discovering that is was sent to someone in Hahira, Georgia on the morning of April 27, then Feds arrested the man., Bass used an email address at the temporary mail provider Guerilla Mail while communicating with the undercover agent. The defendant used the email address to receive instructions from the vendor on how to use the mail bomb., The FBI sent a phishing message to the Guerilla Mail address used by Bass in an attempt to locate him (i.e. tracking his IP address). The message included a weaponized attached document, which, once opened, would send target information to the FBI’s server. The FBI used the Network Investigative Technique (NIT), a method used by Feds in many other cases and that was questioned by privacy advocates that consider it a tool for dragnet surveillance., “The message included a document, which, once opened, would send that identifying data to an FBI server, somehow overcoming the IP-masking provided by Tor. A separate document indicated the government also installed what’s known as a pen-trap tool to record all the information coming from the hack.” continues Fox Brewster., An executed warrant document reported that the FBI retrieved 19 different IP addresses in the investigation by using the NIT, likely because the suspect was using a VPN service and the Tor network to mask his IP address. It is not clear is the NIT was useful to track the man., Experts and privacy advocated consider legitimate the NIT usage in the specific case, it was a targeted attack that not impacted other individuals, such as the case of a watering hole attack., “The way I see it is, the FBI has to do something to catch criminals, and at least in this case they didn’t resort to draconian methods such as mass surveillance without a warrant,” Flashmob, the administrator of Guerilla Mail, told the media. “Instead, they used a simple procedure with a warrant that doesn’t need much technical ability,” , The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) security researcher Cooper Quintin also confirmed that the FBI’s phishing in the current case was legitimate., But what makes this hack unique is that it appears to be the first public example of the FBI legally using a controversial update to the Rule 41 , that allows searches on users of anonymizing services, including the Tor network., Anyway, there is an element of concern about the Bass case, authorities used “Stingray” technology to spy on the suspect and track his movements,, Bass pleaded guilty in April to charges of attempting to receive and transport explosive materials with the intent to kill, injure or intimidate. The man risks 120 months in prison, the trial will be held on July 12., ad rotate banner=”9″, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – DarkWeb Black Market, FBI) |
2084_35181 | Expert at Cisco have discovered a new Point-of-Sale (PoS) malware dubbed PoSeidon. The experts have discovered many similarities with the popular Zeus Trojan and use sophisticated methods to find card data respect other POS malware like BlackPoS, which was used to steal data from US giant retailers Target and Home Depot., “PoSeidon was professionally written to be quick and evasive with new capabilities not seen in other PoS malware,” states the blog post from Cisco’s Security Solutions team“PoSeidon can communicate directly with C&C servers, self-update to execute new code and has self-protection mechanisms guarding against reverse engineering.”, , The malware belongs to the scrapers family, malicious code that “scrape” POS memory searching for card numbers of principal card issuers (i.g. Visa, MasterCard, AMEX and Discover), but a very effective improvement is its capability to verify if the numbers are valid by using the Luhn formula., Once in execution Poseidon starts with a Loader binary that operates to maintain persistence on the victim’s machine, then it receive other components from the C&C servers. Among the binaries downloaded by the loader there is also a Keylogger component used to steal passwords and could have been the initial infection vector, Cisco said., “The Loader then contacts a command and control server, retrieving a URL which contains another binary to download and execute. The downloaded binary, FindStr, installs a keylogger and scans the memory of the PoS device for number sequences that could be credit card numbers. Upon verifying that the numbers are in fact credit card numbers, keystrokes and credit card numbers are encoded and sent to an exfiltration server.” continues Cisco., Loader contacts one of the hardcoded servers in the following list provided by CISCO experts, the majority of them belongs to Russian domains :, PoSeidon sends back to the C&C served stolen card data and keylogger in encrypted format, it used XOR and base64 encoding. Most of the command and control servers are currently hosted on .ru domains, Cisco said., PoSeidon demonstrates the great interest of the criminal underground in PoS systems, criminal crews are developing sophisticated techniques to compromise these systems., “Attackers will continue to target PoS systems and employ various obfuscation techniques in an attempt to avoid detection. As long as PoS attacks continue to provide returns, attackers will continue to invest in innovation and development of new malware families. Network administrators will need to remain vigilant and adhere to industry best practices to ensure coverage and protection against advancing malware threats.” explained Cisco’s Security Solutions team., The report published by Cisco also includes further interesting information on PoSeidon malware, including IOCs and Snort Rules for its detection., , Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Cisco, PoSeidon POS malware) |
6351_69268 | During the weekend, the Russian central bank revealed a new attack against the SWIFT system, unknown hackers have stolen 339.5 million roubles (roughly $6 million) from a Russian bank last year., Even if the SWIFT international bank transfer system enhanced its security after the string of attacks that targeted it since 2016, the news of a new attack made the headlines., The victim is the Indian bank Kumbakonam-based City Union Bank that announced that criminals compromised its systems and transferred a total of US$1.8 million., , On Sunday, February 18, the Kumbakonam-based City Union Bank issued a statement after local media reported that three unauthorized transactions were initiated by staff. The Indian bank confirmed that it has suffered a security breach launched “international cyber-criminals and there is no evidence of internal staff involvement”., “During our reconciliation process on February 7, it was found out that 3 fraudulent remittances had gone through our SWIFT system to our corespondent banks which were not initiated from our bank’s end. We immediately alerted the correspondent banks to recall the funds,” reads the statement issued by City Union Bank., The three transactions took place before February 7, when they were discovered during the reconciliation processes., One transaction of $500,000 that was made through Standard Chartered Bank, New York, to a Dubai based bank was immediately blocked., A second transaction $372,150 was made through a Standard Chartered Bank account in Frankfurt to a Turkish account, and the third transaction of 1 million dollars was sent through a Bank of America account in New York to a China-based bank., The City Union Bank confirmed it was working with the Ministry of External Affairs and officials in Turkey and China to recover the funds., “With the help of Ministry of External Affairs through Consulate General of Shanghai and Istanbul and office of the National Cyber Security Council (PMO) all possible efforts through diplomatic and legal channels are being taken to repatriate the money,” continues the statement., Summarizing the security features implemented for the SWIFT were able to detect only the transfer to Dubai., The SWIFT system is now back in operation with “adequate enhanced security”., At the time of writing the root source of the problem is still unclear, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Mueller’s indictment, 2016 Presidential election), , |
2783_40281 | Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – AVG, privacy) |
114_2512 | At this time we are seeing continuing propaganda operations of Iranian government that is trying to convince with its proclamations the public opinion regarding technical capacities in its possession. Military troops, nuclear weapons, and a cyber army ready to destroy any enemy stronghold in cyber space. Too much experts believe that in reality, the West rather than being concerned about the direct threat of Iran is literally paralyzed by the specter of two nations too close to the government of Ahmadinejad, China and Russia. At stake is the economic balance of the biggest world market, too important for western capitalism and that rapresent an indispensable opportunity. Is it true?, U.S. and members states of the European Community know the value and potential of this market at a time of great crisis, that is why they prefer adopt an international policy not aggressive and that tends to forgive unacceptable behaviour of countries like Syria and Iran., Are we aware of the economic and political impact of a so reckless conduct on the internal situation?, The mediatic exposure is certainly very challenging because it requires a commitment of central government in terms of defense very costly, counter-trend compared to what we are witnessing in European countries like Italy where these expenditures have been reduced dramatically. Iran is operating under different profiles in terms of diplomacy, weaving relationships and alliances with countries opposed to the U.S. dominant position. What worries most is this aspect that would allow to the government in Tehran also to procure weaponry technologies not otherwise obtainable., The close cooperation with Syria, for example has always been a channel of choice for the subterranean dialogue with countries like Russia, the Moscow government in fact is closely linked to that of Damascus for the supply of defense systems., Oil reserves in Iran, according official sources government, rank third largest in the world, although it ranks second if Canadian reserves of unconventional oil are excluded. This is roughly 10% of the world’s total proven petroleum reserves. Iran is the world’s fourth largest oil producer and is OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia and this confer to the Country an enormous economic power, but it is also true that it is a good motivation to consider Iran as an enemy., , We must recognize that Iran have understood the importance of its cyber presences addition to the ordinary military, that is why its government is recruiting groups of hacker in the Middle East in the name of Jihad against the West Enemy., Thanks to the strategic position under the energetic perspective Iran is really close to that Eastern countries where energy demand is greater. For example, China’s oil trade with Iran is know has normal commercial activity, many intelligence specialist are convinced that Chinese government has contributed to cyber training of Iranian special units that were engaged in computer raid against Israel and other nations guilty of having relations with the West oppressor.
The People’s Republic of China is the world’s most populous country and the second largest oil consumer, behind the U.S. , a machine that consumes energy.
China is one of the main oil and gas importer from Iran. While the U.S. and EU were opposing to Iran’s nuclear program, China signed in October 2004 its largest energy deal with Iran ever. China is not officially against the Iran’s nuclear program and this position indicates that China is interested in a militarily leadership of Iran in the Gulf due its energy needs., U.S. intelligence officials indicated that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States while in the past it was responsible of attacks overseas.
How and when this attack could became reality? The increasing interest in the warfare of Iran suggest that it could try to attack the U.S. first in the cyber space to destabilize the country, they are dreaming a cyber 11/9, but is it possible? Is is possible that a cyber threat could causes so critical damages?, Unfortunately yes, the events of this days have demonstrated that with a well written virus it’s possible to infect million of machines using them to attack institutions or critical infrastructures. This last point is really worrysome, the US ad also other western countries have a lot of critical infrastructures, like nuclear plants, facilites, telecomunication systems, that can be target of attacks. The security level of these structures today is certainly not very satisfactory and the U.S. government is working on this, conscious of the threat., Iran has capitalized the lesson from the Stuxnet case, on how could be dangerous a cyber weapon developed to attacks specific target and maybe it is working on something like that. European firms that play a key role in nuclear power and other critical sectors have been targeted by a cyber espionage attack based on virus Stuxnet like. The risk that new intelligence-gathering tool have been developed to infiltrate computer networks with the intent to steal confidential information and potentially reveal vulnerabilities that could be exploited in later attacks., No matter who is really behind this attacks what is allarming is that those person could be engaged to target US or European target, like other sectors infact there is the concrete risk that groups of cyber mercenaries could support hostile governments in the development of cyber weapon., Will we be willing to wait for the day when nations like Iran will become truly out of control? Can we still allow to Russia and China to prohibit military operations against states like Syria and Iran?
Obviously not, and the proof of this is in the words of the Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta during an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes”. He said that Iran was probably one year away from being able to build a bomb. He added that it could take a year or two beyond that to develop the ability to deliver a warhead by missile. That is the point of no return in my opinion, that why we could assist to an escalation within next year, but it is impossible to make any forecast of the events due the complex scenario., Pierluigi Paganini, |
7072_75518 | Microsoft has spotted a new hacking campaign targeting 2018 midterm elections., The tech giant attributed to Russia-linked APT28 a series of cyber attacks aimed at Members of United States’ Senate, conservative organizations and think tanks., According to Microsoft, the Russian cyberspies created at least six fake websites related to US Senate and conservative organizations to infect the visitors’ systems., , The remaining websites were designed to mimic two U.S. conservative think tanks:, The fake sites were created over the past several months, hackers registered them with major web-hosting companies., Microsoft did not provide further details on the attacks., In July, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, Microsoft VP Tom Burt announced that the tech company uncovered and stopped attempts to launch spear-phishing attacks on three 2018 congressional candidates., Microsoft blamed the Russian APT28 group for the attacks., We “discovered that the fake domains were being registered by an activity group that at Microsoft we call Strontium…that’s known as Fancy Bear or APT 28,” Burt explained., “The consensus of the threat intelligence community right now is that we do not see the same level of activity by the Russian activity groups leading into the mid-year elections that we could see when we look back at them at that 2016 elections,”, The discovery made by Microsoft is part of the Microsoft’s Defending Democracy Program launched in April that is focused on four priorities: protecting campaigns from hacking, protecting voting and the electoral process, increasing political advertising transparency, and defending against disinformation campaigns., Microsoft announced also its initiative AccountGuard that provides the following services to organizational and personal email accounts:, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – APT28, 2018 midterm elections) |
3831_47990 | Cybercrime is a profitable business, last week we reported that according to security experts at Check Point, the creators of the Nuclear EK are gaining nearly 100K USD each month, most victims are in Europe and US., What about ransomware?, According to a new analysis published by the security firm Flashpoint, a small gang of crooks could find very profitable a ransomware campaign., The researchers from the security firm Flashpoint has been following a ransomware-as-a-service campaign operated by a Russian gang since December 2015. The experts tracked the activities of the group, including the payment processes, the recruitment of new members for specific tasks, and the distribution of the malware., The researcher identifies the leader of the gang, a cyber criminal active since at least 2012, then they observed how he recruited other members to organize the ransomware campaign., “Based on our coverage of the Deep & Dark Web, this particular ransomware crime boss has been active since at least 2012. His primary institutional targets have included corporations and individuals in various Western countries. Based on multiple indicators, it appears that the ransomware boss operates out of Russia.” states the report published by FlashPoint., The leader recruited people with the promise of sharing the profits from his campaign. The boss intent was to hire low-level cybercriminals without specific coding skills to help him reaching out to users in the Russian underground on the Deep Web., “This offer is for those who want to earn a lot of money via, shall we say, not a very righteous path. No fees or advance payments from you are required, only a large and pure desire to make money in your free time,” states the recruitment notice appeared in the ., “It is desirable, of course, that you have already had some minimal experience in this business. But if you have no experience, it is not a problem. In addition to the file, you will receive detailed instructions on how and what to do – even a schoolboy could do it; you need only time and desire.”, The recruitment activities allowed the boss to hire 10 to 15 affiliates that helped him in spreading the ransomware via:, When the victims are infected the gang requests the payment of a $300 fee to rescue to encrypted files, the communications with the victim are handled directly by the boss., , As usual, the payment is in Bitcoins and the money was laundered via Bitcoin exchanges., The boss compensated the affiliates with 40 percent of the ransom keeping for himself the rest., The researchers followed the payments discovering that at least 30 ransom were paid by victims, netting the boss around $90,000 a year and his affiliates an average $600 a month depending on their abilities to spread the ransomware. Larger ransomware gangs will trouser far larger sums, of course, as much as $90,000 a week or more., The data are very interesting if we consider larger organization we can speculate that they are able to earn sums, more than hundreds of thousands of dollars per month., Below the key findings shared by the security firm:, We all know that cyber crime is a risky activity, but less than other conventional crimes. The members of the gang risk long severe sentences, but the financial gains are attractive because they are higher compared the gains of an average Russian citizen., If you appreciate my effort in spreading cyber security awareness, please vote for Security Affairs as best European Security Blog. Vote SecurityAffairs in every section it is reported. I’m one of the finalists and I want to demonstrate that the Security Affairs community a great reality., Thank you, Pierluigi, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – ransomware, cybercrime) |
7479_78515 | Law enforcement and private firms such as Google and WhiteOps took down one of the largest and most sophisticated digital ad-fraud campaign, tracked as Dubbed 3ve, that infected over 1.7 million computers to carry out advertising frauds., The name 3ve is derived from a set of three distinct sub-operations using unique measures to avoid detection, and each of them was built around different architectures with different components., 3ve has been active since at least 2014 and experts observed a peak in its activity in 2017. It has been estimated that the campaign allowed its operators to earn more than $30 million, people involved in the ad-fraud campaign are all from Eastern Europe., The United States Department of Justice also issued indicted 8 individuals from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine., Operators used a broad range of technique to monetize their efforts, they created fake versions of both websites and used their own botnet to simulate visitors’ activities, then offered ad spaces to advertisers, and Border Gateway Protocol hijacking for traffic redirection. Crooks also used malicious code to generate fake clicks over online ads and earn money., “3ve operated on a massive scale: at its peak, it controlled over 1 million IPs from both residential botnet infections and corporate IP spaces, primarily in North America and Europe (for comparison, this is more than the number of broadband subscriptions in Ireland). It featured several unique sub-operations, each of which constituted a sophisticated ad fraud scheme in its own right.” read the report published by WhiteOps., “Tech-savvy fraudsters try to produce fake traffic and fraudulent ad inventory to trick advertisers into believing that their ads are being seen by actual, interested users,” , The size of the infrastructure involved in the 3ve ad-fraud campaign is very huge, according to the experts fraudsters infected 1.7 million computers with malware, attackers used thousands of servers and more than 10,000 counterfeit websites to impersonate legitimate web publishers., The experts discovered that crooks used over 60,000 accounts selling ad inventory generating a record of 3 to 12 billion of daily ad bid requests., “All told, 3ve controlled over 1 million IPs from both residential botnet infections and corporate IP spaces (as noted above, there were up to 700,000 active infections at any given time).” continues the report., “In aggregate, the operation also produced more than 10,000 counterfeit domains, and generated over 3 billion daily bid requests at its peak. We estimate that portions of the bot operation spanned over 1,000 servers in data centers allocated to various functions needed for this type of large-scale operation”, , Experts observed three 3ve operations during their investigation:, So-called 3ve.1 sub-operation leveraged a the Boaxxe botnet, aka Miuref and Methbot, composed of infected systems in data centers across the US and Europe., “All the fake ad requests from 3ve.1 initially pretended to be from desktop browsers, but this changed over time, with the operation increasingly relying on spoofed mobile traffic. This was done by the data center-based browsers pretending to be Android devices.” continues the report., “There were two unique, active mobile misrepresentation schemes: in one the ad requests were spoofed to look like they came from mobile apps, in the other the ad requests were spoofed to look like they came from mobile browsers. The spoofing was achieved by overriding the parameters typically used to determine what type of device the traffic came from”, In this second scheme, attackers used counterfeit domains to sell fake ad inventory to advertisers. Attaclers used a hidden, custom-built browsing agent (Chromium Embedded Framework) on more than 700,000 computers that were compromised with the Kovter malware., In the third sub-operation bots were installed in data centers and used the IP addresses of other data centers as proxies., The 3ve campaign was first spotted in 2016 by ESET that tracked the botnet as Boaxxe botnet., Security firms helped the FBI to shut down the massive ad-fraud operation. Law enforcement obtained warrants that allowed them to seize 31 internet domains and 89 servers of the 3ve infrastructure., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – 3ve botnet, ad-fraud) |
7122_75864 | Media agencies worldwide are reporting the strange disappearance of Arjen Kamphuis, the Julian Assange associate. The news was confirmed by WikiLeaks on Sunday, the man has been missing since August 20, when he left his hotel in the Norwegian town of Bodo., .@JulianAssange associate and author of "Information Security for Journalists" @ArjenKamphuis has disappeared according to friends (@ncilla) and colleagues. Last seen in Bodø, #Norway, 11 days ago on August 20. pic.twitter.com/dV75NGKpgI, — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 31, 2018, , According to WikiLeaks, Kamphuis had bought a ticket for a flight departing on August 22 from Trondheim that is far from Bodo., His friends believe he disappeared either in Bodo, Trondheim or on the way to the destination., Update on the strange disappearance of @ArjenKamphuis. Arjen left his hotel in Bodø on August 20. He had a ticket flying out of Trondheim on August 22. The train between the two takes ~10 hours, suggesting that he disappeared in within hours in Bodø, Trondheim or on the train. — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) September 2, 2018, , At the time of writing, there have been two unconfirmed sightings, one in Alesund, Norway, and the other in Ribe, Denmark., The Norwegian authorities have started an investigation on the case on Sunday., “We have started an investigation,” police spokesman Tommy Bech told the news agency AFP. At the time, the police “would not speculate about what may have happened to him,”., Hi everyone, small update about #FindArjen; The Norwegian police is working hard on the case now. We are keeping all options open, and hoping he will soon be found🤞, — Ancilla (@ncilla) September 3, 2018, , According to the Norwegian Verdens Gang tabloid newspaper, the Norwegian authorities cannot access location data collected by the Kamphuis’s mobile phone until he is officially reported missing in the Netherlands., Stay tuned …, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Kamphuis, wikileaks) |
3491_45310 | In October, the CENTRAL MEANS OF PAYMENT ANTIFRAUD OFFICE (UCAMP) of the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance released the annual report on Payment card frauds., This year I was one of the experts who worked on the MEF – Annual Report on Payment Card Frauds No. 5/2015, an interesting document full of detailed data on the phenomena of payment card frauds. The document focus on payment card frauds (unrecognized transactions) issued in Italy and used everywhere., Credit card frauds are a global emergency, ATMs are a privileged target of cyber criminals worldwide, we discussed several times about illegal practices used by crooks to steal credit card data. ATM hacking, ATM malware and also about ATM skimming are the most common type of attack against these machines., Unfortunately, the attack against an ATM is very simple for criminal organizations, a video recently released by Miami Beach Police shows two men installing a credit card skimmer at a local gas station in less than three seconds., The video shows how a criminal crew goes into action while the store clerk is serving one customer, which it is actually an accomplice., The man keeps is face far from the camera, protecting it with a cap while the accomplice tampers with the ATM., Just three second to completely compromise payment card terminal by attaching a skimmer that allows the crooks to steal credit card data from every customer of the store., , In the specific case, the skimmer was storing the stored card data locally, for this reason, the criminals will return to dismount the device. The most sophisticated gang user skimmers that are able to transfer data via Bluetooth once it has been stolen from the card., Card data are then offered in the cyber criminal underground or to clone payment cards and use them to purchase items that can be resold quickly, like electronic devices, gift cards and luxury items., Source – CBS Miami, The theft of credit card data is a particularly worrying phenomenon, especially in the US where the merchants are slightly moving to the EMV standard that is considered more secure because new payment cards will use a built-in chip to authorize the transactions., Payment card frauds in the U.S. account for nearly 50 percent of global fraud losses, according to the Nilson Report; security experts maintain that the main reason is that the country is the last in the world to implement the EMV (EuroPay, MasterCard, and Visa)., Fortunately, the situation is changing also in the U.S., where the banking consumers are about to benefit from EMV against payment frauds, too., , The deadline for the move to EMV was October 1, 2015, but my merchants are still in delay and in many cases retailers still allow customers to swipe their cards., Despite the enormous improvement introduced with EMV, we cannot consider it as a complete remediation against card frauds, in particular against “Card-Not-Present” (CNP) frauds., EMV still doesn’t protect users when dealing with e-commerce or mobile commerce platforms., “The reality is EMV credit cards cannot prevent PoS RAM Scraper attacks. EMV was developed to prevent credit card counterfeiting and not RAM scraping. If the EMV credit card’s Tracks 1 and 2 data are sent to the PoS system for processing, it will become susceptible to RAM scraper attacks because the decrypted data resides in RAM,” states a blog post published by Trend Micro., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – EVM card, cybercrime) |
6456_70391 | Last week the US Government announced sanctions against five Russian entities and 19 individuals, including the FSB, the military intelligence agency GRU., Despite the sanctions, Russian hackers continue to target entities worldwide, including US organizations., The Russian spy agencies and the individuals are accused of trying to influence the 2016 presidential election and launching massive NotPetya ransomware campaign and other attacks on businesses in the energy industry., Last year, the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a joint technical alert to warn of attacks on US critical infrastructure powered by Russian threat actors. The US-CERT blamed the APT group tracked as Dragonfly, Crouching Yeti, and Energetic Bear., Now the US-CERT updated its alert by providing further info that and officially linking the above APT groups to the Kremlin., The Alert (TA18-074A) warns of “Russian Government Cyber Activity Targeting Energy and Other Critical Infrastructure Sectors,” it label the attackers as “Russian government cyber actors.”, “This alert provides information on Russian government actions targeting U.S. Government entities as well as organizations in the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors.” reads the alert. , “It also contains indicators of compromise (IOCs) and technical details on the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by Russian government cyber actors on compromised victim networks.” , According to the DHS, based on the analysis of indicators of compromise, the Dragonfly threat actor is still very active and its attacks are ongoing., “DHS and FBI characterize this activity as a multi-stage intrusion campaign by Russian government cyber actors who targeted small commercial facilities’ networks where they staged malware, conducted spear phishing, and gained remote access into energy sector networks.” continues the alert. “After obtaining access, the Russian government cyber actors conducted network reconnaissance, moved laterally, and collected information pertaining to Industrial Control Systems (ICS).”, The Russian Government has always denied the accusations, in June 2017 Russian President Putin declared that patriotic hackers may have powered attacks against foreign countries and denied the involvement of Russian cyberspies., A few days ago, cyber security experts at Palo Alto Networks uncovered hacking campaigns launched by Sofacy against an unnamed European government agency leveraging an updated variant of the DealersChoice tool., “On March 12 and March 14, we observed the Sofacy group carrying out an attack on a European government agency involving an updated variant of DealersChoice.” reads the analysis published by PaloAlto Networks., “The updated DealersChoice documents used a similar process to obtain a malicious Flash object from a C2 server, but the inner mechanics of the Flash object contained significant differences in comparison to the original samples we analyzed. One of the differences was a particularly clever evasion technique.”, The attacks uncovered by PaloAlto aimed at a government organization in Europe used a spear phishing email referencing the “Underwater Defence & Security” conference, which will take place in the U.K. later this month., While previous versions of DealersChoice loaded a malicious Flash object as soon as the bait document was opened, the samples analyzed by PaloAlto that were related to the last attacks include the Flash object on page three of the document and it’s only loaded if users scroll down to it., “The user may not notice the Flash object on the page, as Word displays it as a tiny black box in the document, as seen in Figure 1. This is an interesting anti-sandbox technique, as it requires human interaction prior to the document exhibiting any malicious activity.” states the analysis., , Early February, experts from Kaspersky highlighted a shift focus in the Sofacy APT group’s interest, from NATO member countries and Ukraine to towards the Middle East and Central Asia., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – energy firms, critical infrastructure) |
3181_43083 | InterApp is a device designed by the Israeli Rayzone Group that can spy on any smartphone., “InterApp system enables to get intimate information of any phone user, which is in the system’s ,proximity. The collected data includes: user email address and password, contact list, Dropbox, operating system of the phone, photos, internet history browsing, locations, and much more.” states the description published on the company website. “InterApp is fully transparent to the target and does not require any cooperation from the phone owner. The only required condition is that the WIFI transmitter of the mobile device will be open (No need to surf the web).”, The Interapp is an intrusion appliance that implements a number of zero-day exploits against common mobile OSs. According to the company, the gadget is able to infect a smartphone with a malware and compromise any nearby phone whose wifi is turned on., The device can target launched hundreds of simultaneous attacks, without leaving forensic traces on the compromised smartwatches.InterApp can compromise a variety of mobile OSs and is very easy to use., The InterApp is offered for sale to intelligence and law enforcement agencies, it is able to steal a user data, including contact list, photo gallery, and login credentials to several web services, including social networking apps and cloud storages., The gadget is also able to get previous geographical locations of the smartphone and plot them on a map, it could be used to collect other details of the mobile device, including the IMEI, MSISDN data, MAC address, model, OS info, and personal information on the target (i.e. gender, age, address, education, and more)., , Giving a look the products in the Rayzone portfolio we can find Piranha IMSI catcher, the TA9 big data analysis platform, the ArrowCell which is designed to neutralize IMSI catchers, and an advanced geo-location intelligence system called GeoMatrix., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – InterApp, surveillance) |
1642_30256 | Last week the International bank Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) has announced that its computer networks in Turkey were breached by unknowns. The data breach has exposed the personal data of about 2.7 million customers of the HSBC bank, including names of clients, card expiry dates, their card numbers, and linked account numbers., There is no news regarding other personal or financial data stolen in the cyber attack., , The data breach was discovered by the personnel of the HSBC, through internal controls, the company has reassured its customers highlighting that there are no financial victims for them despite the major incident., The stolen data cannot be used to print cards and withdraw money from ATMs, neither use the stolen information to make transactions through internet banking or telephone banking, the HSBC confirmed that its customers can continue to use their cards confidently., HSBC has issued a collection of Frequently Asked Questions for its customers:, “Our customers do not need to take any action as a result of this incident and they can confidently continue their banking transactions. As usual, we would like to remind our customers that they should ensure all normal precautions are undertaken with their cards, use reliable online shopping sites, monitor card usage and inform the bank if they suspect any fraudulent activities on their cards.” states the HSBC ‘s FAQs., In time I’m writing the investigation in ongoing in collaboration with the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency of Turkey (BRSA) and local law enforcement, authorities. According to the HSBC, all customers accounts/term deposit accounts are safe, the company hasn’t noticed any fraudulent activity resulting from the data breach.
The bank has announced that it will reimburse any possible losses resulting from the data breach., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – HSBC bank, Data breach, hacking) |
6664_72269 | Security experts at vpnMentor last week disclosed a couple of zero-day vulnerabilities (CVE-2018-10561 & CVE-2018-10562) in Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network GPON home routers manufactured by the company Dasan., The researchers have found a way to bypass the authentication to access the GPON home routers (CVE-2018-10561). The experts chained this authentication bypass flaw with another command injection vulnerability (CVE-2018-10562) and were able to execute commands on the device., , The GPON home routers are widely adopted by ISPs that offer fiber-optic Internet, it has been estimated that roughly one million of these devices are exposed to the Internet, most of them in Mexico, Kazakhstan, and Vietnam., After the disclosure of the two vulnerabilities, experts started working on PoC exploit code, the Italian security expert Federico Valentini (@f3d_0x0), ICT Security researcher at Cefriel, for example, published a Python exploit for Remote Code Execution on GPON home routers (CVE-2018-10562)., Security researchers at Qihoo 360 have monitored at least three campaigns targeting GPON home routers, one of them was involving the Mirai and Muhstik botnets., , one more thing, we captured a new mirai branch which also picked up this GPON vulnerability, so we are looking at at least three different campaigns going after the GPON now. (the .VN, the muhstik and mirai), — 360 Netlab (@360Netlab) May 7, 2018, , Waiting for the official patch from the manufacturer, vpnMentor researchers have released their unofficial patches for the two zero-days., The deployment of the patch is quite simple, users simply have to enter the router’s local IP address and click the “Run Patch” button. The tool executes a script in the browser that allows users to disable the web server that represents the entry point for the attackers., “All you have to do is input your infected router IP (it can be a local LAN address — it doesn’t have to be WAN) and a new password where you can access your router via LAN only SSH/Telnet, and our script will execute the patch.” states the post published by VPNmentor., “Notice: By pressing “Patch”, you will execute the script yourself on the provided IP (whether local or WAN connected), since we use a client-side patch your browser will initiate.”, Once executed the patch, the router’s web interface will not be accessible from the browser (so it will not be exploited) and re-enabling the web server could not be so easy., “This patch was not created by the official company and is not guaranteed. It was created to help mitigate the vulnerabilities until an official patch is released. Therefore, any issues or problems that might be caused by the use of this tool is not our responsibility, and we advise you to use it at your own risk.” reads the disclaimer for the patch. , “This tool disables the web server in a way that is not easy to reverse, it can be done with another patch script, but if you are not comfortable with the command line we suggest firewalling your device until an official patch is released.”, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – GPON home routers, hacking), , |
7305_77195 | The attacker asked for a quotation of the entire spare part list available on the spreadsheet. In such a way the victim needed to open-up the included Microsoft spreadsheet in order to enumerate the “fake customer” needs. Opening up The Excel File it gets infected., , , , , , , Looking into GEqy87 is quite clear that the sample was hiding an additional windows PE. On one, hand it builds up the new PE directly on memory by running decryption loops (not reversed here). On the other, hand it fires up 0xEIP to pre-allocated memory section in order to reach new available code section., The name MartyMcFly comes pretty naturally here since the “interesting date-back from Virus Total”. I am not confident about that date, but I can only assume VirusTotal is Right., For IoC please visit the analysis from here., Further details on the MartyMcFly malware are reported in the original analysis published by Marco Ramilli on his blog., Yoroi also launched his a new blog where it is possible to find several interesting analysis, including the one on the MartyMcFly malware., About the author: Marco Ramilli, Founder of Yoroi, I am a computer security scientist with an intensive hacking background. I do have a MD in computer engineering and a PhD on computer security from University of Bologna. During my PhD program I worked for US Government (@ National Institute of Standards and Technology, Security Division) where I did intensive researches in Malware evasion techniques and penetration testing of electronic voting systems., , I do have experience on security testing since I have been performing penetration testing on several US electronic voting systems. I’ve also been encharged of testing uVote voting system from the Italian Minister of homeland security. I met Palantir Technologies where I was introduced to the Intelligence Ecosystem. I decided to amplify my cybersecurity experiences by diving into SCADA security issues with some of the biggest industrial aglomerates in Italy. I finally decided to found Yoroi: an innovative Managed Cyber Security Service Provider developing some of the most amazing cybersecurity defence center I’ve ever experienced! Now I technically lead Yoroi defending our customers strongly believing in: Defence Belongs To Humans, Edited by Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – MartyMcFly, malware) |
5160_58586 | Locked Shields is the world’s largest and most sophisticated international cyber defence exercise. It is an annual event since 2010, Locked Shields is organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence and aims to trains security experts who protect national IT infrastructure., Locked Shields 2017 is organised in cooperation with the Estonian Defence Forces, the Finnish Defence Forces, the Swedish Defence University, the British Joint Army, the United States European Command, Air Operations COE and Tallinn University of Technology., This year edition was recently concluded (24–28 Apr 2017), it involved around 800 participants from 25 nations., While the organisers of the Locked Shields 2017 exercise were in Tallinn, Estonia, the participating Blue Teams worked remotely through secure connections from their home bases., The exercise stresses participants asking them to face different trials, including organizing an incident response, solving forensic challenges, and responding to legal and strategic communications and scenario injects., , Locked Shields is a strategic event that puts participants in front of cutting-edge technologies and hacking techniques, this is the only way to face even more complex cyber threats in a real word cyber scenario., “To stay abreast of market developments, Locked Shields focuses on realistic and cutting-edge technologies, networks and attack methods.” reads the official announcement., The cyber defence exercise was just ended, the Blue Teams have been tasked to maintain the services and networks of a military air base of a fictional country., In the simulation, the air base was experiencing a wide range of cyber attacks on its electric power grid system, unmanned aerial vehicles, military command and control systems, critical information infrastructure components and other operational infrastructure., “The size and scope of technologies, networks and devices used in Locked Shields 2017 has increased considerably – leading to more attacks and specialised systems involved.” continues the announcement. “Specialised systems enable teams to practice the defence of systems that they are not working with on a regular basis. However, in the modern threat landscape incidents with specialised systems may potentially have a profound effect on a military mission or the entire society.”, The experts launched more than 2500 possible attacks against Blue Teams, according to the NATO IT staff more than 3000 virtualised systems have been deployed during the exercise., For this first time in the history of the event, this year the NATO has run a strategic track to the exercise., The exercise also involved industry partners such as Siemens AG, Threod Systems, Cyber Test Systems, Clarified Security, Iptron, Bytelife, BHC Laboratory, openvpn.net, GuardTime and numerous others., The Italian team was composed of a group of experts from three armed forces, Carabinieri, along with researchers from CINECA (Interuniversity Consortium for the Management of Electronic Calculation Center), Universities of Rome La Sapienza and Genoa., The Ministry of the Interior also took part in the exercise with a group of analysts from the National Anti-Crime Center for Critical Infrastructure Protection (CNAIPIC)., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Locked Shields 2017, cyber security) |
6599_71660 | A former employee at the SunTrust Bank may have stolen data on 1.5 million clients, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and account balances., “The company became aware of potential theft by a former employee of information from some of its contact lists. Although the investigation is ongoing, SunTrust is proactively notifying approximately 1.5 million clients that certain information, such as name, address, phone number and certain account balances may have been exposed.” reads the press release published by the bank., “The contact lists did not include personally identifying information, such as social security number, account number, PIN, User ID, password, or driver’s license information. SunTrust is also working with outside experts and coordinating with law enforcement.”, , The bank said it believes the information doesn’t include personally identifiable information, such as social security numbers, account numbers, pins, user IDs, passwords or driver’s license numbers., SunTrust is notifying approximately 1.5 million clients that certain information may have been exposed., , According to the Reuters agency, the unfaithful employee tried to download the client data a few weeks ago in an attempt to sell it to a criminal., “Chief Executive Officer William Rogers brought the incident to light on a post-earnings call with analysts on Friday. He said the attempt to download client information was made six to eight weeks ago.” reported the Reuters., SunTrust CEO William Rogers said that there was no indication of fraudulent activity using the exposed information, likely the data had not been sent outside the bank., The SunTrust is now offering free identity protection services to all of its clients., “SunTrust Banks, Inc. (NYSE: STI) is now offering Identity Protection for all current and new consumer clients at no cost on an ongoing basis. Experian IDnotify™ will be provided to those who sign up for the service.” continues the press release., “The IDnotify product by Experian is being offered in addition to existing SunTrust security protocols: ongoing monitoring of accounts, FICO score program, alerts, tools and zero liability fraud protection.” , Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Bata Breach, cybercrime), , |
861_20120 | The popular family of Smartphones Google Nexus is vulnerable to SMS-based DOS attack that could cause the handset freeze and other anomalous behaviors., Bogdan Alecu, a system administrator at Dutch IT services company Levi9, discovered the Google Nexus vulnerability that affects all Android 4.x firmware versions on Google Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4 and Nexus 5., The expert disclosed the vulnerability recently in the DefCamp security conference in Bucharest, Romania., An attacker exploiting the flaw can force mobile device to restart, loose network connection or freeze by sending a large number of a special type of SMS messages, flash SMS.,
“Then my first thought was: what happens if I send more such messages? Will it make the entire background go black? If so, wouldn’t this cause a memory leak? The answer is “Yes” for both of the questions. So, basically, by sending around 30 Class 0 messages, it will make the Google device behave strangely’.” said Alecu to my colleagues at the TheHackerNews. , , , , , Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Google Nexus, DoS) |
2766_40143 | Engineers at Xerox PARC have designed a prototype chip capable of self-destructing, it is named DUST, or Disintegration Upon Stress-Release Trigger. If t you are thinking that such kind of things can exclusive of action movies you are wrong, the researchers at Xerox PARC believe that their integrated self-destruct chip could represent the ideal solution for the storage of high-sensitive data, including the encryption keys. Of course, let’s think of the application of such kind of technology in military and intelligence sectors., The potential applications of the DUST self-destructing chip include remote sensing or battlefield communications kit, and of course drones., The engineers used a Gorilla Glass substrate to fabricate the innovative self-destruct chip, which is capable of shattering on demand into thousands of pieces making impossible the reconstruction., Gorilla Glass is a brand of specialized toughened glass developed and manufactured by the Corning firm, it is typically used as a tough glass in smartphones and smart watches displays due to its small thickness and high damage resistance., The research on a self-destruct chip was funded by the US Darpa, which invested $2M as reported by Xeros PARC:, “PARC, a Xerox company, today announced it has signed an up to $2 million contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop and demonstrate PARC’s disappearing electronics platform (called DUST), with intriguing implications for a variety of military, ecological, and commercial interests., DUST, or Disintegration Upon Stress-Release Trigger, is a technology that allows electronic devices using full-performance microchips to be disintegrated on command, leaving only tiny fragments that are invisible to the human eye. The DUST technology builds on PARC’s cutting-edge capabilities in advanced manufacturing, novel electronics, and smart devices.” states the announcement published by the company., , DARPA funded the Vanishing Programmable Resources (VAPR) program with the goal to create a new generation electronic systems capable of physically disappearing in a controlled, triggerable manner., During the demo Xerox PARC made at the DARPA the glass was stressed close to breaking point by heat. The generation of additional heat by inducing a small current across a resistor allowed to shatter the self-destructing IC into thousands of pieces., , During the demo, the researchers used a photo-diode to trigger the self-destruction, but experts explained that it could be easily replaced with a radio signal., “Imagine being able to cover a large area, like the ocean floor, with billions of tiny sensors to ‘hear’ what is happening within the earth’s crust, and have them quickly disintegrate into, essentially, sand, leaving no trace and not harming the planet or sea life,” explained Sean Garner, PARC researcher on the DUST project. “I’m looking forward to working with other scientists and companies that can help us explore cool new ways to deploy DUST that we may not have even considered.”, DUST sensors could be used also to monitor wide areas during natural disasters as reported on the announcement., “In the world of environmental science, DUST sensors could be distributed in large numbers to help measure wide-area phenomenon such as weather patterns for hurricane prediction or subtle vibrations that precede earthquakes, and then be effectively removed from the environment with no residual footprint,” it explained., No doubt, this kind of technologies will change our life in the next future., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – DARPA, self-destruct chip) |
5416_60669 | A new massive AdGholas malvertising network discovered by experts at Proofpoint has been infecting as many as 1 million computers per day with several banking trojans., AdGholas operators have been active since 2015, the threat actors behind the AdGholas malvertising campaign was notable for its use of steganography and careful targeting of the massive volume of malicious ads and impressions and its ability to avoid detection of researchers., “Proofpoint researchers have discovered and analyzed a massive malvertising network operating since 2015. Run by a threat actor we designated as AdGholas and pulling in as many as 1 million client machines per day” states the analysis from Proofpoint., According to Proofpoint researchers “This campaign represents the first documented use of steganography in a drive-by malware campaign, and attacks employed ‘informational disclosure’ bugs perceived to be low-risk in order to stay below the radar of vendors and researchers.”, The campaign was receiving high-quality traffic from a variety of high-rank referrers, from more than twenty different AdAgency/AdExchange platforms. According to the experts, the AdGholas was clocking one to five million hits every day, unfortunately, roughly 10-20% of the hits were redirected to domains hosting exploit kits., Cyber criminals were using domains that appear as clones of legitimate websites belonging to Hotel Merovinjo in Paris, Ec-centre and Mamaniaca., , The experts at Proofpoint observed that hackers served different malware depending on user and geography., , “Our analysis with colleagues from Trend Micro found that AdGholas campaigns do not all work the same way, but all do have the same multi-layered filtering and obfuscation,” continues the analysis. “For instance, the redirect tag is being sent in several ways. We saw the xhr-sid sent as response header to a POST to GIF, but it is sometimes hidden at the end of an ‘addStat hash in the initial landing.”, AdGholas gang went silent for two weeks after the Angler exploit kit disappearance from the threat landscape, it then returned using the same domains at the end of June in campaign leveraging the Neutrino EK., Malware researchers observed the gang delivering geo-focused banking Trojans, such as Gozi ISFB in Canada, Terdot.A (aka DELoader) in Australia, Godzilla loaded Terdot.A in Great Britain, and Gootkit in Spain. The experts observed four different Neutrino threads, as Neutrino is not including an internal TDS while Blackhole, Angler and Nuclear were., Recently the AdGholas gang or close distribution partners was operating reverse proxies serving the involved instance of exploit kit at the end of April., AdGholas demonstrates that malvertising campaigns are becoming increasingly sophisticated to remain stealthy and effective., Below key findings from Proofpoint analysis:, Pierluigi Paganini , (Security Affairs – AdGholas, malvertising) |
596_14411 | F-Secure has published the Mobile Threat Report for Q1 2013, an interesting document that the security firm periodically issues giving information on the evolution of cyber threat in the mobile landscape., As expected Android malware has monopolized the mobile scenario, the number of Android active mobile threat families and variants has skyrocketed in just a quarter from 49 out of 74 known threats to 96 out of 100, Android malicious code represent almost totality of menaces., Curious the tweet sent by Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller, a rarity, that remarked the results of the Mobile Threat Report referring the security Android OS., , The study reveals that Android accounts in Q1 for 136 out of 149 known threats, about 91% of overall malware activity registering an increment respect 2012 to 79%.
, Remaining malware reported in the Mobile Threat Report is related to Symbian OS meanwhile no news from other OSs. The research reveals that mobile threats are mainly motivated by profits, 76.5 % of malicious code are design with specific intent to monetize the victim’s infection., , The report confirmed a concerning trend that I described in the last months thanks to the investigation of Group IB, the cybercriminal black market is specializing its offer in malware that targeted Google’s Android platforms, in particular is increasing the number of “highly specialized suppliers” who “provide commoditized malware services”., Around the Android world is grown a “commodity malware” business of creating exploit packages sold on the black a market, unlike Apple’s iOS that implements stricter security policy for third party developers., Mobile Threat Report states that the attackers arranged their attacks exploiting social engineering techniques, fraudsters deceive Android users hijacking them to service, with a job offer or requesting the update of well known components such as Adobe Flash. In this way unsuspecting users explicitly allow the malware to infect their machine, in common scenario the malicious code, once obtained permission from the user, dial toll numbers or install SMS spyware designed to elude banking authentication processes., F-Secure Mobile Threat Report also revealed a sensible increase of the number of targeted attacks against Android devices. In March, an Android malware was used against a Tibetan activist and compromising his email account it has been spread to other high profile human rights activists, according the report the next phase for Android malware will be its use against governments., Mobile Threat Report described various malware malware, one of the most intriguing is, SmSilence,”, a malicious code discovered in South Korea that uses “the guise of ‘coupons’ for a popular coffeehouse chain,”. F-Secure research described with the following statements its way of working:, “If the so-called coupon app is installed, the malware will check if the phone number has a South Korean country code (+82). If the condition is met, SmSilence will harvest information from the device and forward the details to a server located in Hong Kong.”, Another interesting malware described in the report is Stels, detected in 2012 by F-Secure Mobile Security as Trojan: Android/SmsSpy.K, an Android trojan spread via mail through a classic phishing schema. The fake mail impersonates U.S. Internal Revenue Service-themed mail, the malware uses “an Android crimeware kit to steal sensitive information from the device,” and it is also able to make calls to premium numbers., Another reason of the vulnerability of the Android platform is that the majority of users never update Google OS and installed application opening the door to various threats, differently Apple designed for iOS a series of controls that specifically limit apps behavior and data that applications can manage., Mobile Threat Report provided us with an indication of the main threats that are targeting the mobile universe, the data confirm an increase in terms of occurrences of malware and what worries most is the increase level of sophistication of threats., It is a must to define new security models to mitigate the threats and at the same time educate users in the proper use of these powerful devices., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Security), |
1123_23782 | The security community is once again menaced by Zeus banking trojan, a new variant of the malicious ZeuS Trojan has been identified by researchers at Comodo AV labs. This instance presents an interesting feature, it is digitally signed with a stolen digital certificate which belongs to Microsoft Developer., The technique is not new in the past numerous malware were digitally signed to avoid detection from anti-virus systems, clamorous the theft of digital certificate from Bit9 occurred one year ago when the security company announced that hackers had stolen digital certificates from its network and have utilized it to sign malware. , On Microsoft systems the installation of certain types of software could request that its code is digitally signed with a certificate issued by a trusted CA, by stealing the certificate of a trusted vendor reduces the possibility that the malicious software being detected as quickly. That is exactly what happened to Stuxnet virus, but let’s remark that the technique is very common in the criminal underground, more than 200,000 unique malware binaries were discovered in the last couple of years signed with valid digital signatures., “The Comodo team identified the Zeus variant because they continuously monitor and analyze scan data from the users of Comodo’s internet security systems. They have found over 200 unique hits for this Zeus variant from our users so far.” reports the official , The new Zeus trojan variant is distributed through infected web page components and via classic phishing email apparently sent by a trusted source including a major bank. The post reports the case of a Comodo user which provides a sample of Zeus Trojan that masquerade itself as file of Internet Explorer with a valid signature issued to “isonet ag”., , The principal components of last Zeus Trojan variant, as reported by Comodo, are:, The infection process is quite simple and transparent to defense systems installed on the victim’s machine, once in execution the malicious file is installed without triggering any antivirus control thanks the trick of digital signature of its code, it also tries to download rootkit components from:, The post published by Comodo On Zeus Trojan also explained how the malicious code implements the Man-In-The-Browser attack method, a technique that we discussed different time in the past., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Zeus trojan, malware) |
1565_29406 | The Tor project has released a new version of the popular free software for enabling online anonymity Tor, Tor Browser 4.0 is the release Tor Browser Bundle available for download., The Tor Browser Bundle is based on an Extended Support Release (ESR) version of the Mozilla Firefox project, in the new Tor version 4.0 the Firefox version has been updated from 24 ESR to 31 ESR version which include several security fixes, including seven critical vulnerabilities., The fix is also necessary to mitigate the recently disclosed POODLE attack on SSL which allows bad actors to decrypt traffic over secure channels, the experts at Tor project have disabled SSLv3 in the Tor Browser 4.0 release as explained in the official post:, “This release features important security updates to Firefox. Additionally, due to the POODLE attack, we have also disabled SSLv3 in this release.”, The measure is necessary for an anonymizing tool like Tor to avoid that an attacker can spy on user’s internet activity, even if carried out over SSL which is still supported by the majority of Internet users., “This vulnerability allows the plaintext of secure connections to be calculated by a network attacker,” said the researcher Bodo Möller at Google. “If a client and server both support a version of TLS, the security level offered by SSL 3.0 is still relevant since many clients implement a protocol downgrade dance to work around serve side interoperability bugs.”, , Another important update is related to the mechanisms implemented to circumvent censorship, as explained in the release not the new version features the addition of three versions of the meek pluggable transport. A meek is a pluggable transport that uses HTTP for carrying bytes and TLS for obfuscation, technically the traffic is routed through a third-party server to circumvent censorship., “More importantly for censored users who were using 3.6, the 4.0 series also features the addition of three versions of the meek pluggable transport. In fact, we believe that both meek-amazon and meek-azure will work in China today, without the need to obtain bridge addresses. Note though that we still need to improve meek’s performance to match other transports, though. so adjust your expectations accordingly.” states the release note., The new Tor Browser 4.0 also includes an in-browser updater and as announced by the developers of the project very soon the bundle will support both strong HTTPS site-specific certificate pinning (ticket #11955) and update package signatures (ticket #13379)., “This release also features an in-browser updater, and a completely reorganized bundle directory structure to make this updater possible. This means that simply extracting a 4.0 Tor Browser over a 3.6.6 Tor Browser will not work,” reads the blog post. “Please also be aware that the security of the updater depends on the specific CA that issued the www.torproject.org HTTPS certificate (Digicert), and so it still must be activated manually through the Help (“?”) “about browser” menu option.”, don’t wast time Download Tor Browser 4.0., Tor Browser 4.0 isn’t the unique privacy tool updated during this period, a new version of live anonymizing distribution TAILS (VERSION 1.2) has been released. Tails, also known as “Amnesiac Incognito Live System”, is a free Debian-based Linux distribution, specially tuned and optimized to preserve users’ anonymity and privacy., Also in this case it is crucial to upgrade your privacy tool., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Tor Browser 4.0, TAILS 1.2) |
2939_41474 | What happen when bug hunters have to work with high sensitive environment?, An interesting post published by the Cyber Defense Review raises the discussion about the was way to handle vulnerabilities in the information security infrastructure of the US Army. The post highlights the need of a Response Program for vulnerabilities affecting US army systems., Current and former members of the department’s cyber wing of the US Army, Captain Michael Weigand and Captain Rock Stevens, urge a joint project between the Army Cyber Institute and the US Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command., The military experts highlighted how essential aspects of the software lifecycle, like patch management and penetration testing are very difficult to carry on in these environments. The systems used in the US Army are exposed by an absence of centralized patch management and penetration testing are not allowed due to nature of the systems., “Personnel who discover vulnerabilities encounter stumbling blocks from the first step of responsible disclosure–initial notification. If an employee does find the contact information for a developer or program office, there is no external incentive or repercussion for a responsible party to action the report or intelligence that is provided to them.” states the post. “Additionally, it is possible that the report recipient could misinterpret the findings, not as valuable and friendly intelligence but rather as a threat to their contract, command, or system. Both scenarios yield the same result–the vulnerability remains and the report is dismissed. This wastes researcher’s time, hard work, and promotes a “do-nothing” culture.”, Reporting vulnerabilities could be a risky initiative for the bug hunter, the US Army could revoke them the security clearances, the access to IT systems, and face “punitive action” under the Uniform Code of Military Justice which they describe as “viable outcomes” for those who “casually stumble” on bugs., “The most unfortunate outcome is that service members who become aware of vulnerabilities feel helpless to positively affect the situation. Meanwhile, those who wish to do harm to our nation are free from such worries,” the experts added. “Additionally, no US Government program exists that permits active security assessments of networks or software solutions using custom tools or techniques. Most importantly, the Army does not have a single entity that tracks discovered issues from initial report through the remediation process to ensure vulnerability resolution in a timely manner. Most of the Army’s critical systems are underpinned by networked software — from tanks and missile launchers to battle command and communication systems. The Army does not have one central location for responsibly disclosing software vulnerabilities across all of its systems. Without a means to report vulnerabilities in Army software or networks, vulnerabilities go unreported and leave our information systems exposed to adversarial attacks.”, They call for a radical change, including the introduction of bug bounties, today internal experts who discovered vulnerabilities have no incentive to report the flaw are no obliged to disclose it, the post refers this bad habit as a “do nothing” culture., , In a paper published on the Cyber Defense Review website, the duo proposes the creation of an Army Vulnerability Response Program (AVRP), a bug bounty program run by the US military., The Army Vulnerability Response Program (AVRP) platforms proposed by the military expert have to enable service people to report bugs free of risk of retribution, and say penetration tests should be promoted as vulnerability scans are inadequate., “The AVRP will serve as the central reporting mechanism for vulnerabilities in Army networks and will receive reports on poor configurations or gaps in security that could allow attackers to degrade Army systems. These systems include Army digital training management systems, Army Battle Command Systems, logistics procurement systems, and combat platforms deployed in hostile environments. Researchers can report vulnerabilities through a phone hotline or an online submission portal. The AVRP will track all submissions, facilitate the flow of communication with affected entities, and play an integral role in resolving the vulnerability throughout US government networks,” the paper reads., The AVRP project would be a closed program specifically designed for Department of Defense staff, but it is important also to involve externals although they would not be involved in the remediation process., As an alternative to a bug bounty program completely managed by the US Army, the experts suggested using the services of specialized organizations such as Zero Day Initiative or Bugcrowd, but the costs would be high., “If implementing an Army-run bug bounty program is not within the immediate goals/desire of any organization, there are third-party programs that can manage the program for the Army such as the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) and Bug Crowd. Utilization of these third party programs would require a change to their current practices to handle classified disclosures which would most likely come at a substantial cost.”, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Army Vulnerability Response Program (AVRP), bug bounty program) |
1000_22056 | The cost of developing advanced malware has fallen dramatically malicious code like Stuxnet and Flame are today economically more affordable. It has been estimated that the expense for the development of a cyber weapon like Stuxnet,or for a sophisticated spyware like Duqu, is collapsed from $100 million to just $10,000., Speaking at Kaspersky Lab’s Industry Analyst Summit Costin Raiu, head of global research and analysis at Kaspersky, revealed that cost for Stuxnet design was nearly $100 million., , , The dropping for the cost represents an element of serious concerns for cyber security experts because it is lowering the barrier to entry to the global cyber-arms race., “The cost of entry for APT is decreasing,” “We’re going to see more surgical strikes and critical infrastructure attacks.”said Costin Raiu, Behind those malware even more sophisticated there are groups of hackers, also identified with terms like APT or advanced persistent threats, which work for governments or are part of their cyber unit., APT are typically involved in cyber attacks on high-value targets, including government organization, financial institutions, critical infrastructure and defense contractors., In the past the financial effort necessary to sustain APT was impressive, I remember an interesting analysis proposed by the popular hacker Charlie Miller on the cost for the design of a cyber weapon, he estimated an involvement of 592 people and an investment of $45.9 mil in annual salary with an average annual salary $77,534., The cost is totally different from the $10,000 hypothesized for the realization of the IceFog malware which was discovered last year and that hit US energy companies with a Java Backdoor., According to experts at Kaspersky the Javafog backdoor could indicate that the Icefog mercenaries were running a US-specific operation, according the analysis on the backdoor used the team was preparing a long-term cyber espionage campaign., “The focus on the US targets associated with the only known Javafog C&C could indicate a US-specific operation run by the Icefog attackers; one that was planned to take longer than usual, such as, for instance, long-term collection of intelligence on the target,” “This brings another dimension to the Icefog gang’s operations, which appear to be more diverse than initially thought.” reported the Kaspersky report., While Icefog campaign probably required an investment of no more than $10,000, the NetTraveler APT campaign likely cost about $500,000, that is nothing compared to the 100$ dollars for Stuxnet., “If you’re thinking that’s a lot of money, it’s not,” “It’s the cost of several missiles.”, “Icefog is special because it indicates a new trend of cyber mercenaries, maybe five to ten people that are highly skilled,” “They knew what documents they wanted to steal from each machine and they spent only a few minutes on each machine.”Raiu said. , , Raiu has no doubts lowering of the costs associated to APT campaigns will cause a significant increase in the number of dangerous cyber attacks … let’s wait for further revelation on the last APT offensive dubbed “The Mask“., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – APT, state-sponsored hacking) |
1994_34259 | A few weeks ago, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo explained the difficulties the company is facing to prevent the abuse of its platform. Costolo revealed to be embarrassed for the company’s failures and would be operating to eliminate trolls and abuses., “We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years,” Costolo wrote in a memo obtained by The Verge. “It’s no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.”, Following the declaration of its CEO, Twitter announced that it is introducing new tools to eliminate harassment and any other behavior that violate company policies., “now we’re making similar improvements around reporting other content issues including impersonation, self-harm and the sharing of private and confidential information. These changes will begin rolling out today and should reach all users in the coming weeks.” states Twitter in a blog post., Among the changes announced by Twitter, all the users that will receive temporary bans will need to verify their email address or a phone number in order to resume their accounts., Twitter starts tracking phone numbers of users as a measure to prevent abuses like the creation of new bogus accounts. Twitter could discourage fraudsters and harassers from creating fake accounts by checking phone numbers submitted by the users against a blacklist of abusers that have been already banned., , Twitter will ban its worst users as explained by Tina Bhatnagar, vice president of user services:, “Overall, we now review five times as many user reports as we did previously, and we have tripled the size of the support team focused on handling abuse reports,” , It is also the first time that Twitter allows users to report abuses of other accounts. According to Twitter, its news tools will allow users to report impersonation, self-harm, and the inappropriate posting of confidential and private data., The goal of the company is to improve abuse reporting by making it easier for users to discriminate trolls., Are the measures announced by Twitter enough to eliminate malicious accounts and any other kind of abuse?, Probably no, but it is a good start. The measure to track users requesting their mobile could be ineffective if a user asked to provide its phone number the first time will abandon his account and start illegal activities creating a new one. Twitter, in fact, will not request new users to provide phone numbers to verify their identity., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Twitter, trolls) |
7574_79324 | The malware was spread through well-written phishing email trying to impersonate a senior partner of one of the major Brazilian business law firms: “Veirano Advogados”., The malicious email intercepted during the CSDC operations contains a PowerPoint add-in document (“.ppa” extension), armed with auto-open VBA macro code., The macro code in the .ppa file contains a simple instruction invoking the “mshta.exe” tool to download and execute the next-stage of the dropper retrieved from “hxxps://minhacasaminhavidacdt.blogspot.com/”., The Blogspot hosted web page downloaded by mshta.exe appears innocent-looking to a quick skim through: opening it into the browser shows a perfectly rendered work-in progress blog page., But a deeper inspection of its source code reveals an interesting snippet inserted into an invisible blog post: this ghost article contains VBScript code., It’s funny to see the malware author tried to attribute the paternity of the script to “Microsoft Corp.”, adding pieces of comments belonging to legit Microsoft utilities:, ‘Update———————————————————————————————‘ Copyright: Microsoft Corp.‘‘ This script is designed to be used only for scheduled tasks(s).‘ There is no extensive error check, and will not dump the output from the Powershell CmdLet.‘‘ Usage: SyncAppvPublishingServer {cmdline-args(passthrough to cmdlet)}, These comments are in fact part of the “SyncAppvPublishingServer” utility, commonly deployed into Windows 10 machines at “C:\Windows\System32\SyncAppvPublishingServer.vbs”. Anyway, the remaining part of the script is responsible to execute a series of malicious actions:, Summing up, the last stages of the infection chain are designed to install a RevengeRAT variant hidden into a regkey and run the “outlook.exe” executable extracted by the “Document.exe” binary, retrieved from “hxxp://cdtmaster.com.br/Document.mp3”., The following image briefly shows the malware infection chain:, Once executed, the RAT immediately contacts its command and control servers sending victim machine’s information. In the analyzed sample, the author configured two different C2 destinations: “office365update.duckdns.org” and “systen32.ddns.net“., If one of these is down, the malware falls back to the other one. At time of writing, both the remote C2 were down, so it was only possible to emulate the server behavior in order to analyze the information sent by the RAT., Anyway, the malware establishes a TCP connection with the server and sends to it the following stream:, At first sight, it’s possible to spot a repeated sequence of chars used as separator between the data fields:, roma225, This string have been chosen by the attacker during the preparation of the malware, using the customization functionalities provided by the RevengeRAT builder. Splitting and decoding the data stream, information becomes clearer:, As told before, the C2s were unresponsive at time of writing, however their latest IP resolution indicates the infrastructure of the attacker could be located in different countries., For instance, the domain “office365update.duckdns.org” resolved to the 184.75.209.169 IP addresss, geolocated in Canada., Moreover, “systen32.ddns.net” resolved to the 138.36.3.228 IP, geolocated in Brazil., The “Document.exe” file is hosted at “cdtmaster.com.br” and is actually downloaded into the victim machine by the “Z3j.vbs” script. This PE32 file is characterized by the Pokemon Megaball image used as program icon and its unique purpose is to deploy and run the “Outlook.exe” payload., Extracting static PE information from this last sample, reveals references to the “SendBlaster” application, a program used to deliver newsletters. Here, another interesting fact comes up: this product is currently developed by the Italian firm eDisplay Srl, so, in addition to the “roma225” separator, represents another direct reference to the Italian landscape., When the “Outlook.exe” payload is executed, it remains apparently quiet: no outgoing network traffic or file system modifications; however it binds a listening TCP socket on localhost: “tcp://127.0.0.1:49356“. , Cybaze-Yoroi ZLab researchers are still dissecting the Outlook.exe sample to extract its real behavior., After this first analysis, it’s difficult to attribute the attack to a specific threat actor. In the past, RevengeRAT variants were also used by APT groups such as The Gorgon Group, the enigmatic threat actor tracked by the Unit42 researchers, author of cyber espionage campaigns against UK, Spain, Russia and US governmental organization. However, the source code of the RAT has been publicly leaked few years ago and could be actually part of a multitude of cyber arsenals, more or less sophisticated. , Anyway, there are TTP in common with Unit42 report, such as the usage of shared infrastructure (in the specific case the Blogger service) as drop-server and other popular RAT as final backdoor (i.e. njRAT). , In fact, the “cdtmaster.com.br” hosts other suspicious files such as the “nj.mp3” binary, which actually is a njRAT variant. All the other files are still under investigation., Technical details about the Roma225 compaign, including Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) and Yara rules are reported in the analysis published on the Yoroi blog., Pierluigi Paganini, (SecurityAffairs – Roma225, cyberespionage), |
1116_23688 | A new sophisticated Android Bootkit has been detected by Chinese Security Researchers from “360 Mobile Security“, its name is Oldboot.B and appears as an evolution of its predecessor Oldboot.A. According the researchers Oldboot.B could be considerable as the most sophisticated Android malware ever detected, it has already infected millions of mobile devices. OldBoot.A was detected early 2014 by the Russian security firm Doctor Web, its principal capability is to re-infect the Smartphone after reboot, even if all its components are deleted by the user. Bootkit is a category of malware which infects the host at start-up and it is able to perform malicious activities, including data stealing, disk encryption, communicate with a remote C&C server and remove the application on the victim’s device. ‘Oldboot.B‘ implements a new advanced evasion techniques to avoid its detection to principal antivirus software and automatic analysis systems., “The Oldboot Trojan family is the most significant demonstration of this trend.” “Depending on the commands sent from the C&C server, it can do many different things, such as sending fake SMS messages or phishing attacks, and so on. Driven by profit, the Oldboot Trojan family changes very fast to react to any situation.” researchers said., The principal abilities of Oldboot.B trojan are:, The Oldboot.B malware, once infected the victim’s Android mobile, waits for the command sent by C&C (located at az.o65.org IP is 61.160.248.67), it makes also use of steganography to hide data (executable codes, configuration file) within file exchanged with C&C and installs numerous malicious applications on the mobile., “But after some analysis, we found that the configuration of meta_chk is hidden in this picture, which contains the command will be executed by meta_chk and other information.” researchers said. The size of this configuration file is 12,508 bytes., The Oldboot.B malware is composed of 4 principal components that registering itself as services can ensure the persistence to the malicious code., , The principal evasion capabilities that make hard the detection of Oldboot.B are:, The unique possibility to avoid Oldboot.B malware is to download and install app only from official stores neither use untrusted custom ROMs., If your mobile is infected by Oldboot.B you can download the free removing tool designed by antivirus firm 360 Mobile Security., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Oldboot.B, Android malware) |
5053_57679 | One year ago, the researcher Thomas Rid at the Security Analyst Summit disclosed the alleged links between the Moonlight Maze cyber espionage operation of mid 1990s and the Turla APT., Today at the annual Kaspersky Lab conference, Rid, along security experts Costin Raiu and Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade presented the findings of its research that definitively connect the Moonlight Maze cyber espionage campaigns to the Russian APT group., , Moonlight Maze is the code name assigned to one of the first detected cyber espionage campaigns that targeted a number of critical U.S. government agencies, including the Pentagon, NASA and the Department of Energy., , Threat actors behind the Moonlight Maze were focused on UNIX systems such as Sun Solaris, while the Turla APT is more specialized in attacks on Windows systems., The researchers speculated that the missing link between the two cyber espionage operations lies in the Penquin Turla attacks dated back 2011 and spotted by Kaspersky Lab in 2014. Penguin Turla was designed to compromise Linux machines with a backdoor based on the open-source LOKI2 backdoor that was released in Phrack magazine in September 1997., “The revelation that the Moonlight Maze attacks were dependent on a Solaris/*NIX toolkit and not a Windows one as is the case with most of Turla, actually revived our hopes.” reads the analysis published by Kaspersky. “In 2014, Kaspersky announced the discovery of Penquin Turla, a Linux backdoor leveraged by Turla in specific attacks. We turned our attention once again to the rare Penquin samples and noticed something interesting: the code was compiled for the Linux Kernel versions 2.2.0 and 2.2.5, released in 1999. Moreover, the statically linked binaries libpcap and OpenSSL corresponded to versions released in the early 2000s. Finally, despite the original assessment incorrectly surmising that Penquin Turla was based on cd00r (an open-source backdoor by fx), it was actually based on LOKI2, another open-source backdoor for covert exfiltration written by Alhambra and daemon9 and released in Phrack in the late 1990s.”, Guerrero-Saade explained that of the 45 Moonlight Maze binaries that were detected by experts at Kaspersky, nine of them were examples of the LOKI2 backdoor., This discovery is amazing because it demonstrates a 20-year-old hacking tool is still effective against high-value targets., “This speaks to the state of Linux security and the lack of awareness—and even hubris—that goes into some Linux system administration, an ill-advised approach for government and corporate settings,” Guerrero-Saade said. “These guys (Moonlight Maze) didn’t have to play the cat-and-mouse game with antivirus companies or rewrite their toolkit 30 times to get it through VirusTotal and still hope it works. It’s terrifying to see that the evolved Penquin Turla samples are based on 20 year old code and still linked to libraries built in 1999-2004 and they still work on modern machines. You’d never see that on Windows.”, Summarizing the possible link between the Moonlight Maze’s early UNIX and Solaris toolkits and modern Turla Windows attacks is the LOKI2 backdoor used in the Penguin Turla attacks., The researchers conducted an intriguing a lucky investigation, they have found the original artifacts thanks a system administrator in the U.K. named David Hedges who in cooperation with the London Metropolitan Police and the FBI logged every keystroke happening on a server targeted by the Moonlight Maze. The researchers were able to find Hedges because of a redaction error in an FBI FOIA release., Hedges confirmed that the server was still running and he provided access to logs that include evidence of the Moonlight Maze operation, along with the a toolkit with 43 binaries used in their attacks., The investigation revealed further details, the researchers focused on a little-known operation codenamed ‘Storm Cloud’. The toolkit used in the attacks was an evolution of the toolkit leveraged by the same Moonlight Maze threat actors., The first attacks became public in 1999, Storm Cloud was also made public four years later, and also in this case, the code was based on the LOKI2 backdoor., “We’re really trying to push the crowdsourcing element to this,” Guerrero-Saade said. “Thomas’ first talk helped us find David and more about Moonlight Maze. We need help. We need another David Hedges, someone with access to the Storm Cloud artifacts to really solidify this link.”, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Penquin Turla, cyber espionage) |
4941_56845 | On February 17 the Google Project Zero researcher Tavis Ormandy disclosed a serious bug in Cloudflare infrastructure, so-called Cloudbleed., Ormandy discovered that Cloudflare was leaking a wide range of sensitive information, including authentication cookies and login credentials., “On February 17th 2017, I was working on a corpus distillation project, when I encountered some data that didn’t match what I had been expecting. It’s not unusual to find garbage, corrupt data, mislabeled data or just crazy non-conforming data…but the format of the data this time was confusing enough that I spent some time trying to debug what had gone wrong, wondering if it was a bug in my code. In fact, the data was bizarre enough that some colleagues around the Project Zero office even got intrigued.” Ormandy wrote in a security advisory. “We fetched a few live samples, and we observed encryption keys, cookies, passwords, chunks of POST data and even HTTPS requests for other major cloudflare-hosted sites from other users. Once we understood what we were seeing and the implications, we immediately stopped and contacted cloudflare security.”, Cloudflare have been leaking customer HTTPS sessions for months. Uber, 1Password, FitBit, OKCupid, etc. — Tavis Ormandy (@taviso) February 23, 2017, , The flaw was introduced in September 2016, but it had the greatest impact between February 13 and February 18, when one in every 3.3 million requests going through Cloudflare’s systems may have resulted in memory leakage. The bug itself was addressed within hours, but it took several days to contain the incident due to the fact that leaked data had been cached by search engines., Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince published a detailed blog post to analyze this “extremely serious bug” with a potentially massive impact., The experts at Cloudflare analyzed the logs of the servers and confirmed that no evidence of malicious exploitation and that the vast majority of customers were not impacted., “Given that the data that leaked was random on a per request basis, most requests would return nothing interesting. But, every once in awhile, the data that leaked may return something of interest to a hacker.” reads the analysis published by Cloudflare., , “If a hacker were aware of the bug before it was patched and trying to exploit it then the best way for them to do so would be to send as many requests as possible to a page that contained the set of conditions that would trigger the bug. They could then record the results. Most of what they would get would be useless, but some would contain very sensitive information,”., “The nightmare scenario we have been worried about is if a hacker had been aware of the bug and had been quietly mining data before we were notified by Google’s Project Zero team and were able to patch it,”., The Cloudbleed flaw was exploited more than 1.2 million times from 6,500 sites potentially exposed to the issue., According to the experts, every time customer data is present, the company reaches out to the customer to share the data that it has discovered and provides the necessary support to mitigate any impact of the accidental exposure., “Generally, if customer data was exposed, invalidating session cookies and rolling any internal authorization tokens is the best advice to mitigate the largest potential risk based on our investigation so far.” reads CloudFlare., Users who are concerned that their data may have been exposed by Cloudbleed are invited to give a look at the list of potentially affected websites, meantime the experts at Cloudflare are still investigating the incident. Ormandy believes the company downplayed the risk., “It is not correct to conclude that no passwords, credit cards, health records, social security numbers, or customer encryption keys were ever exposed,” Prince added. “However, if there was any exposure, based on the data we’ve reviewed, it does not appear to have been widespread. We have also not had any confirmed reports of third parties discovering any of these sensitive data types on any cached pages.”, Researchers at CloudFlare have seen approximately 150 customers’ data on the more than 80,000 cached pages they have purged from search engine caches, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Cloudbleed , hacking) |
7354_77526 | US DoJ accuses the Chinese intelligence to have recruited hackers and insiders to steal confidential information from companies in aerospace and tech companies., US intelligence believes that the cyber espionage operation was under the control of Zha Rong and Chai Meng, two intelligence officers working for the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security (JSSD) in the Chinese city of Nanjing., According to U.S. authorities, the operation was coordinated by Zha Rong and Chai Meng, intelligence officers working for the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security (JSSD) in the Chinese city of Nanjing., “Chinese intelligence officers and those working under their direction, which included hackers and co-opted company insiders, conducted or otherwise enabled repeated intrusions into private companies’ computer systems in the United States and abroad for over five years. The conspirators’ ultimate goal was to steal, among other data, intellectual property and confidential business information, including information related to a turbofan engine used in commercial airliners.” reads the press release published by the DoJ., “The charged intelligence officers, Zha Rong and Chai Meng, and other co-conspirators, worked for the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security (“JSSD”), headquartered in Nanjing, which is a provincial foreign intelligence arm of the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of State Security (“MSS”).”, The Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security (JSSD) is a foreign intelligence unit that is coordinated by China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), the agency that is tasked for non-military foreign intelligence and domestic counterintelligence operations., The intelligence duo recruited five hackers (Zhang Zhang-Gui, Liu Chunliang, Gao Hong Kun, Zhuang Xiaowei, and Ma Zhiqi) to hack the companies involved in the design of a turbofan engine used in commercial airliners in Europe and the United States., The turbofan engine was manufactured by a French aerospace company, which also had offices in the Jiangsu province with a U.S.-based firm., The operation aimed at stealing industrial secrets for a Chinese-state company, according to the indictment, ten Chinese nationals were involved in the cyber espionage activities, including two spies, six hackers and two insiders., “Members of the conspiracy targeted, among other things, data and information related to a turbofan engine used in commercial jetliners.” states the DoJ indictment. “At the time of the intrusions, a Chinese state-owned aerospace company was working to develop a comparable engine for use in commercial aircraft manufactured in China and elsewhere.”, The Chinese spies also targeted companies involved in the manufacturing of components for the jet engine, including US-based firms., The campaign was carried out at least from January 2010 to May 2015., , The cyberspies used spear phishing, watering hole attacks, and domain hijacking to deliver various malware families, including Sakula and IsSpace, to the target organization., A JSSD officer provided malware to insiders, two of which is Tian Xi and Gu Gen, to plant the malicious code in the organization., According to the indictment, the hackers hired by the Chinese intelligence were also involved in cybercriminal activities, a circumstance that highlights the thin line between nation-state hacking and cybercrime., The choice of recruiting hackers from cybercrime underground is strategic because makes it hard for an investigator to attribute the operations to a specific government., “State-sponsored hacking is a direct threat to our national security. This action is yet another example of criminal efforts by the MSS to facilitate the theft of private data for China’s commercial gain,” declared U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman. , “The concerted effort to steal, rather than simply purchase, commercially available products should offend every company that invests talent, energy, and shareholder money into the development of products.”, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Chinese intelligence, cyber espionage) |
2840_40711 | The drone industry is growing at a rapid pace, the aerospace research company Teal Group estimated that sales of military and civilian drones will total over $89 billion in the next 10 years. The possible fields of application for UAVs are unlimited in both military and civil industries., The rapid diffusion of drones raises many concerns related to their security and the threat they could represent to the privacy., We have discussed several times about the possibility to hack these complex systems and related consequences., At the Virus Bulletin 2015 conference, the security researcher Oleg Petrovsky of HP Security Research detailed methods that can be used to hack the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)., Oleg Petrovsky demonstrated how to hack a drone by targeting its flight controller, the expert has analyzed the controllers for various multi-rotor drones and discovered various of weaknesses that could be exploited in cyber attacks., Despite there are numerous models of drones available on the market, they usually are composed of the same basic components, including motors, batteries, sensors, a GPS unit, a gyroscope, a remote control radio receiver, electronic speed controllers (ESC), and the flight controller., Petrovsky focused its research on attacks targeting the flight controller, which are systems composed of several sensors and a processing unit., The majority of drones uses the same flight controllers such as the ArduPilotMega (APM) and Pixhawk from 3D Robotics, MultiWii, OpenPilot, and DJI Naza., A potential attacker can focus its efforts in hacking these controllers in order to target a wide range of models., Petrovsky utilized for its test an ArduPilotMega (APM) flight controller on a drone built by himself and a Mission Planner, which is a ground station application., The researcher detailed the following attack scenarios against drones with pre-programmed routes using the ground station software:, The ground station application is a crucial component of the flight of a drone, it enables communication with the aerial vehicle and allows the user to wirelessly control it., The researcher highlighted the lack of authentication in the protocols used to remotely control the drones could be exploited by attackers to gain control of the vehicles., The attacker can use a malicious software installed on the computer running the ground station to tap into the telemetry link., The expert also explained that telemetry feeds for wireless remote data transmission, and monitoring of the drones could be easily intercepted and modified by attacks interfering with flight routes of the vehicle., Petrovsky remarked that attacks he demonstrated aren’t caused by vulnerabilities in the system, rather he exploited design flaws in the UAV systems., “Securing the firmware on embedded UAV modules, using secure bootloaders, and implementing authentication and encryption mechanisms,” could be some points that…, …an attacker can bypass any security measures, as nothing can be completely secured; similarly “Drones don’t necessarily have to be unhackable the goal should be to make them difficult and expensive to hack.” , During his speech, Petrovsky showed how his drone’s propellers can easily shred a stack of papers even at half of the speed needed to take off from the ground., “We have to realize that paying the cost for securing firmware and embedded devices upfront can prove much cheaper than trying to mitigate a disaster resulting from inadequate security measures — especially in the case of UAVs,” the researcher said., Petrovsky also demonstrated attacks against bootloaders, which are not protected by mechanisms to secure the code such as the encryptions and digital signature of the firmware code., Despite the numerous research conducted in hacking drones, Petrovsky explained that there aren’t significant improvements for the security of drones because there haven’t been any real-world attacks on commercial vehicles., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – drones hacking, security) |
4381_52398 | This summer the hacker group Shadow Brokers hacked the NSA-linked group known as the Equation Group and leaked 300 Mb of hacking tools, exploits, and implants., The Shadow Brokers launched an all-pay auction for the full archive containing the entire arsenal of the Equation Group. Early October, The Shadow Brokers have complained that no one has offered money for their precious archive., , The auction received offers for less than two bitcoins, so the hacker group decided to launch a crowdfunding., The Shadow Brokers team has collected bids for a total of 1.76 bitcoins (roughly $1,100), but the dreaded team was expecting to earn as far as $1 million., But probably we misunderstood the intent of the hackers because the hackers’ crowdfunding campaign aims to raise 10,000 bitcoins (roughly $6.4 million)., “TheShadowBrokers is being bored with auction so no more auction. Auction off. Auction finish. Auction done. No winners. So who is wanting password? TheShadowBrokers is publicly posting the password when receive 10,000 btc (ten thousand bitcoins). Same bitcoin address, same file, password is crowdfunding. Sharing risk. Sharing reward. Everyone winning.” reads the announcement published by the group., But unfortunately, the crowdfunding campaign is not obtaining the expected results., Who is the behind the Shadow Brokers crew?, Some experts speculate it is a group of Russian state-sponsored hackers, government, other believe that it is a group of hackers that has simply found the arsenal that was mistakenly left unattended by an employee or a contractor on a remote server., The ShadowBrokers hackers then have discovered the server and raided it., “NSA officials have told investigators that an employee or contractor made the mistake about three years ago during an operation that used the tools, the people said.” reported the Reuters., “That person acknowledged the error shortly afterward, they said. But the NSA did not inform the companies of the danger when it first discovered the exposure of the tools, the sources said. Since the public release of the tools, the companies involved have issued patches in the systems to protect them.”,
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, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – The Equation Group, Shadow Brokers) |
6755_73082 | On Wednesday, the US Federal court judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected a lawsuit by Russian cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab against the ban on the use it solution by government agencies., The ban on security firm Kaspersky imposed by the US Department of Homeland security started in September 2017., In December, Kaspersky Lab sued the U.S. Government over product ban, it’s appeal was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, just a week after the US President Donald Trump signed a bill that bans the use of Kaspersky Lab products and services in federal agencies., Section 1634 of the bill prohibits the use of security software and services provided by security giant, the ban will start from October 1, 2018., Below the details of the ban included in the section 1634 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018., “SEC. 1634. Prohibition on use of products and services developed or provided by Kaspersky Lab., (a) Prohibition.—No department, agency, organization, or other element of the Federal Government may use, whether directly or through work with or on behalf of another department, agency, organization, or element of the Federal Government, any hardware, software, or services developed or provided, in whole or in part, by—, (1) Kaspersky Lab (or any successor entity);
(2) any entity that controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with Kaspersky Lab; or
(3) any entity of which Kaspersky Lab has majority ownership., (b) Effective date.—The prohibition in subsection (a) shall take effect on October 1, 2018.”, US officials believe Russian intelligence could use the Kaspersky software to spy on the systems running it., Back to the present, Federal court judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected the lawsuit, reaffirming the right of the government to choose its providers to protect the security of its infrastructure., The ban “does not inflict ‘punishment’ on Kaspersky Lab,” Kollar-Kotelly said in her ruling., “It eliminates a perceived risk to the nation’s cybersecurity and, in so doing, has the secondary effect of foreclosing one small source of revenue for a large multinational corporation,” said Kollar-Kotelly., , The judge rejected Kaspersky’s complaint that US Government had illegally denied the firm’s “right” to sell a product, she also remarked that the ban is legal and will remain in place., The impact on Kaspersky was severe, other governments expressed their concerns over the possibility to hack their solutions as part of cyber espionage campaigns., Many companies in the US already stopped using Kaspersky software, and most major stores have stopped selling it., While the private company does not report its earnings, sales internationally have also reportedly been hurt., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Kaspersky, hacking) |
4384_52420 | UK banks are reportedly failing to disclose the full extent of the number and nature of security incidents they are experiencing due to a fear of financial punishment and negative publicity., Banking execs and security experts have stated that the banks are using grey areas in reporting structures in order to downplay the extent of which they are being targeted on a daily basis., According the UK’s financial regulation authority, the FSA, where banks have an obligation to report any incident to, have claimed last month that last year there were only a total of 75 incidents., This in itself is a marked increase from the declared 27 in 2015 and 5 in 2014. Any active members of the security industry will recognize these figures as incredibly low and unrealistic given the nature of today’s security and malware environment., “Banks are dramatically under-reporting attacks, they do what’s legally required but out of embarrassment or fear of punishment they aren’t giving the whole picture,” was the claim from an anonymous source within the cyber security space of the banking sector., , Mark James, a security specialist from ESET stated “Reporting every one of those attempts would indeed clog systems with lots of unnecessary information and I’m sure there will be a lot that never makes the light of day,”, He went on to add “However, the problem of course is perceived security, as more and more breaches happen and more malware is being used to target financial systems, then the damage caused when things go wrong can be so great decisions will be made to keep it quiet. However, with the public becoming more aware of the damage caused by lapsed security, this may influence the decision on who is to look after their savings and daily finances in the future.”, These figures could be set to change as the reporting parameters are expected to be tightened with the imminent EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which will introduce a mandatory reporting structure that all UK banks and lenders will be compelled to comply with., This will require mandatory notification within 72 hours of security breaches and will instate the possibility of fines of up to £18M GBP or 4% of annual turnover for what’s deemed as a serious non-compliance and infractions., Written by: Steven Boyd
, , Steven is a security consultant, researcher, ethical hacker and freelance writer with over 16 years of experience in the industry. He has provided security consultancy to some of the world’s biggest banks, the private sector as well as public services and defense. He is the owner and creator of security blog www.CybrViews.com., Twitter: @CybrViews, , , , Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – security breaches, cyber security) |
5171_58682 | Experts at the security firm Wordfence a few weeks ago reported that tens of thousands of flawed routers from dozens of ISPs worldwide were recruited in a botnet used to power several types of attacks against WordPress websites., Hackers exploited the CVE-2014-9222 flaw, also known as ‘Misfortune Cookie,‘ to hack thousands of home routers and abuse them for WordPress attacks., According to a new analysis published by WordFence, the volume of the attacks had started to drop significantly over the weekend, by Monday evening, the 30,000 or 40,000 attack attempts coming every hour from some ISPs had dropped to less than 5,000. and the frequency of the attacks continued to decrease., According to the researchers, this frequency is continuing to decrease., “Yesterday morning we noticed that there was a rapid drop-off in attacks from the ISPs we identified 3 weeks ago, that had targeted WordPress websites.” reads the analysis published by WordFence., “This is what the change in activity looked like from the top 50 ISPs from where these attacks were originating during a 72 hour period ending yesterday (Monday) evening. Click the chart for a larger version.”, “As you can see, starting at around midnight on Sunday night (April 30th) Pacific time, the number of attacks we are seeing from ISPs where we found vulnerable routers have dropped from peaks of 40,000 in some cases to peaks of just above 5,000 attacks per hour. In many cases the attacks drop to much lower levels and continue to decrease.”, , The root cause of this drop is still unclear, researchers at WordFence believe the situation will be more clear in the next week., A possible cause is that the attackers ended their operation for some reason, otherwise law enforcement along security firms have tracked the botnet and took down the command and control (C&C) servers., A few weeks ago, US authorities announced have dismantled the infamous Kelihos botnet. In the same period, the Interpol located and shut down nearly 9,000 Command and control servers located in Asia and hacked with a WordPress plug-in exploit., This reduction of WordPress attacks originating from hundreds of ISPs worldwide is a good news. The experts were able to track the WordPress attacks originating from these ISPs and ban IP addresses involved in the botnet., “The attacks originating from these ISPs were also resulting in their IP addresses being blacklisted by Wordfence and other services like SpamHaus. That resulted in the customers of those ISPs suffering because certain websites and services would block them. By reducing these attacks, this ensures those ISP customers have full internet access again.” concluded WordFence., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Misfortune Cookie, WordPress attacks) |
430_11194 | Last week the hacker group known as “Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters” announced a series of attacks against principal banking and financial institutions publishing a message on Pastebin profile., The principal targets include organizations such as U.S. Bancorp, JPMorgan Chase&co, Bank of America, PNC Financial Fervices Group, and SunTrust Banks., In the period between the end of September, early October the group launched several cyber attacks against numerous banking websites and U.S. financial institutions., On that occasion it was noticed something unusual, usually a DDoS attack is launched using a large number of compromised machines composing a botnet, on the contrary the attack against the U.S. Bank has involved a network of volunteers that deliberately have hit the targets. While a classic botnet, although is very efficient, is quite simple to detect due the presence of anomalous traffic from/to the Command & Control servers in this case the presence of volunteers complicates the mitigation of the attack., Banking world has been advised and last week a spokesperson of Bank of America told that the IT security of its institute is: “aware of the reports of possible cyber attacks and is monitoring its systems, which are fully operational.”., Hacker released the following note:, “After stopping one month attack of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Group to American banks, today, this group has announced a new cycle of attacks, via an Email which has been sent to us, and has acclaimed that its aim is to compensate guilty offends to holy Prophet of Islam, Mohammad(PBUH). Also, in internet conversations earlier, this group had been stated that these attacks won’t stopped and even in new announcements, it’s been marked that there will be so much stronger attacks in the days ahead.”, The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters use to attacks to victims flooding their infrastructures with an impressive number of requests, the new wave of DDOS attacks announced are part of second phase of the campaign named “Operation Ababil” ., “the second phase of the Ababil operation is in ahead and from this week according to the announced plan, will be performed. In new phase, the wideness and the number of attacks will increase explicitly; and offenders and subsequently their governmental supporters will not be able to imagine and forecast the widespread and greatness of these attacks.”, The groups of hackers is attacking US Finance world officially to protest over YouTube responsible to haven’t prevented the spread of blasphemous images related the film “The Innocence of Muslims”., The hackers wrote:, “Operation Alababil is revenge in response to the humiliation of the Organization of the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) by some Western countries.”, In the last message posted on Pastebin the group declared:, “Originally, we sympathize deeply with families of the schoolchildren victimized by the horrible happening of Sandy Hook Elementary school. It’s very clear that a system which its rulers and capitalists are the owners of weaponry big companies never care about occurrence of these events.” , Who are these hackers? Do they really protest against video or what else?, There aren’t reliable information on the group but many U.S. officials think that the group could operates for political intents, they believe that they are Iranian state-sponsored hackers despite the hacktivists denies and relationship with government of Teheran., Last fascinating hypothesis … it could not be ignored that in the cyberspace disputes, anyone on the Internet can conduct a cyber warfare operation to heighten tensions between two states such as Iran and the U.S, by impersonating a what’s believed to be an Iranian group., Banking institutions including Bank of America, PNC Financial Services Group, and SunTrust have suffered large-scale DDoS attacks against their websites, which successfully interrupted the providing of online banking services this week., According many experts, with the new year an increasing number of similar attacks will hit other financial institutions in other countries such as UK and Israel., , Banking IT systems are discovering their infrastructures extremely vulnerable to this type of attacks, in many case caused by old an inappropriate defense systems. It must be said that it is not so simple to face with so insidious cyber threat that could bring down in unpredictable way the services of any banks., According last study on DDoS attacks the offensive are using more sophisticated techniques able to concentrate increased quantity of data against the target in shortest interval of time, knocking out the defenses., Researchers at Arbor Networks, a security company specialized in solution to mitigate DDoS attacks, revealed that DDoS attacks are originated by bot agents and insecure websites, for attackers is very simple to exploit not updated web servers on which run vulnerable applications. The dimension of the institutes targeted and of its defensive capabilities let us think that the attacker have constituted a network of hundreds of thousands of computers., “The attackers took full advantage of this to upload various PHP webshells which were then used to further deploy attack tools,” “Attackers connect to the compromised webservers hosting the tools directly or through intermediate servers/proxies/scripts and issue attack commands.” Arbor said., The company commented the recent DDoS attacks using the following statemens:, “On December 11, 2012, attacks on several of these victims were observed. Some attacks looked similar in construction to Brobot v1, however there is a newly crafted DNS packet attack and a few other attack changes in Brobot v2. These attacks have shown why DDoS continues to be such a popular and effective attack vector. Yes, DDoS can take the form of very large attacks. In fact, some of this week’s attacks have been as large as 60Gbps. What makes these attacks so significant is not their size, but the fact that the attacks are quite focused, part of an ongoing campaign, and like most DDoS attacks quite public. These attacks utilize multiple targets, from network infrastructure to Web applications.”, Banking world must be prepared, it is one of the sectors that will subject to the major number of attacks in next year, they are considered privileged targets for hacktivist, state sponsored hackers and cyber criminals., The principal cyber threats will be again DDoS attacks and cyber attacks that have the purpose to steal banking credential from victims using new complex malware like the revived Carberp trojan., Let’s hope that banking and financial organization will be prepared for the new offensives., Pierluigi Paganini |
6813_73544 | Good news for the victims of the Everbe Ransomware, the popular malware researchers Michael Gillespie and Maxime Meignan have released a decryptor that could be used by victims to decrypt their files for free., The Everbe Ransomware encrypts files and appends the [email protected], .embrace, or .pain extensions appended to the encrypted file’s name., In order to decrypt the files, victims need to have an unencrypted version of an encrypted file, then they can use them to brute force the decryption key., Source Bleeping Computer, Now victims can use the InsaneCrypt Decryptor to restore their files, they have to select the menù item “Settings” and choose “Bruteforcer”., In order to decrypt the files, it is necessary to provide the tool both encrypted and unencrypted versions of the files., Source Bleeping Computer, Once the process is completed, the decryptor will have found the decryption key that the tool uses to restore files., When the decryption process has finished, the decryptor will display a summary of the total amount of files that have been decrypted., “Though your files are now decrypted, the original encrypted files will still be on your computer. Once you confirm that your files have been properly decrypted, you can use CryptoSearch to move all the encrypted files into one folder so you can delete or archive them.” explained Lawrence Abrams from BleepingComputer.com., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Everbe Ransomware, decryptor) |
199_5050 | Social Networks represent a rich mine of information of great interest for researchers, cybercriminals and government agencies. Analyzing the networks is possible to track detailed profile of any users, his relationships and his habits, the possibility to exercise the control of social networks is an actual form of power, the power of knowledge., We have read different news regarding the effort spent by law enforcement and government agencies on the development of new tools and applications for the monitoring of the networks. FBI was one of the most active agency in this sense, in the last months it has publicly requested the design of a real time monitor for social network that have to be able to identify suspect behaviors that could be interpreted as indicator of presence for an ongoing crime., According to CNET FBI is working to obtain a sort of backdoor in main social networks like Facebook and also in most used communication platforms such as Skype and Instant Messaging. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is interested to a backdoor for government surveillance, for this reason it is collaborating with companies like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo., The FBI has been lobbying top internet companies like Yahoo and Google to support a proposal that would force them to provide backdoors for government surveillance, according to CNET. The purpose of the collaboration between FBI and major IT companies and Internet services providers is tied to the will of the agency to arrive at the definition of legislation that allows law enforcement to have the controversial backdoor., FBI desires the collaboration of the major player of the IT sector to implement specific backdoor stubs inside their products with intent to make them wiretap-friendly, the request is related to all those communication platforms, social network, email providers, chats and instant messaging., In more than one occasion government agencies have highlighted the difficulties related to the monitoring new communication channels based on internet. Let’s remind that CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) passed in 1994every communication providers must make their system wiretap-friendly, in 2004 the concept has been extended also to ISP by the Federal Communications Commission despite a non-application de facto of the major web companies., Starting on the CALEA Act the FBI is interested to extend the regulation to any kind of communication made using internet has channel, this means that there will be a direct impact on VoIP communication used by famous platforms Skype and Xbox Live. Regarding the Xbox let me remind you that US Government has already committed a project to spy on the communication made through gaming platforms confirming the great interest of the administration to monitor any kind of networks and any kind of information circulating on it., , In February 2011, CNET reported that then-FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni was planning to warn Congress of what the bureau calls its “Going Dark” problem, illustrating how the wiretapping capabilities were being reduced with the progress of technology., Caproni singled out “Web-based e-mail, social-networking sites, and peer-to-peer communications” as problems that have left the FBI “increasingly unable” to conduct the same kind of wiretapping it could in the past., “Going Dark” is the FBI’s codename for its project to extend its ability to real time wiretap communications, it is born inside the bureau, employing 107 full-time expert starting from 2009., Which are law enforcement today’s capabilities?, According the declaration of Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kevin Bankston FBI already can intercept messages on social-networking sites and Web-based e-mail services, the system used is known as Carnivore, later renamed DCS1000. The interception is possible because Facebook messages and Gmail messages travel in plain text over those same broadband wires for which the FBI demanded wiretapping capability., The main problem is related to rapid technological evolution that make obsolescent surveillance systems in short time, due this reason the request of FBI to include a backdoor in any product that could be involved in communication, like social networking and also online games consoles., Of course the presence of a backdoor in the main product available on the market used for communication purpose could give a great advantage to law enforcement in the fight to cybercrime bet we cannot forget two fundamental aspects:, Are we ready to address these issues? I’m afraid not, unfortunately, Pierluigi Paganini |
2035_34684 | Information warfare is strategic for almost every government, North Korea, Russia, China, Danmark are among the countries that are more investing to improve their cyber capabilities, and of course, the Five Eyes., The US Department of Defense announced that it plans to hire 3,000 cyber experts that will support the US Cyber Command, the new units will be added by the end of 2015, doubling its resources by 2016., , The Defenseone.com also revealed further information on the new hires, for example the salaries start at $42,399 and can rise up to $132,122 depending on the capabilities of the candidate, which have to demonstrate their specific skills and knowledge., On 23 June 2009, the Secretary of Defense directed the Commander of U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) to establish USCYBERCOM that reached full operational capability on 31 October 2010 when the command assumed responsibility for several existing organizations., The United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) is an armed force subordinate to United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) that is one of nine Unified Combatant Commands of the US Department of Defense. Among the responsibilities of USSTRATCOM, there are informational operations such as information warfare intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR where C4I stands for command, control, communications, computers, and (military) intelligence)., “The United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes, and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks and; prepare to, and when directed, conduct full-spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US /Allied freedom of action in cyberspace, and deny the same to our adversaries.”, The USCYBERCOM is a structure that was built from scratch, that has a very challenging mission and that is slowly growing., , Cyber threats are increasing in frequency and complexity, for the US Government it is essential to confirm its hegemony on the cyber space, as confirmed by documents leaked by Snowden on the NSA digital arms race., “USCYBERCOM confronted serious challenges from the outset. DoD networks had been planned and initially constructed decades earlier in an environment in which redundancy, resiliency, and defensibility were not always primary design characteristics,” Admiral Mike Rogers, the Head of the Cyber Command, shared with the members of the US House committee on Armed Service’s Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. “Operators in USCYBERCOM, not surprisingly, could not even see all of our networks, let alone monitor all the traffic coming into and out of them from the Internet. Our people were and are professionals, so that issue was rapidly engaged, but nonetheless the sheer volume of work involved in starting a new, subunified command was substantial.” , According to the declaration of Admiral Rogers, the US Army is facing a shortage of skilled cyber experts, exactly like any other government. Admiral Rogers explained that the final number of personnel should be around 6,200., “We are already hard pressed to find qualified personnel to man our CMF rosters, to get them cleared, and to get them trained and supported across all 133 teams,” said Admiral Rogers. , Sources internal to the US Government revealed that recruiting and retaining Army civilian cyber talent is very hard considering the value the cyber experts have for for the private industry. To overwhelm these difficulties and attract young talents the Government will propose bonuses to incentive skilled professionals., On Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, head of the Army Cyber Command, told House Armed Services subcommittee members that “recruiting and retaining Army civilian cyber talent is challenging given internal federal employment constraints regarding compensation and a comparatively slow hiring process.”, As reported by Defenseone.com, ironically, Cyber Command may have even more trouble attracting security specialists when financial conditions brighten., “We are aggressively hiring to our civilian authorizations consistent with our operational needs and fully supported by the Navy’s priority to ensure health of the cyber workforce.” testified Vice Admiral Jan Tighe, the top official at the Navy Fleet Cyber Command., , Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – US Cyber Command, Information Warfare) |
2936_41453 | Spam campaign relying on the Dridex malware continues to threaten banking users across the world despite the operations conducted by law enforcement on a global scale. We left Dridex malware spreading across the Europe, in particular targeting the customers of the banks in the UK. In October, the NCA has uncovered a series of cyber attacks based on a new strain of the Dridex banking trojan that allowed crooks to steal £20m in the UK alone., , Now Dridex is once again in the headlines, spam emails containing the famous malware are continuing to target netizens despite the arrest of one of its botmasters in August., A couple of weeks ago the experts at Palo Alto Networks confirmed that the overall volume of Dridex emails peaked nearly 100,000 per day, this new campaign already reached 20,000 emails, mostly targeting emails accounts in the UK., “After Brian Krebs reported the September arrests of alleged key figures in the cyber crimegang that developed and operated Dridex, Unit 42 observed a marked decrease in activity related to this banking Trojan – at least until today. Dridex re-entered the threat landscape with a major e-mail phishing campaign. Leveraging the Palo Alto Networks AutoFocus platform, we identified samples associated with this resurgence.” states Palo Alto in a blog post., The U.S. Department of Justice said on Oct. 13 it was seeking the extradition of the Moldovan Andrey Ghinkul, he is accused of using the Dridex malware to steal US$10 million from U.S. companies and organizations., Resuming Dridex has risen again, explained Brad Duncan, a security researcher with Rackspace., “In early September 2015, we started seeing reports about arrests tied to Dridex malware. About that time, we noticed a lack of botnet-based malicious spam (malspam) pushing Dridex malware. During the month of September, Dridex disappeared from our radar. By the beginning of October 2015, malspam pushing Dridex came back, and it’s continued since then.” Duncan wrote in a blog post on the Internet Storm Center. “This morning (Friday 2015-10-23) when I searched VirusTotal for #Dridex, I found more than 80 comments posted by at least a dozen individuals after the 2015-08-28 arrest. These #Dridex comments covered 28 Word documents, 4 Excel spreadsheets, and 37 Win32 EXE files. I also found 14 URLs tagged as #Dridex in the comments.”, If you searching more data on the Dridex botnet, give a look to the analysis published by the experts at Dell SecureWorks or the analysis published on the Dynamoo’s Blog and Techhelplist.com., Stay tuned!, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Dridex botnets, malware) |
742_17750 | The advertisement on the Android Firefox Zero-Day was discovered by Joshua Cannell, Malware Intelligence Analyst at Malwarebytes, on the exploit database Inj3ct0r., The Android Firefox Zero-Day Exploit works on Firefox versions 23/24/26 (Nightly) according the Russian hacker. The author included in the advertisement a proof of concept video to show how the hacker exploits the Android Firefox Zero-Day to download and execute a malicious app, just visiting a malicious link only. This last detail on way of infection is considered really concerning due the large number of compromised websites that serve malware to a wide audience of visitors., , , The deploy and execution of a malicious app is possible only if users allow installation of Android apps (APKs) from unknown sources, a wrong choice to keep secure the Android mobile., “The biggest problem in this situation is that Firefox automatically executes certain known files once they’re downloaded, and doesn’t give users an option to disable this. Without some sort of prompt, users have no idea that an external app has just been executed.” states the post., The exploit could be served by luring victims with social engineering techniques, such as phishing, getting the user to click a compromised link., Following the POC video waiting for the fixing of the Android Firefox Zero-Day vulnerability, in the video Russian hacker fil9 shows the exploit in action, ‘downloading and installing what appears to be an update for Firefox. However, when the “update” is executed automatically, viewers can see the potential for malicious code to be inserted.’, |
6615_71794 | Do you travel often? Probably you don’t know that hackers can unlock your room door without using the master key due to a critical design vulnerability in a popular and widely used electronic lock system., The affected locking system is the Vision by VingCard manufactured by Assa Abloy, the flaw can be exploited to unlock hotel rooms worldwide., The Vision by VingCard locking system is currently deployed in more than 42,000 facilities in 166 different countries., The vulnerability was discovered by Tomi Tuominen and Timo Hirvonen, security researchers at F-Secure researchers. The security duo has built a master key that could be used to unlock doors of the hotel rooms using the Vision by VingCard digital lock technology., “You can imagine what a malicious person could do with the power to enter any hotel room, with a master key created basically out of thin air,” says Tomi Tuominen, Practice Leader at F-Secure Cyber Security Services. , “He worked side by side with F-Secure’s Timo Hirvonen, Senior Security Consultant, to devise a way to exploit the software system, known as Vision by VingCard.”, Let’s see how hackers have built their ‘Master Key,’ step by step. First, the attacker needs to get access to an electronic keycard used in the target facility, no matter it is currently active, experts noticed that even an expired key from a stay five years ago will work., “An attacker will read the key and use a small hardware device to derive more keys to the facility. These derived keys can be tested against any lock in the same building. Within minutes the device is able to generate a master key to the facility.” continues the post published by F-Secure., “The device can then be used instead of a key to bypass any lock in the facility, or alternatively, to overwrite an existing key with the newly created master key.”, The attacker can read the electronic key (RFID or magstripe) remotely by standing close to a hotel guest or employee having a keycard in his pocket. Another option consists of booking a room and then use that card as the source., At this point, the attacker would need to write the electronic key and to do it he can use a portable programmer. Such kind of device is very cheap, it can be bought online for a few hundred dollars., Tomi and Timo developed a custom software that allows creating a master key within minutes. The experts devised a custom-tailored device (actually an RFID reader/writer) that they held close to the VingCard locking system, it then tries different keys in less than one minute and finds the master key to unlock the door., “An attacker will read the key and use a small hardware device to derive more keys to the facility. These derived keys can be tested against any lock in the same building. Within minutes the device is able to generate a master key to the facility. The device can then be used instead of a key to bypass any lock in the facility, or alternatively, to overwrite an existing key with the newly created master key.” continues the post published by F-Secure., “The needed hardware is available online for a few hundred euros. However, it is the custom software developed by Tomi and Timo that makes the attack possible.”, The researchers notified Assa Abloy of their discovery in April 2017, since then the experts helped the manufacturer in fixing the issue., Assa Abloy has recently issued a security update to address the vulnerability., , The experts will not publish the technical details of the attack nor will they make any the custom-hardware available., The good news is that to date, the experts are not aware of any attacks in the wild exploiting the flaw they discovered., Below a video PoC of the hack., In addition, the two experts also discovered that the Vision software could be exploited within the same network to get access to sensitive customer data., , Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Master Key, Hotel Rooms), , |
5178_58749 | On Wednesday, the popular security experts Dawid Golunski reported a WordPress Password Reset vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2017-8295, and detailed it in a security advisory., Golunski classified the flaw as a “medium/high severity,” he explained that the issue is caused by the fact that WordPress uses a variable named SERVER_NAME to obtain the hostname of a server when setting the From/Return-Path header in password reset emails sent to users., The value of the SERVER_NAME variable is often set using the hostname supplied by the client via the HTTP_HOST header, Golunski discovered that an attacker can inject an arbitrary domain by sending a specially crafted request to the targeted WordPress website., “WordPress is using SERVER_NAME variable to get the hostname of the server in order to create a From/Return-Path header of the outgoing password reset email. However, major web servers such as Apache by default set the SERVER_NAME variable using the hostname supplied by the client (within the HTTP_HOST header): reads the security advisory., “Because SERVER_NAME can be modified, an attacker could set it to an arbitrary domain of his choice e.g: attackers-mxserver.com which would result in WordPress setting the $from_email to [email protected] and thus result in an outgoing email with From/Return-Path set to this malicious address.”, Summarizing, an attacker can force a password reset by sending a specially crafted request to the targeted WordPress site, the request will include as the hostname the name of a domain controlled by the attacker, meanwhile the From and Return-Path fields in the password reset email sent to the victim will specify an email address on the attacker’s domain., Once the targeted user receives the password reset link, there are several methods the attacker can use to obtain it now that the From and Return-Path fields point to their domain., The attacker can make the victim’s email account unusable, for example via an attack on its DNS server or by sending it large files until to saturate its capacity., When the victim’s email account stop receiving messages, the password reset email is returned to the sender’s recipient) the attacker’s email account as it is specified in the From and Return-Path fields., In the case an autoresponder is enabled on the victim’s email account, the attacker will easily obtain a copy of the password reset email includes in the automatic reply., Another option is to send a large number of password reset emails to the victim, hoping the victim will reply one of them with an email that likely includes the password reset link., , Below the three scenarios described by Golunski:, The Password Reset vulnerability affects all versions of WordPress, including the 4.7.4 version released a couple of weeks ago., Golunski reported the flaw hole to WordPress several times since July 2016, but in an absence of a concrete action, he decided to disclose it., Golunski has suggested a temporary solution to enable UseCanonicalName to enforce a static SERVER_NAME value On a specific thread on Reddit users discussed possible temporary countermeasures, such as the use of as a utility that notifies users when users reset passwords., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – WordPress, Password Reset vulnerability) |
7517_78827 | ‘, According to a new research conducted from Symantec’s DeepSight Managed Adversary and ThreatIntelligence (MATI) team, the Seedworm APT group, aka MuddyWater, is rapidly evolving and extended its targets to the telecom, IT services, and oil and gas industries., The first MuddyWater campaign was observed in late 2017, then researchers from Palo Alto Networks were investigating a mysterious wave of attacks in the Middle East., The experts called the campaign ‘MuddyWater’ due to the confusion in attributing these attacks that took place between February and October 2017 targeting entities in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Georgia, India, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United States to date., In September 2018, experts from Symantec found evidence of Seedworm and the espionage group APT28 on a computer in the Brazil-based embassy of an oil-producing nation. , “We not only found the initial entry point, but we were able to follow Seedworm’s subsequent activity after the initial infection due to the vast telemetry Symantec has access to via its Global Intelligence Network. Because of this unique visibility, our analysts were able to trace what actions Seedworm took after they got into a network.”, “Seeing two active groups piqued our interest and, as we began pulling on that one string, we found more clues that led us to uncover new information about Seedworm.” reads the analysis published by Symantec., The experts were able to gather further information on the group, of the 131 victims hit from mid-September to late November 2018, 39% were in Pakistan,14% in Turkey, 8% in Russia, and 5% in Saudi Arabia., Most of the targets were in the telecommunications and IT services sectors., Experts believe that the Seedworm APT is focused on telecommunications and IT services because they are interested in gaining access to customers of those firms. Changing Tools and Techniques, Seedworm threat actors regularly adopt new tactics, techniques and tools to remain under the radar. , In recent campaigns, the cyber espionage group used new variants of their Powermud backdoor, a new backdoor (Powermuddy), and some custom tools designed to steal passwords, create reverse shells, escalate privilege, and use of the native Windows cabinet creation tool., “We found new variants of the Powermud backdoor, a new backdoor (Backdoor.Powemuddy), and custom tools for stealing passwords, creating reverse shells, privilege escalation, and the use of the native Windows cabinet creation tool, makecab.exe, probably for compressing stolen data to be uploaded.” continues the analysis., “The Seedworm group controls its Powermud backdoor from behind a proxy network to hide the ultimate command-and-control (C&C) location.”, Once compromised a machine with its backdoors, threat actors deploy a tool to steal passwords saved in browsers, email accounts, social media, and chat access., Attackers are very agile, they also used publicly available tools to quickly update operations., Unlike other APT groups that adopt custom malware for each campaign, Seedworm threat actors were more focused on the ability to quickly adapt their action to the specific circumstance. , According to Symantec, there is evidence of Seedworm following the people who are analyzing their activities., Further details, including IoCs are reported in the report published by Symantec., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs –Seedworm , APT) |
5978_65854 | The hacking campaign was spotted by McAfee and Palo Alto Networks, both security firms attributed the attacks to the Hidden Cobra APT., The activity of the Lazarus APT Group surged in 2014 and 2015, its members used mostly custom-tailored malware in their attacks and experts that investigated on the crew consider it highly sophisticated., This threat actor has been active since at least 2009, possibly as early as 2007, and it was involved in both cyber espionage campaigns and sabotage activities aimed to destroy data and disrupt systems. Security researchers discovered that North Korean Lazarus APT group was behind recent attacks on banks, including the Bangladesh cyber heist., According to security experts, the group was behind, other large-scale cyber espionage campaigns against targets worldwide, including the Troy Operation, the DarkSeoul Operation, and the Sony Picture hack., The malicious code used in this last campaign is an Android malware delivered as an APK file that has been designed to mimic a Korean bible app that was published in the Google Play by a developer named GODpeople., The malicious APK wasn’t available on the Google Play store and it is still unclear how the APT distributed it., “The McAfee Mobile Research team recently examined a new threat, Android malware that contains a backdoor file in the executable and linkable format (ELF). The ELF file is similar to several executables that have been reported to belong to the Lazarus cybercrime group. (For more on Lazarus, read this post from our Advanced Threat Research Team.)” states McAfee., “The malware poses as a legitimate APK, available from Google Play, for reading the Bible in Korean. The legit app has been installed more than 1,300 times. The malware has never appeared on Google Play, and we do not know how the repackaged APK is spread in the wild.”, , According to McAfee, the malware delivers a backdoor as an executable and linkable format (ELF) file, it allows to take full control of the infected device., The list of command and control (C&C) servers used by the Android backdoor includes IP addresses previously associated with to the Lazarus group., , Experts from Palo Alto Networks pointed out that the campaign appears to be aimed at Samsung device owners in South Korea., “Unit 42 has discovered a new cluster of malware samples, which targets Samsung devices and Korean language speakers, with relationships to the malware used in Operation Blockbuster. The specific points of connection between these new samples and Operation Blockbuster include:, states the analysis from Palo alto Networks., Experts from Unit 42 analyzed a PE file uploaded to VirusTotal that was used to deliver ELF ARM files and APK files from an HTTP server. The APK allows the attacker to gain full control on the target device., Palo Alto Networks has collected evidence that links the malware with the Lazarus’s attack on the SWIFT banking system and the on Operation Blockbuster. The C&C infrastructure used in the latest attack is the same used in Lazarus’s campaigns., “It is clear that source code was reused between previously reported samples and the cluster of new samples outlined by Unit 42. Additionally, command and control IPv4 addresses were reused by the malware discussed in this analysis. Technical indicators as well as soft indicators, such as APK themes and names, provide soft and tenable ties to the actors behind Operation Blockbuster and the HiddenCobra group.” concluded Palo alto Networks., , Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Lazarus APT, North Korea) |
6603_71689 | Google has publicly disclosed a Windows 10 zero-day vulnerability that could be exploited by attackers to bypass Windows Lockdown Policy on systems with User Mode Code Integrity (UMCI) enabled and execute arbitrary code on the target system., Project Zero hacker James Forshaw publicly disclosed the issue because the vulnerability was not fixed in a 90-day period according to the Google disclosure policy., The zero-day affects all Windows 10 versions with UMCI enabled, Forshaw successfully exploited it on Windows 10S., “The enlightened Windows Lockdown Policy check for COM Class instantiation can be bypassed by using a bug in .NET leading to arbitrary code execution on a system with UMCI enabled (e.g. Device Guard)” states the security advisory published by Google., The zero-day flaw ties the way the WLDP COM Class lockdown policy behaves when a .NET COM object is instantiated., The WLDP COM Class lockdown policy contains a hardcoded list of 8 to 50 COM objects which enlightened scripting engines can instantiate., In order to prevent an attack, while registering an existing DLL a correct implementation of the policy should check the CLSID passed to DllGetObject against the hardcoded list., “The WLDP COM Class lockdown policy contains a hardcoded list of 8 to 50 COM objects which enlightened scripting engines can instantiate. Excluding issues related to the looking up of the correct CLSID (such as previously reported abuse of TreatAs case 40189).” continues the analysis. , “This shouldn’t be a major issue even if you can write to the registry to register an existing DLL under one of the allowed COM CLSIDs as a well behaved COM implementation should compare the CLSID passed to DllGetObject against its internal list of known objects.”, Google expert discovered that when a .NET COM object is instantiated, the CLSID passed to mscoree’s DllGetClassObject is only used to look up the registration information in HKCR, the CLSID is thrown away, and the .NET object created., This means that an attacker can add registry keys, including to HKCU, that would load an arbitrary COM visible class under one of the trusted CLSIDs., “This has a direct impact on the class policy as it allows an attacker to add registry keys (including to HKCU) that would load an arbitrary COM visible class under one of the allowed CLSIDs. As .NET then doesn’t care about whether the .NET Type has that specific GUID you can use this to bootstrap arbitrary code execution,” continues the analysis., , The Google researcher published a Proof of Concept code for the vulnerability that is composed of two files:, The researcher reported the vulnerability to Microsoft on January 19, but the tech giant hasn’t addressed it in 90 days., “This issue was not fixed in April patch Tuesday therefore it’s going over deadline. This issue only affects systems with Device Guard enabled (such as Windows 10S) and only serves as a way of getting persistent code execution on such a machine. It’s not an issue which can be exploited remotely, nor is it a privilege escalation,” added the expert., The expert highlighted that attackers need to gain access to the system to exploit the flaw and install registry entries., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Windows Lockdown Policy, 0-day), , |
3729_47175 | RedTeam Security is a group of ethical hackers who specialize in offensive security, believing that the best defense is a good offense. Engaging in social engineering, in addition to penetration testing, RedTeam tests the effectiveness of a business’s security controls before hackers have the opportunity to do so., Social engineering is the act of manipulating people into relinquishing confidential information. Webroot explains that, “criminals use social engineering tactics because it is usually easier to exploit your natural inclination to trust than it is to discover ways to hack your software. For example, it is much easier to fool someone into giving you their password than it is for you to try hacking their password (unless the password is really weak).”, According to Paul Szoldra, writing for Tech Insider:, “‘Social engineering is also referred to as people hacking,’ says Jeremiah Talamantes, president and founder of RedTeam Security. Though social engineering over the phone is less risky, in-person contact can be rather fruitful as RedTeam’s efforts showed. The team was hired to test the physical and virtual security of eight different locations and they gained useful information, or in one case, full access, just through this method.”, Source Tech Insider, Szoldra recently made his way to the Midwest to shadow the RedTeam Security professionals as they tested the security of a major power company, using social engineering., RedTeam director Ryan Manship emphasizes the important role that confidence plays in the successful outcome of a mission such as this. Presenting yourself with the right pretext–having a legitimate reason for being where you are–is critical, according to Manship., As it turns out, he wasn’t even asked for ID. The secretary accepted Manship’s fabrication, which cleverly included the first name of one of the company’s network administrators., A supervisor, however, found the carefully crafted story a bit suspect and did ask for identification. Manship claimed to not have his ID on him. At that point, according to Szoldra, the supervisor, “made a phone call to an IT manager — the person who actually hired Manship and RedTeam to test them — and handed him the phone. The jig was up.”, Szoldra writes that, “it was all smoke and mirrors, of course; a way for Muhl to build rapport so he could get what he really came for: Bill’s access badge., Muhl brought along what looked like a laptop case to carry his notepad, but what was really inside the black bag was a device to scan anyone’s RFID badge who happened to come within two to three feet of it and store it in memory, so the hacker team could clone it for later use.”, Patrick Engebretson, author of The Basics of Hacking and Penetration Testing: Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing Made Easy illuminates the preparation needed in order to pull feats like this off: “If I had to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first four of them sharpening my axe.”, Written by: Sneacker , Author Bio: Sneacker is a writer who works in the information technology field. She is a member of GhostSec, a counterterrorism unit within the Anonymous collective, and participant in #OpISIS., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Social engineering, Ethical Hacking) |
2366_37401 | A Hungry based security test company specializing in embedded systems, named SEARCH-LAB, has found D-Link’s NAS (Network Attached Storage) and NVR (Network Video Recorder) products having over 50 vulnerabilities., A list of the security flaws includes CGI vulnerabilities, web page issues, authentication flaws, information leakage and input validation problems. Attackers can execute arbitrary code to take control over their targeted device, by benefiting from some of the weaknesses on the list – now, it makes the vulnerability a grave concern for all., More than half of the listed security flaws can be easily exploited remotely by hackers over the Internet, GergelyEberhardt, SEARCH-LAD researcher told the “Security_Week”, Analysis of the D-Link DNS-320 (Rev A: 2.03), DNS-327L (1.02) NAS devices, DNS-320L (1.03b04) and D-Link DNR-326 Professional NVR (1.40b03) has been conducted by experts. The researchers identified that few vulnerabilities also impact DNS-322L, DNS-345, DNS-325 and more likely other products as well.,
D-Link got started notifying about the flaws by SEARCH-Lad in 2014. And in fact, the D-Link notified about the flaws by SEARCH-Lad in 2014. And in fact, the D-Link took actions to fill the security holes out. But, in some cases, fixing a vulnerability opened a new more damaging security hole., Firmware versions that contain fixes are DNR-322L 2.10.B03, DNS-320L 1.04.B12, DNR-326 2.10.B03 and DNS-327L 1.03.B04. If a user can find a patch available, he/she must apply it on ASAP basis and protect their device from getting exposed online., A detailed vulnerability report has been published by the SEARCH-LAB. At least 10 security bugs that haven’t been fixed as of now will be exposed in an advisory that SEARCH-LAB is planning to release after June 22 with complete details about bugs. The CVE identifiersCVE-2014-7857, CVE-2014-7858, CVE-2014-7860 and CVE-2014-7859 have been connected to a number of vulnerabilities., “Although the speed of the patch release process was quite slow, D-Link at least fixed most of the discovered issues. Their response speed has significantly improved after we informed them of the exact timing of the publication.” said Eberhardt, SEARCH-LAB researcher. , The vulnerabilities that SEARCH-LAB has reported include some of the flaws that already have been discovered by a security analyst at the Independent Evaluators, Jacob Holcomb. Still, Eberhardt claims that at least 12 glitches are the ones that haven’t been discovered before by either a company or individual., Written by: Ali Qamar, Founder/Chief Editor at SecurityGladiators.com, Author Bio:
Ali Qamar is an Internet security research enthusiast who enjoys “deep” research to dig out modern discoveries in the security industry. He is the founder and chief editor at Security Gladiators, an ultimate source for cyber security. To be frank and honest, Ali started working online as a freelancer and still shares the knowledge for a living. He is passionate about sharing the knowledge with people, and always try to give only the best. Follow Ali on Twitter @AliQammar57, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – D-Link, NSA, NVR) |
5912_65233 | A recent study conducted by the Cyber Security Research Institute (CSRI) revealed that stolen digital code-signing certificates are available for sale for anyone to purchase on the dark web for up to $1,200., Digital code-signing certificates are a precious commodity in the criminal underground, digital certificates issued by a trusted certification authority (CA) are used to cryptographically sign software that is trusted by security solutions for execution on your machine., Digitally signing malicious code could allow its execution on a machine, bypassing security measures in place.
One of the first malicious codes abusing digital code-signing certificates was the Stuxnet worm that was used to compromise Iranian nuclear enrichment process in 2005. Back to the present, the recent attack against the supply chain of the CCleaner software also leveraged a signed tainted version of the popular application to avoid the detection., The security researchers Doowon Kim, BumJun Kwon and Tudor Dumitras from the University of Maryland, College Park have investigated the phenomena. The research team has found a total of 325 signed malware samples, of which 189 (58.2%) carried valid digital signatures while 136 carry malformed digital signatures., The team published a research paper titled “Certified Malware: Measuring Breaches of Trust in the Windows Code-Signing PKI.”, “Digitally signed malware can bypass system protection mechanisms that install or launch only programs with valid signatures.” reads the paper., “It can also evade anti-virus programs, which often forego scanning signed binaries. Known from advanced threats such as Stuxnet and Flame, this type of abuse has not been measured systematically in the
broader malware landscape”, The researchers reported that 189 malware samples signed correctly were generated using 111 compromised unique certificates issued by trusted CAs and used to sign legitimate software., The experts have published the list of certificates abused by attackers at signedmalware.org., “We identify 325 signed malware samples in our data set. Of these, 189 (58.2%) samples are properly signed while 136 carry malformed digital signatures, which do not match the binary’s digest” states the paper., “Such malformed signatures are useful for an adversary: we find that simply copying an Authenticode signature from a legitimate sample to an unsigned malware sample may help the malware bypass AV detection,” explained the researchers., , At the time of writing, 27 of these compromised certificates had been revoked, the experts highlighted that executable files signed with one of the 84 certificates that were not revoked may still be valid., “At the time of writing, 27 of these certificates had been revoked. While all the abusive certificates in our data set had expired, executable files signed with one of the 84 certificates that were not revoked may still be valid, as long as they carry a trusted timestamp obtained during the validity of the certificate” continues the paper, “A large fraction (88.8%) of malware families rely on a single certificate, which suggests that the abusive certificates are mostly controlled by the malware authors rather than by third parties,” , The experts explained that even after a stolen certificate is revoked it will not stop crooks from abusing them immediately., The researchers found that at least 34 antivirus software failed to check the validity of digital certificates, allowing malicious code to run on the infected system., According to the experts, many anti-virus software failed to detect the malware., “However, the impact of this attack varies with the AV products. The top three AVs affected are nProtect, Tencent, and Paloalto. They detected unsigned ransomware samples as malware, but considered eight of out our ten crafted samples as benign. Even well-known AV engines, e.g. Kaspersky, Microsoft, Symantec, and Commodo,
allow some of these samples to bypass detection.” explained the researchers., “We believe that this inability in detecting malware samples is due to the fact that AVs take digital signatures into account when filter and prioritize the list of files to scan, in order to reduce the overhead imposed on the user’s host,”, “However, the incorrect implementation of Authenticode signature checks in many AVs gives malware authors the opportunity to evade detection with a simple and inexpensive method.”, The researchers reported this issue to the affected antivirus companies, in one case the company confirmed that their product fails to check the signatures correctly., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Digital code-signing certificates, malware) |
153_3555 |
A few days ago I wrote about the dangers relating to a not careful attendance of social networks, powerful platforms and privileged communication tools, the subject of increasing interest of cybercrime.
Many possibilities for attack across these platforms, from social engineering to cyber espionage, not forgetting the spread of all types of malware.
Endless audiences of users, all too often unaware of the threat, represent the ideal target for criminals., A very interesting news appeared on the internet yesterday, an University College London research student Shah Mahmood and Chair of Information Communication Technology Yvo Desmedt during a conference at the IEEE International Workshop on Security and Social Networking SESOC 2012 in Lugano (Switzerland on March 19th), have presented a new critical vulnerability on Facebook platform, a zero day privacy loophole that they have named “Deactivated Friend Attack”., The two expert have described the attacks:, “Our deactivated friend attack occurs when an attacker adds their victim on Facebook and then deactivates her own account. As deactivation is temporary in Facebook, the attacker can reactivate her account as she pleases and repeat the process of activating and deactivating for unlimited number of times. While a friend is deactivated on Facebook, she becomes invisible. She could not be unfriended (removed from friend’s list) or added to any specific list.”, Probably one of the aspects that make this vulnerability more insidious is that the popular social network lack a mechanism for notifying a user of the activation / deactivation of the account considered as friends.
The process of alternating activation and deactivation is defined by two experts as “cloacking”, , Furthermore the process of activation and deactivation may be repeated at will without being subject to any control because deactivation is temporary in Facebook. This behavior then allows an evil intent to reactivate an account for the time necessary to carry out a survey among the information posted by a victim … a mine as we learned from the news., In my opinion the real problem is the distracted behavior of users of social networks, too preoccupied to increase the counter of their relationships without carefully assessing the real identity of those seeking friendship. Once obtained the friendship it is possible to spy every account as desired, it is simply necessary to activate the account in a time when the victim is not present on the social platform to avoid being spotted and arouse suspicion., As the attacker has to uncloak to spy, there is a probability of being detected and unfriended or put under restricted privacy policies. This probability will be dependent on several factors and suspicious events are:, The expert alerted:, “Various groups of information aggregators including marketers, background checking agencies, governments, hackers, spammers, stalkers and criminals would find this attractive as a permanent back door to the private information of a Facebook user.”, The attack is very serious for several reasons:, During the presentation the two experts have presented a live demo to prove the problem showing that the one way to avoid any kind of problem is to notify the user the continuous change of states of its friends.
Of course the situation must be managed by the manager of the Facebook platform that could also monitor a “cloacking” behaviour of an account blocking it or disabling the re-activation features., Beware, social media are becoming a paradise for cybercriminals., Pierluigi Paganini, References, |
5969_65765 | The controversial certificate authority StartCom is going to close, according to board chairman Xiaosheng Tan, the business will end its activity on January 1, 2018., Starting from January 1, 2018, StartCom will no longer issue new digital certificates, but CRL and OCSP service will continue for two years, until the expiration of the StartCom’s three key root pairs., First reply to StartCom announcing the end of its certification business is a founding engineer glad it's dead ? — SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) November 17, 2017, , For this reason, according to Tan the shut down of the CA “would not have a major impact.”, According to w3techs.com, about 0.1 per cent of websites worldwide still use StartCom as an SSL certificate authority., The following diagram shows the historical trend in the percentage of websites using StartCom.
, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – StartCom CA, PKI) |
6367_69449 | A new variant of the infamous Mirai botnet appeared in the threat landscape, it was discovered by researchers at Fortinet that referred it as OMG because of strings containing “OOMGA” in the configuration table., “For this reason, we decided to name this variant OMG.”“The table, originally encrypted, was decrypted using 0xdeadbeef as the cipher key seed, using the same procedure adopted for the original Mirai. The first thing we noticed are the strings /bin/busybox OOMGA and OOMGA: applet not found.” wrote Fortinet. , The name Mirai was given to the Mirai bot because of the strings /bin/busybox MIRAI and MIRAI: applet not found, which are commands to determine if it has successfully brute-forced its way into the targeted IoT device. These strings are similar with other variations such as Satori/Okiru, Masuta, etc.” , The Mirai botnet was first spotted in August 2016 by the security researcher MalwareMustDie, it was specifically designed to compromise vulnerable or poorly protected IoT. Once Mirai malware compromises an IoT device it recruits it into a botnet primarily used for launching DDoS attacks, such as the one that hit Dyn DNS service., In October 2016, the Mirai source code was leaked and threat actors in the wild started customizing their Mirai botnet., The OMG botnet includes most of Mirai’s features and modules, including the attack, killer, and scanner modules, but also adds new ones., According to Fortinet its configuration includes two strings used to add a firewall rule to ensure traffic on two random ports is allowed., “This variant also adds and removes some configurations that can be found in the original Mirai code. Two notable additions are the two strings that are used to add a firewall rule to allow traffic on two random ports, which we will discuss in the latter part of the article.” continues the analysis., , After initialization, OMG connects to the command and control (C&C) server, the configuration table analyzed in the post contains the CnC server string, ccnew.mm.my, which resolves to 188.138.125.235., The malware connects to the C&C port 50023, then it sends a defined data message (0x00000000) to the server to identify itself as a new bot., In response, the server sends a 5-byte long data string, where the first byte is a command on how the newly recruited device should be used as a proxy server, the two options are:, The OMG botnet leverages the open source software 3proxy as its proxy server and during the set up phase the bot adds firewall rules to allow traffic on the two random ports., “This variant of Mirai uses 3proxy, an open source software, to serve as its proxy server. The set up begins by generating two random ports that will be used for the http_proxy_portand socks_proxy_port. Once the ports are generated, they are reported to the CnC.” continues the analysis. , “For the proxy to work properly, a firewall rule must be added to allow traffic on the generated ports. As mentioned earlier, two strings containing the command for adding and removing a firewall rule to enable this were added to the configuration table .”, Fortinet experts believe the operators behind the OMG botnet sell access to the IoT proxy server, they highlighted that this is the first Mirai variant that sets up proxy servers on vulnerable IoT devices., “With this development, we believe that more and more Mirai-based bots are going to emerge with new ways of monetization,” concluded Fortinet., Further details, including IoCs are reported in the blog post published by Fortinet., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Mirai , OMG botnet) |
4318_51860 | Security experts at Cisco Talos group have discovered a serious vulnerability (TALOS-2016-0193/CVE-2016-8332) affecting the JPEG 2000 image file format parser implemented in OpenJPEG library. An attacker could exploit the flaw to trigger the heap corruption and execute arbitrary code on the target system., “This particular vulnerability could allow an out-of-bound heap write to occur, resulting in heap corruption and lead to arbitrary code execution. Talos has disclosed this vulnerability responsibility to the library maintainers to ensure a patch is available.” states the security advisory published by Talos., The experts successfully tested the JPEG 2000 image exploit on the OpenJpeg openjp2 2.1.1., , The security experts have has ethically reported the security flaw to the library maintainers to ensure a patch is available., The flaw has a serious impact because the JPEG 2000 file format is commonly used for embedding images inside PDF documents., In order to exploit the vulnerability, an attacker has to trick victims into opening a file containing a specifically crafted JPEG 2000 image that triggers the flaw., A first attack scenario sees attackers sending an email to the targets, the malicious message will include a PDF document including a specifically crafted JPEG 2000 image, or in a hosted content scenario where a user downloads a file from Google Drive or Dropbox., Attackers could also leverage on cloud storage like Google Drive or Dropbox where he hosts a specifically crafted JPEG 2000 image, then he will share the link to the picture., Experts from Talos have also released Snort Rules (40314-40315) that could help experts in detecting attempts to exploit the flaw., Cisco Talos group also announced that additional rules may be released at a future date informing users that current rules are subject to change pending additional vulnerability information., Below the Timeline of the Vulnerability, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – JPEG 2000, Zero-day) |
5108_58114 | Security experts from threat intelligence firm Recorded Future have spotted a new ransomware as a service (RaaS) called Karmen. The service allows customers to easy create their ransomware campaign in a few steps and without specific skills., Wannabe-crooks also track infected systems via a “Clients” tab, the Dashboard implements an efficient and easy to use cockpit that include various information such as the number of infected machines, earned revenue, and available updates for the malware., The Karmen RaaS is very cheap, it costs just $175, buyers can decide the ransom prices and the duration of the period in which the victims can pay the ransom., The Karmen ransomware is based on the open-source ransomware Hidden Tear, which was released in August 2015 by the Turkish security researchers Utku Sen for educational purposes., The first Karmen infections were reported in December 2016, the malware infected machines in Germany and the United States., The Karmen ransomware is a multi-threaded and multi-language ransomware that supports .NET 4.0 and uses the AES-256 encryption standard., The malware is .NET dependent and requires PHP 5.6 and MySQL., “On March 4, 2017, a member of a top-tier cyber criminal community with the username “Dereck1” mentioned a new ransomware variant called “Karmen.” reported a blog post published by Recorded Future., “Further investigation revealed that “DevBitox,” a Russian-speaking cyber criminal, was the seller behind the Karmen malware on underground forums in March 2017.”, “However, the first cases of infections with Karmen were reported as early as December 2016 by victims in Germany and the United States.”, , , Once infected a machine, the ransomware displays a ransom note with payment instructions, unlike similar malware, the Karmen ransomware automatically deletes the decryptor when detecting a sandbox environment or any other analysis software., “A notable feature of Karmen is that it automatically deletes its own decryptor if a sandbox environment or analysis software is detected on the victim’s computer.” continues the blog post., Below the list of ransomware features provided by DevBitox:, The ransomware is available for sale in both light and full versions, the light version doesn’t include anti-analysis features., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Karmen Ransomware, cybercrime) |
2404_37700 | According to a report published by Bloomberg, two men were arrested and warrants were issued for other three suspects that were allegedly preparing a terrorist attack in Belgium. The interesting part of the news is that law enforcement exploited end-to-end encryption gaps in WhatsApp to intercept WhatsApp messages exchanged between members of a Chechen jihadist group operating in Belgium. The cell tied to the al-Nusra Front in Syria and the Islamic Caucasus Emirate, one of the suspects detained had recently returned to Belgium after being injured in a fight in Syria., According to Gaspard Sebag from Bloomberg, the European law enforcement in a joint effort with the FBI are monitoring the use of the popular messaging platform WhatsApp., “Investigators said earlier they had detained 16 people in the anti-terror raids after working with U.S. authorities to monitor suspects’ communications on WhatsApp Inc.’s messaging service.” states Sebag., The Belgian law enforcement raided two separate groups operating in Ostend and Louvain, and according various sources the messages exchanged on WhatsApp allowed the investigators to trace the group., At the time I’m writing, Facebook who acquired WhatsApp, declined to comment the events, but security experts speculate that there is something wrong in the implementation of WhatsApp end-to-end (E2E) encryption started in November., The new feature was added after the incorporation of the encryption protocol TextSecure designed by the popular security researcher Moxie Marlinspike and developed by the WhisperSystems., TextSecure is a free Android mobile app developed by Open WhisperSystems, its code is open-source and it implements end-to-end encryption to protect text messages sent by the users. The TextSecure app was downloaded by nearly 500,000 users from the official Google’s Play Store., TextSecure is considered one of most efficient text messaging application for mobile devices and its popularity increased after the Facebook bought WhatsApp, due to the fear of users that Intelligence agencies could have imposed to the company to give them the access to the servers., In November 2014, a group of researchers from Ruhr University Bochum that audited the popular TextSecure Private Messenger app discovered that it was vulnerable to Unknown Key-Share attacks., “Since Facebook bought WhatsApp, instant messaging apps with security guarantees became more and more popular,” “We are the first to completely and precisely document and analyze TEXTSECURE’s secure push messaging protocol” states the author of the audit in a paper titled, “How Secure is TextSecure?“., The research team published a document that resume the analysis of the TextSecure’s secure push messaging protocol. According to the group of expert, TextSecure works on a the cryptographic protocol that is implemented in the CYANOGENMOD firmware, and the researchers discovered a way compromise it with a an Unknown Key-Share Attack (UKS) against the protocol., Now security experts explained that TextSecure is probably used by terrorist groups, but it’s uncertain that the end-to-end encryption works on Apple iOS devices, they also explained that group messages and images are still not supported by WhatsApp for Android., It seems that even is the messages are protected by the encryption implemented, the FBI or NSA are able to gather metadata on the server side that could be used to link WhatsApp users. The analysis of metadata allowed law enforcement to identify the network of the alleged suspects., According to the editor Fabian A. Scherschel, authorities are able to intercept and collect messages that could be decrypted since the key seeds could be more easily guessed reduced the number of possible keys., “As other researchers have documented, WhatsApp uses a proprietary encryption in transit that is based on the problematic RC4 algorithm. This means it can be successfully attacked as RC4 has to be considered broken. In addition to this, the app seems to use the same key – derived from a user password – for both incoming and outgoing communication which enlarges the attack surface further. This means that while the encryption in transit can in principle be broken, it prevents mass data collection, say on Internet backbones.” said Scherschel., , Moxie Marlinspike responded to Scherschel via Reddit:, “This article should be retitled ‘Breaking News: WhatsApp E2E Deployment Process Exactly As Advertised.’ We announced a partnership, not a finished deployment. In the blog post announcing that partnership, we publicly outlined the WhatsApp E2E deployment process, and it describes exactly what has been ‘discovered’ here. As I said in the blog post, deploying across this many users (hundreds of millions) and this many platforms (seven, of which they checked two) takes time, and is being done incrementally. I also point out that we will be surfacing information in the UI once that is complete.”, Let’s wait for a Facebook’s comment., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – WhatsApp, terrorist) |
4275_51505 | Recently experts from CISCO discovered a vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2016-6415, in IOS system,while investigating the Equation Group‘s exploits leaked by the Shadow Broker hacker group. In particular, experts from CISCO were evaluating the impact of the BENIGNCERTAIN exploit. The experts also discovered another zero-day exploit dubbed EXTRABACON that could be used to hack CISCO ASA software., The CVE-2016-6415 resides in the IKEv1 packet processing code. A remote, unauthenticated attacker could exploit it retrieve memory contents., “The vulnerability is due to insufficient condition checks in the part of the code that handles IKEv1 security negotiation requests. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted IKEv1 packet to an affected device configured to accept IKEv1 security negotiation requests,” reads the security advisory published by Cisco., The flaw affects Cisco IOS XR versions 4.3.x, 5.0.x, 5.1.x and 5.2.x – versions 5.3.0 and later are not impacted. All IOS XE releases and various versions of IOS are affected., Which is the real impact of the CVE-2016-6415 vulnerability?, The Shadowserver Foundation tried to provide further information to estimate the impact of the vulnerability in the wild, it has conducted an Internet scan for the Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol (ISAKMP), which is a part of IKE., “This scan is looking for devices that contain a vulnerability in their IKEv1 packet processing code that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to retrieve memory contents, which could lead to the disclosure of confidential information. More information on this issue can be found on Cisco’s site at: reads the page related to the Vulnerable ISAKMP Scanning Project., “The goal of this project is to identify the vulnerable systems and report them back to the network owners for remediation. Information on these vulnerable devices has been incorporated into our reports and is being reported on a daily basis.”, With the support of CISCO experts, the organization queried all computers with routable IPv4 addresses that are exposed on the Internet without firewall protection. They used a specifically crafted 64 byte ISAKMP packet collecting the response from the scanned appliance., “We normally tune our scans as tightly as possible to limit the impact on the end users as well as trying to be nice to the general network traffic. In this case we are not as tuned as we would like to be since we are having to do a full IKE negotiation making our packets almost 2600 bytes in size, at least in the first sets of tests. With a huge amount of assistance from Cisco we were able to reduce the packet size down to 64 bytes. ” reads the page on the “ISAKMP Scanning and Potential Vulnerabilities.”, , The scan results are disconcerting, the experts discovered more than 840,000 unique IP addresses related to appliances vulnerable to the CVE-2016-6415 exploit., Below the Top 20 countries with vulnerable ISAKMP, The highest percentage of vulnerable devices were in the United States (255,000), six times more than Russia (42,000), United Kingdom (42,000) and Canada (41,000). The experts also analyzed the autonomous system numbers (ASNs),discovering a predominance of Comcast and AT&T’s network IPs., Below the top 20 ASNs With Vulnerable ISAKMP, According to Shadowserver, there is no evidence that the products of vendors other than Cisco are affected by the vulnerability, but the organization noted that it is not a conclusive test., Cisco has released an online tool that allows its customers to determine if their products are affected by the CVE-2016-6415 flaw., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – The Equation Group ATP, CVE-2016-6415) |
7718_80732 | Security experts at Talos group have uncovered a malware campaign using the ExileRAT backdoor to target the mailing list of the organization officially representing the Tibetan government-in-exile., Threat actors are delivering the malware via a weaponized Microsoft PowerPoint document, the messages are reaching people in a mailing list run by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA)., The nature of malware and the targets suggests the involvement of nationstate actor carrying out a cyber espionage campaign. , Given the nature of the threat and the targets, the campaign was likely designed for espionage purposes, Talos’ security researchers say. , The bait PowerPoint document is a copy of a legitimate PDF available on CTA’s website, it was sent by attackers to all subscribers to the CTA mailing list, , “Cisco Talos recently observed a malware campaign delivering a malicious Microsoft PowerPoint document using a mailing list run by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), an organization officially representing the Tibetan government-in-exile.” reads the analysis published by Talos., “The document used in the attack was a PPSX file, a file format used to deliver a non-editable slideshow derived from a Microsoft PowerPoint document.” , The experts received an email message from the CTA mailing list containing an attachment, “Tibet-was-never-a-part-of-China.ppsx,” the researchers noticed that the standard Reply-To header used by the CTA mailings was modified to redirect responses to an email address (mediabureauin at gmail.com) controlled by the hackers., The weaponized documents exploit the CVE-2017-0199 flaw, a zero-day arbitrary code execution vulnerability fixed by Microsoft in April 2017 and that has been actively exploited in attacks in the wild., The exploit code used by the attackers originated from a public script available on GitHub, researchers noticed that the PPSX also attempts to contact iplocation to perform some geo-location lookups. , It connects to the command and control (C&C) server to receive a JavaScript script responsible for downloading the final payload. , The malicious code is executed via WScriptwhile also utilizing cmd.exe to create a scheduled task called “Diagnostic_System_Host,” the name is similar to the legitimate system task name “Diagnostic System Host” without the “_” (underscores). , The ExileRAT used in this campaign support commands to retrieve system information (i.e. computer name, username, listing drives, network adapter, and process names), exfiltrate data and and execute or terminate processes., Talos pointed out that C2 infrastructure has been used in multiple campaigns, including attacks against Tibetan activists leveraging a newer version of the LuckyCat Android RAT., “This newer version includes the same features as the 2012 version (file uploading, downloading, information stealing and remote shell) and adds several new features, including file removing, app execution, audio recording, personal contact stealing, SMS stealing, recent call stealing and location stealing.” continues the report., Experts conclude that this new campaign represents an “evolution in a series of attacks targeting a constituency of political supporters, and further evidence that not all attacks require the use of zero-day vulnerabilities,” Talos says. , The good news is that attackers leveraged an old issue that could be easily detected by up-to-date defense systems. , Pierluigi Paganini, (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Exilerat), , |
7560_79165 | Amnesty International published a report that details how threat actors are able to bypass 2FA authentication that leverages text message as a second factor., Attackers are using this tactic to break into Gmail and Yahoo accounts in large scale attacks., 2FA processes that are based on a text message are very popular because they are simple to use., Amnesty experts monitored several credential phishing campaigns targeting individuals across the Middle East and North Africa., In one campaign, threat actors targeted accounts on popular secure email services, such as Tutanota and ProtonMail., In another campaign, hackers targeted hundreds of Google and Yahoo accounts, “successfully bypassing common forms of two-factor authentication”., Amnesty International reported widespread phishing of Google and Yahoo users throughout 2017 and 2018. Attackers targeted human rights defenders and journalists from the Middle East and North Africa region that sharing with the organization suspicious emails they have received. Investigating the emails, the experts uncovered a large and long-running campaign of spear-phishing attacks seemingly originating from the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Egypt and Palestine., The attackers used trivial sophisticated social engineering tricks that leveraged common “security alert” scheme. Victims receive fake alarms informing targets of a potential account compromise and asking them to urgently change their password. , The phishing messages included a link that redirected victims to a well-crafted and convincing Google phishing website designed to trick victims into revealing the two-step verification code., “Sure enough, our configured phone number did receive an SMS message containing a valid Google verification code. After we entered our credentials and the 2-Step Verification code into the phishing page, we were then presented with a form asking us to reset the password for our account. ” continues the analysis., “To most users a prompt from Google to change passwords would seem a legitimate reason to be contacted by the company, which in fact it is. “, Threat actors were able to automate the attack and take over the accounts of the victims., Additional information on the phishing attacks, including IoCs, are reported in the analysis published by Amnesty International., Pierluigi Paganini, (SecurityAffairs – 2FA, phishing attacks),
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5980_65880 | The United States charged the Iranian computer expert Behzad Mesri of ‘Games of Thrones‘ HBO Hack. On Tuesday, the man was charged with stealing scripts and plot summaries for ‘Games of Thrones’., The Manhattan US attorney Joon Kim said Mesri is “had previously hacked computer systems for the Iranian military”. The man threatened to release stolen data, unless HBO paid a $6 million ransom in Bitcoin., “Behzad Mesri, an Iranian national who had previously hacked computer systems for the Iranian military, allegedly infiltrated HBO’s systems, stole proprietary data, including scripts and plot summaries for unaired episodes of Game of Thrones, and then sought to extort HBO of $6 million in Bitcoins.” said U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim. “Mesri now stands charged with federal crimes, and although not arrested today, he will forever have to look over his shoulder until he is made to face justice. American ingenuity and creativity is to be cultivated and celebrated — not hacked, stolen, and held for ransom. For hackers who test our resolve in protecting our intellectual property — even those hiding behind keyboards in countries far away — eventually, winter will come.”, Behzad Mesri, who is still at large, is an Iran-based hacker who also goes online with the moniker Skote Vahshat., Mesri faces seven counts in the United States, including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and four counts of computer fraud., , The DoJ accused the man of being the mastermind behind the cyber attacks against HBO from May to August, he stole scripts and plot summaries for then unaired episodes of the “Game of Thrones” series, and multiple other shows., Mersi compromised multiple user accounts belonging to HBO employees and other authorized users, in this way he accessed the company servers and stole confidential and proprietary information., “Over the course of several months, MESRI used that unauthorized access to steal confidential and proprietary information belonging to HBO, which he then exfiltrated to servers under his control.” states the press release published by the US Department of Justice., “Through the course of the intrusions into HBO’s systems, MESRI was responsible for stealing confidential and proprietary data belonging to HBO, including, but not limited to: (a) confidential video files containing unaired episodes of original HBO television programs, including episodes of “Barry,” “Ballers,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Room 104,” and “The Deuce;” (b) scripts and plot summaries for unaired programming, including but not limited to episodes of “Game of Thrones;”(c) confidential cast and crew contact lists; (d) emails belonging to at least one HBO employee; (e) financial documents; and (f) online credentials for HBO social media accounts (collectively, the “Stolen Data”).”, According to the US prosecutors, Mesri previously conducted computer attacks on behalf of the Iranian military that targeted nuclear software systems and Israeli infrastructure., Prosecutors confirmed that the Iranian man was a member of the Iranian-based Turk Black Hat Security hacking group that targeted hundreds of websites in the United States and around the world., “MESRI is an Iran-based computer hacker who had previously worked on behalf of the Iranian military to conduct computer network attacks that targeted military systems, nuclear software systems, and Israeli infrastructure.” continues the DoJ. , “At certain times, MESRI has been a member of an Iran-based hacking group called the Turk Black Hat security team and, as a member of that group, conducted hundreds of website defacements using the online hacker pseudonym “Skote Vahshat” against websites in the United States and elsewhere.”, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – HBO hack, Iran), , |
6169_67536 | The mined Monero coins are sent to Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, North Korea, but experts noted that the developers might not be of North Korean origins., The KSU is an unusually open University, it is attended by a number of foreign students and lecturers., The researchers speculate the application could either be an experimental software or could be a prank to trick security researchers by connecting to Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, North Korea., , Once executed, it copies a file named intelservice.exe to the system, this is the Monero cryptocurrency mining malware., “The filename intelservice.exe is often associated with crypto-currency mining malware. Based on the arguments it’s executed with, it’s likely a piece of software called xmrig.” reads the analysis published by AlienVault. , “It’s not unusual to see xmrig in malware campaigns. It was recently used in some wide campaignsexploiting unpatched IIS servers to mine Monero.”, The experts determined that it is a piece of software called xmrig by observing the arguments the file is executed with., Analyzing the file the researchers discovered both the address of the Monero wallet and the password used that is “KJU”, a possible reference to Kim Jong-un., The mined currency is sent to the server barjuok.ryongnamsan.edu.kp server located at Kim Il Sung University., The address barjuok.ryongnamsan.edu.kp address doesn’t currently resolve, either because the app was designed to run on the university’s network, or because it was no longer in use., “It’s not clear if we’re looking at an early test of an attack, or part of a ‘legitimate’ mining operation where the owners of the hardware are aware of the mining.” continues the analysis., “On the one hand the sample contains obvious messages printed for debugging that an attacker would avoid. But it also contains fake filenames that appear to be an attempt to avoid detection of the installed mining software.”, Security experts pointed out that North Korea-linked group Lazarus was already involved in attacks involving cryptocurrencies., In December, security experts from Secureworks revealed the Lazarus APT group launched a spearphishing campaign against a London cryptocurrency company., The attacks focused on Monero conducted by North Korean threat actors were associated with Bluenorroff and Andariel hackers, who are considered as being part of the Lazarus group. Researchers from AlienVault highlighted that they haven’t discovered evidence to link the newly found Installer to any attacks attributed to Lazarus., “We have not identified anything linking our Installer to these attacks. The Lazarus attackers have capable developers, and craft their own malware from a library of low-level code.” concluded the research. “Given the amateur usage of Visual Basic programming in the Installer we analysed, it’s unlikely the author is part of Lazarus. As the mining server is located in a university, we may be looking at a university project.”, Experts also made another hypothesis, someone inside the University developed the project to test the use of cryptocurrency in a country hit hard by sanctions., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – North Korea, Monero Miner) |
1456_28160 | Trustwave firm as published an interesting report on the point-of-sale malware based on its investigation on different breaches involving payment card data. The experts at Trustwave have examined a large amount of malware that targets point-of-sale devices, this family of malicious code is specifically designed to steal the sensitive information stored in the magnetic stripe of a payment card. Point-of-sale malware are able to steal data from directly from PC memory or from the disk of the infected machine. According to Trustwave 2013 was characterized by the evolution of POS malware, a growth never seen before. The experts notices in particular new developments in data exfiltration techniques,also the command and control (C&C) functionality were substantially improved, for example with the used of Tor networks., “We also saw evidence of more authors automating the installation and control of their malware in 2013. While Trustwave discovered a number of new POS malware families exhibiting botnet-like tendencies, a number of well-known, older families also made an appearance.” states the post published by Trustwave., , , , The Alina malicious code was the malware family most prevalent (19,1) within the cases investigated by Trustwave, followed by Baggage (16,5%) and Triforce (11,2%). Other point-of-sale malware families used by the criminals gangs worldwide were Blackpos, Dexter and ChewBacca., The report also provides further information on the principal POS malware, Dexter was considered singular for its memory dumping functionality, because it performs process-injection, logs keystrokes and includes a C&C structure. Another significant point-of-sale malware family is Chewbacca, which implemented an exfiltration mechanism over the Tor network which host C&C servers., “Debuting in late 2012, Alina surprised many, because it was one of a small number of POS malware families that included a C&C structure, encrypted the data it exfiltrated, blacklisted common Windows processes and installed itself to a randomly chosen name.”, As reported in the report, in many cases, cyber criminals used commercial keyloggers to infect the POS systems, a common characteristic of all the POS malware families is the lack of encryption for exfiltrated data. The “exclusive OR” (XOR) operation is the encryption technique most used by the malware authors (32%) followed by Blowfish (3,7%)., Analyzing the exfiltration methods used by point-of-sale malware, the experts discovered that in the majority of cases (41%) the attackers don’t adopt a C&C infrastructure, but they leave the stolen data on disk to be extracted manually later. HTTP is the the second exfiltration technique (29%) followed by SMTP (22%)., The report ends with a look to the POS malware persistence mechanisms, that like the exfiltration techniques, did not change significantly from 2012 to 2013. The point-of-sale malware analyzed maintained persistence in one of the following ways:, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – point-of-sale malware, cybercrime) |
7272_76990 | Security experts from security firm SEC Consult have identified over 100 companies that buy and re-brand video surveillance equipment (surveillance cameras, digital video recorders (DVRs), and network video recorders (NVRs)) manufactured by the Chinese firm Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology Co., Ltd.(Xiongmai hereinafter) that are open to hack., , Millions of devices are affected by security vulnerabilities that can be easily exploited by a remote attacker to take over devices. The flaws could be exploited to spy on camera feeds of unaware users., The flaws reside in a feature named the “XMEye P2P Cloud” that is enabled by default which is used to connect surveillance devices to the cloud infrastructure., “From a usability perspective, this makes it easier for users to interact with the device, since the user does not have to be in the same network (e.g. the same Wi-Fi network) in order to connect to the device. Additionally, no firewall rules, port forwarding rules, or DDNS setup are required on the router, which makes this option convenient also for non-tech-savvy users.” reads the report published by SEC Consult.!However, this approach has several security implications:, Each device has a unique ID, called cloud ID or UID (i.e. 68ab8124db83c8db) that allows users to connect to a specific device through one of the supported apps., Unfortunately, the cloud ID is not sufficiently random and complex to make guessing correct cloud IDs hard because the analysis of the Xiongmai firmware revealed it is derived from the device’s MAC address., According to SEC Consult experts, an attacker can guess account IDs and access the feed associated with other IDs,, Experts found many other security issues, for example, all new XMEye accounts use a default admin username of “admin” with no password and the worst aspect is that the installation process doesn’t require users to change it., The experts also discovered an undocumented user with the name “default” and password “tluafed.”, “In addition to the admin user, by default there is an undocumented user with the name “default”. The password of this user is “tluafed” (default in reverse).” continues the analysis., “We have verified that this user can be used to log in to a device via the XMEye cloud (checked via custom client using the Xiongmai NetSDK). This user seems to at least have permissions to access/view video streams.”, Experts also discovered that it is possible to execute arbitrary code on the device through a firmware update., Firmware updates are not signed, this means that an attacker carries out a MITM attack and impersonate the XMEye cloud to tainted firmware version., Xiongmai devices were involved in IoT botnets in the last months, both Mirai and Satori bots infected a huge number of devices manufactured by the Chinese firm., “We have worked together with ICS-CERT to address this issue since March 2018. ICS-CERT made great efforts to get in touch with Xiongmai and the Chinese CNCERT/CC and inform them about the issues. Although Xiongmai had seven months’ notice, they have not fixed any of the issues.”, “The conversation with them over the past months has shown that security is just not a priority to them at all.” concludes SEC Consult., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Xiongmai, hacking) |
6389_69656 | Security experts from some security firms have reported that threat actors have started abusing the memcached protocol to power distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) Attacks, so-called memcached DDoS attacks. , Memcached is a free and open source, high-performance, distributed memory caching system designed to speed up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load., Clients communicate with memcached servers via TCP or UDP on port 11211., Researchers from Cloudflare, Arbor Networks and security firm Qihoo 360 discovered that recently attackers are abusing the memcached for DDoS amplification attacks., Chinese experts warned about abuses of memcached DDoS attacks in November., Experts at Cloudflare dubbed this type of attack Memcrashed., “Over last couple of days we’ve seen a big increase in an obscure amplification attack vector – using the memcached protocol, coming from UDP port 11211.” reads the analysis published by Cloudflare., “An IP-spoofing capable attacker sends forged requests to a vulnerable UDP server. The UDP server, not knowing the request is forged, politely prepares the response. The problem happens when thousands of responses are delivered to an unsuspecting target host, overwhelming its resources – most typically the network itself.“, The involvement of memcached servers in DDoS Attacks is quite simple, the attacker sends a request to the targeted server on port 11211 spoofing the IP address of the victim. In a memcached DDoS attack, the request sent to the server is composed of a few bytes, while the response can be tens of thousands of times bigger, resulting in an amplification attack., , The researchers at Cloudflare observed a memcached DDoS attack that peaked at 260 Gbps while Arbor Networks reported observing attacks that peaked at 500 Gbps and even more., “We have observed a considerable uptick in memcached reflection/amplification attacks ranging in size from a few hundred mb/sec up to 500gb/sec and larger. The amplified attack traffic is sourced from UDP/11211, with a packet size of 1428 bytes (1442 bytes with layer-2 Ethernet framing included), and no fragmentation (memcached segments large responses at layer-7, as does ntp).” reads the analysis published by Arbor Networks. “The attacker typically ‘primes’ a given set of memcached reflectors/amplifiers with arbitrary-length key/value pairs, and then issues memcached queries for those key/value pairs, spoofing the IP addresses of targeted hosts/networks.”, Researchers at Arbor Networks added that attackers can also send queries at TCP port 11211, but since TCP queries cannot be reliably spoofed, the hackers opted for UDP., “I was surprised to learn that memcached does UDP, but there you go! The protocol specification shows that it’s one of the best protocols to use for amplification ever! There are absolutely zero checks, and the data WILL be delivered to the client, with blazing speed! Furthermore, the request can be tiny and the response huge (up to 1MB).” continues the analysis published by Cloudflare., “Launching such an attack is easy. First the attacker implants a large payload on an exposed memcached server. Then, the attacker spoofs the “get” request message with target Source IP.”, According to Cloudflare, most of the memchached DDoS Attacks were launched from servers in North America and Europe, the majority of them is hosted by OVH, DigitalOcean, and Sakura., , The experts observed attacks from roughly 5,700 unique IPs associated with memcached servers., The situation can rapidly get worse because the result of a simple Shodan query shows nearly 88,000 unsecured memchached servers, most of them in the United States, China and France., , Cloudflare recommends disabling UDP support unless it’s needed and isolating memcached servers from the Internet. Internet service providers have to fix vulnerable protocols and prevent IP spoofing., “Internet Service Providers – In order to defeat such attacks in future, we need to fix vulnerable protocols and also IP spoofing. As long as IP spoofing is permissible on the internet, we’ll be in trouble.” concluded Cloudflare., “Developers – Please please please: Stop using UDP. If you must, please don’t enable it by default. If you do not know what an amplification attack is I hereby forbid you from ever typing SOCK_DGRAM into your editor.”, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – memcached DDoS Attacks, hacking) |
712_17157 | Brain hacking refers the possibility to attack the human brain to extract sensitive information such as data and memories, including also the capability to inject new information. Exactly as any other computer computers, human brains may be vulnerable to hacking attacks, state of the art of technology already allow researchers to perceive changes in the magnetic field related to brain activity making possible reading of people’s thoughts., Neurotechnologist Philip Low is currently working to the designing of a portable brain monitor called iBrain that can detect the brain’s electrical activity from the surface of the scalp, individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or similar pathologies still have healthy brain activity and the iBrain could be used to control a mouse pointer on a computer screen., Recently researchers at the Usenix Security conference have demonstrated that exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in the human brain is possible hack it. The scientists used a commercial off-the-shelf brain-computer interface for the brain hacking resulting in the disclosure of information that victims had in their minds., The brain-computer interface consists of principal components, The price for a Brain Computer Interface is sensibly decreased in the last years, just $200-300 are sufficient to buy an Emotiv or Neurosky BCI, immediately usable to control the user computer., , , The Brain Computer Interfaces shall be accompanied with API to build applications able to elaborate BCI’s output. Researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Geneva, and the University of California, Berkeley have designed an application able to access to sensitive data in the human brain, hacking brain makes possible the disclosure of sensitive information such as the debit card PIN, home location and month of birth. The following graphs illustrate the results of the tests conducted with 28 participants, it is important to specify that participants in the program were cooperative because they were not aware of the brain hacking experiment that had a 10 to 40% chance of success., , , , The information reading is based on the analysis of P300 response brainwave pattern defined by Wikipedia as:, “The P300 (P3) wave is an event related potential (ERP) component elicited in the process of decision making. It is considered to be an endogenous potential, as its occurrence links not to the physical attributes of a stimulus, but a person’s reaction to it. More specifically, the P300 is thought to reflect processes involved in stimulus evaluation or categorization.”, , The pattern is observable when humans see something that is meaningful or recognize something that is related to their current task., “The researchers basically designed a program that flashes up pictures of maps, banks, and card PINs, and makes a note every time your brain experiences a P300. Afterwards, it’s easy to pore through the data and work out — with fairly good accuracy — where a person banks, where they live, and so on.”, The attacks appear not applicable with not collaborative subjects, this means that is not usable during an interrogation, but victims could deceive with social engineering techniques, they could believe for example to participate in a simple test or they could be convinced to be playing a video game controlled by the brain., Brain hacking is reality! Hackers soon could be able to extract sensitive data from human brain with high reliability. What will be the next step?, Moving forward we can think to a malware able to compromise our brain capturing our electric impulse generate by our brains, but what could be the effect of a malicious attack on the human mind?, The principal nightmare is related the mental modification, the possibility to alter the state of human main, brain hacking could also refer the act to focus the brain in an extreme state, moving the mind in what is called “in the zone” status., The zone state is characterized by a specific signature in the brain activity that could be artificially reproduced transforming the human perception of reality and inducing fake thoughts exactly as for application hacking., “The Neurotech company Berka runs are developing technology to monitor people’s brain activity during a task, such as archery, and notify them when they have reached their “peak performance state,” aka, the zone. Essentially, the technology gives people the ability to hack into their own brains in order to improve their performance.”, The future is now … let’s start to think how to secure our brain!, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – brain hacking, security) |
4224_51060 | Malware researchers from Kaspersky Lab confirmed the existence of an OS X variant of a recently discovered family of cross-platform backdoors. The backdoors family was named Mokes and a strain of malware was first spotted in January, but its existence was confirmed only this week., “Back in January this year we found a new family of cross-platform backdoors for desktop environments. After the discovery of the binaries for Linux and Windows systems, we have now finally come across the OS X version of Mokes.A. It is written in C++ using Qt, a cross-platform application framework, and is statically linked to OpenSSL. This leads to a filesize of approx.” wrote Kaspersky., The malicious code is able to steal various kinds of data from an infected system, including screenshots, Office-Documents (docx, .doc, .xlsx, and .xls files), Keystrokes, and Audio-/Video-Captures., The Mokes backdoor also allows hackers to execute arbitrary commands on the victim’s computer, it works on Linux, Windows and also OS X., The sample of OS X Mokes backdoor recently analyzed by Kaspersky was unpacked, but researchers believe it’s packed as the Linux variant spotted in January., Once executed, the Mokes backdoor copies itself to a handful of locations, choosing the first available in the following locations:, After the malware establish a first connection with its C&C server using HTTP on TCP port 80, the backdoor communicates via TCP port 443., The researchers discovered that the User-Agent string is hardcoded in the binary, once the server receive it, it replies with “text/html” content of 208 bytes in length. Then the encrypted connection is established using the AES-256-CBC algorithm., , The strange things that characterized the story is that despite the malware researchers spotted the first samples of backdoor in January, the number of infections samples did not increase., Stefan Ortloff, the researcher with Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research and Analysis Team which identified the family of Mokes backdoor hasn’t provided details on the infection vector., The report published by Kaspersky also includes the IoC for the detection of the backdoor., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Backdoor.Linux.Mokes, MAC OS X) |
7407_77938 | The French government is promoting a series of Global Talks on cyberspace security, it urges for a “code of good conduct” for states in the cyberspace., Events such as the interference in the 2016 Presidential election or massive attacks like WannaCry and NotPetya increase the sense of urgency among states., The risk of escalation and retaliation in cyberspace, the increasing number of cyber attacks and cyber threats even more sophisticated could have a destabilizing effect on international peace and security. The risk of conflict between states caused so cyber incidents encourages all States to engage in law-abiding, norm-respecting and confidence-building behavior in their use of ICT., I’m one of the authors of the G7 DECLARATION ON RESPONSIBLE STATES BEHAVIOR IN CYBERSPACE that were signed in 2017 during the Italy G7 meeting., I had the honor to be a member of the group that worked on the proposal for voluntary, non-binding norms of State behavior during peacetime. We presented 12 points aimed to propose stability and security in the cyberspace. The declaration invites all the States to collaborate with the intent to reduce risks to international peace, security, and stability., The decision of the French government aims to relaunch the discussion of the adoption of a framework for norms of state behavior in the cyberspace, a sort of prosecution of the work started last year during the G7 meeting., “Officials said the text, to be presented by President Emmanuel Macron as he opens UNESCO’s Internet Governance Forum in Paris on Monday, has been signed by most European countries.” reads the press release published by AFP., During the G7 meeting emerged the need to open the discussion to other states, including China, Russia, and India., Now China, Russia, and the United States have not yet joined to the initiative, even if major firms and organizations like Microsoft and the NGO Internet Society believe that a supplementary effort is essential to define the framework., “The identity and number of signatories are to be released later Monday, following a lunch hosted at the Elysee Palace by Macron for dozens of technology executives and officials.” continues the AFP., “To respect people’s rights and protect them online as they do in the physical world, states must work together, but also collaborate with private-sector partners, the world of research and civil society,” , Security in the cyberspace could be improved only through the active participation of any government, for this reason, it is urgent the definition and the approval in a mandatory way of a set of shared roles. The work we made during the G7 was an excellent starting point for further discussions on a global scale., “It’s a domain that is managed, but not governed,” an adviser to Macron said, warning that a “free, open and secure” internet risked quickly becoming a thing of the past., Let me close with a polemical note, in Italy the G7 group that has worked to the declaration has been dismantled and no action has been taken anymore., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Cyberspace security, France) |
3823_47929 | Once again bad news for Lenovo users, the company is informing them that the Lenovo Accelerator Application contains a high-risk vulnerability that could be exploited by hackers to remotely execute code on the machine and take over it., The Lenovo Accelerator Application is an application preloaded on Lenovo computers that the vendor suggests removing due to the presence of the flaw., The Lenovo Accelerator Application was designed by Lenovo to speed up the launch of its applications., The flaw was reported by security experts from the Duo Security firm that assessed OEM software update tools from five PC manufacturers, Acer, ASUSTeK Computer, Lenovo, Dell and HP ., The analysis, titled “Out-of-Box Exploitation – A Security Analysis of OEM Updaters” revealed that all of them had at least one serious flaw that could be exploited by hackers to compromise the system., Researchers at Duo Security discovered that the flaw resides in the update component of the Lenovo Accelerator Application, so called LiveAgent. The LiveAgent does not use encrypted connections when contact and download the updates from the company servers. Another issue highlighted by the researchers is that LiveAgent does not validate the authenticity of the updates through digital signatures of the binaries., , , An attacker can exploit the lack of encryption for communications to launch a MiTM attack and serve to the LiveAgent malicious files instead the legitimate updates., The lack of signature validation is one of the most common problems discovered during the study., “Lenovo recommends customers uninstall Lenovo Accelerator Application by going to the ‘Apps and Features’ application in Windows 10, selecting Lenovo Accelerator Application and clicking on ‘Uninstall’,” states a security advisory issued by Lenovo., Lenovo will release as soon as possible a System Update removal utility soon order to solve the issue., Unfortunately, the study demonstrates that is it quite common to discover serious security issues in the support tools and third-party applications preloaded by vendors in their PCs., If you appreciate my effort in spreading cyber security awareness, please vote for Security Affairs as best European Security Blog. Vote SecurityAffairs in every section it is reported. I’m one of the finalists and I want to demonstrate that the Security Affairs community a great reality., Thank you, Pierluigi, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Lenovo Accelerator Application, hacking) |
6681_72424 | The database included personal information for over 825,000 subscribers and partners., Leaked records include logins, email addresses, password hashes, server names, domain names, IP addresses, sub accounts, software settings, and payment settings information (we did not see any credit card data) for both individual subscribers and partners., iVideon is a multi-platform solution that allows subscribers to aggregate, access, view over the Internet, and record locally or to iVideon’s secure cloud storage, nearly any Internet capable CCTV camera, DVR system, baby monitor, web cam, nanny cam, or even phone, computer, and tablet cameras., Below the tables included in the MongoDB archive:, The experts reported their discovery to firm that promptly took the archive down., According to iVideon the server was used for load testing of our auth APIs in Feb 2016, in 2017 the testing policy has been revised, so that such kind of security issues won’t happen again., The Russian firm added that the archive included password hashes using the Bcrypt algorithm that is considered secure., “The DB was populated with accounts & devices of several hundreds of Ivideon users marked for participation in beta-testing (Ivideon employees & external early adopters, mostly from Russia), copied multiple times to simulate some growth scenarios.” states the reply from iVideon shared by Kromtech Security., “User info only included email, IP address and password hashes produced by a strong Bcrypt algorithm. No information related to payments, usage stats or means of getting access to user’s private data was present in the compromised DB. Partner data seen in the DB was real, containing only partner companies’ names and UI settings for their apps.”, The company was also the victim of an attack, hackers tried to blackmail it, unfortunately, attackers have left no info in the logs. Crooks demanded a .2 bitcoin ransom, the wallet they used received two payments probably made by other victims of the gang., iVideon believes that exposed data do not pose a threat to its users or partners and downplayed the incident., Kromtech Security applauded the company for its rapid response to the incident., “We also definitely agree that one should not pay ransom in cases such as this, we’ve seen that it’s nothing but a scam. Their ability to quickly ascertain that only some of the deleted data was real and that aggregate traffic statistics on a router prove to them that it was not stolen will come as a relief to those who had real data in that database.” concluded Kromtech Security., “Those users should also be pleased to know that they solved this issue in 2017 so that the data we found this year won’t be found again.”, Kromtech experts confirmed that data included in the archive appeared to be legitimate., The researchers noticed that after they discovered and reported it to iVideon, and prior to the company taking it down, this database was compromised in the same fashion., , Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – privacy, data leak), , |
4419_52723 | Yesterday I was writing about the possibility to hack an Apple device just by opening an image or a PDF, today I desire to inform you that the Keen team at Mobile Pwn2Own contest has hacked a Nexus 6P in five minutes., Yes, you’ve got it right!, The Keen hackers compromised Nexus 6P using a malware that doesn’t request user interaction, and the entire attack lasted less than five minutes., This year two teams have participated the competition, the Tencent Keen Security Lab Team, and Robert Miller and Georgi Geshev from MWR Labs., The hackers of the Keen Team won US$102,500 in prizes for this hack, overall price for the various hacks is US$375,000 that will be assigned by the Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative. The team also received 29 Master of Pwn points for the exploit., Maybe first Nexus 6p remote pwn in the world?Good job @flanker_hqd @dmxcsnsbh #MP2O pic.twitter.com/twPFj9FLsP, — KEENLAB (@keen_lab) 26 ottobre 2016, , The researchers exploited a combination of two vulnerabilities and other Android security issues. The Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) awarded them $102,500 and 29 Master of Pwn points for the hack., In the contest hackers will target a wide range of devices, including Nexus 6P, Apple iPhone 6S, and Samsung Galaxy S7., Keen also targeted the iPhone 6S attempting to install a malicious app, but the attack was only partially successful because the application did not gain the persistence due to a default configuration setting. In this case, the hackers earned $60,000 of $125,000 for the flaw they have exploited., , The Keen Lab team earned also $52,500 and further 16 Master of Pwn points for stealing photos from an iPhone 6S via a use-after-free vulnerability in the renderer and a memory corruption bug in the sandbox. It is interesting to note that the attack was successful despite Apple has released the new version of its mobile OS, iOS 10.1 ., The second team, composed of Miller and Geshev from MWR Labs attempted to install a malicious app on a Nexus 6P, but their exploit was stable due to a recent improvement in the Chrome browser., Of the overall payout of $375,000, researchers earned $215,000., It is important to praise the spirit of these experts that participated to the Mobile Pwn2Own 2016. Selling their exploits to intelligence agencies or to a zero-day broker firm, they would earn much more., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Mobile Pwn2Own, hacking) |
3242_43486 | Security Affairs has shown me the way to a more secure online life Not only do they post great tips regarding how to take care of your computer, they provide one with information as to what is going on in the world. You can see trends forming just by reading their headlines. After this article you should take a look at this piece about a potential Christmas attack on gaming., Cybersecurity is one the world’s largest growing concerns, given that there are billions of dollars and the personal safety of half the world’s people on the line. Massive cyberattacks on large corporations or bodies of people constituted a large chunk of the news cycle, and as the year draws to a close, we can only expect that this trend will continue or even grow., Yet some threats are more immediately concerning than others, and trends indicate that certain types of problems are going to grow in either frequency or potential damage. You need to know what these are and how you can protect yourself as best you can. It usually isn’t too difficult, and preparation pays many times back its time investment., Here are some of the most immediately concerning threats of 2016:, Public Networks, The likelihood is that you read something about the dangers of unprotected public networks on last year’s version of this information. It still remains important, because little has changed on this front. Most public networks still lack the protections to guarantee the safety of your private data. All an amateur hacker has to do is connect to the same network (and they can easily disguise themselves as a normal user right next to you in a coffee shop) and activate a “sniffer” program. They can then intercept everything you send and receive over the network, and the value of your data isn’t going to change overnight., To prevent yourself from becoming a victim faster than you can say “identity theft,” you will want to get yourself a Virtual Private Network (VPN). A VPN is a service that will connect your computer to an offsite secure server and encrypt your connection no matter what network you are using. People have been using them to stay safe on public networks for years and they’ll be using them in 2016. The other main security benefit is that they keep your IP address hidden so that you can avoid tracking by many organizations, access sites that might be blocked overseas such as Netflix and even get by government censorship. They are one of the best tools you can acquire for your cybersecurity., , Corporate Data Leaks, Ashley Madison and the aftermath of the Sony attacks got all of the press in 2015, but they likely didn’t affect you too much. What might have affected you, however, was an attack on Anthem (the second largest U.S. health insurance company) that was the crowning point in a trend of healthcare data breaches. Vtech’s slipup released the information of hundreds of thousands of children and millions of others. Experian lost the data of 15 million T-Mobile customers. The list goes on. Hackers are not going to let up in 2016 when they are having this much success taking and selling corporate data., You need to be cautious about what companies you share your information with. You can control your own online security habits, but once someone else has your data, you can’t usually take it back. Companies like to cut costs, and cybersecurity is usually considered a necessary evil instead of a duty and responsibility. This year let your dollar do your talking for you and start asking questions of the companies you already use., Government Attacks, North Korea or Iran aren’t likely to attack you personally. If they possibly could, then you probably know all you need to about online security and know what is coming your way. What you need to be more concerned about are increased online surveillance and state-sponsored cyberattacks on the institutions that allow your day to go smoothly. Your data might even wind up being used as an international bargaining chip without your consent or knowledge. It is even more alarming to learn that most industrialized nations aren’t doing enough to defend their cybersecurity infrastructure., Unfortunately, these are the events and problems you are least likely to be able to prevent through your own efforts. You cannot wage a one person cyberwar on China, as much as you might want to. The best things you as an individual can do are contact your government and lobby for a stronger defense posture when it comes to technology. You should also keep abreast of the news and take note of whether you might be under surveillance, whether from your own government or a foreign power. Err on the side of caution when acting online. That habit will help you in 2016., Mobile Malware and Infiltration, Have you met somebody that no longer has a computer and only uses their smartphone to handle their daily online tasks? Even if you haven’t, you have to admit that the concept doesn’t sound so foreign to you now. People are using smartphones more than ever, and hackers took notice years ago. They started to develop sophisticated mobile malware and intrusion techniques to steal sensitive data off of your phone, and they are starting to perfect it. 2016 is possibly going to be the year of mobile malware., You need to start taking your smartphone’s security more seriously if you aren’t already protecting it. Having a good case and a verification screen are not enough anymore. You ideally should have multiple verification measures and a well-reviewed security application for your type of smartphone. You need to be wary of what websites you visit with your phone much how you are cautious with your computer. Caution and vigilance will be the keys to your data’s integrity and your smartphone’s survival., Threats will only grow stronger as time marches onward into a more technologically complex landscape, but the tools to we to defend ourselves will meet the challenge head on and prove themselves more than capable to the task. All we have to do is prepare our own devices and minds for what is coming ahead. Your enjoyment of the internet does not need to come under threat this coming year. Have confidence in yourself and your follow internet denizens., Please help spread this important information with those you know need it the most. Share it on social media or show this article to your friends and family. Lead by example in your own life. Make it your main resolution to lock down your devices and stay vigilant. Thank you for reading, and may you have a wonderful year., About the Author Jen Martinson, Jen Martinson – Editor-in-Chief Secure Thoughts, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – SCADA , BlackEnergy malware) |
5642_62489 | Loopia confirmed the data breach yesterday, the incident has happened on August 22 and the company notified customers on August 25., The company explained that the delay in the public disclosure was necessary to secure the systems and protect its customers., “Security is very important to Loopia and something we work intensively with every day. On Tuesday, 22 August, Loopia was subjected to a criminal offense. With the attack, the hackers have had access to parts of the customer database, including personal and contact information and encrypted (hashade) passwords to Loopia Kundzon.” reads the announcement.
“The violation has not affected your services such as email, web pages, databases or passwords to your email at Loopia. We also want to emphasize that payment card information is not saved in Loopia’s environment and is thus not affected by the infringement.“, In response to the data breach, the company is forcing a password reset and is urging customers to update their personal information. Loopia clarified that stolen passwords were encrypted, but did not reveal the hashing algorithm., “Although passwords to Loopia’s Customer Zone are stored encrypted (hashade), we have, as an additional security measure, changed all customer numbers and passwords to all customer accounts. Information has been sent to all customers by e-mail.” continues the announcement., Source nyteknik.se, Hackers did not access financial data, according to Loopia customers’ hosted sites and e-mail services weren’t compromised., “We were not sure how the attackers had gone, and needed a clearer picture of it before we went out with information. Now all customers have been informed. As an additional security measure, we have changed all customer numbers and passwords to all customer accounts”. CEO Jimmie Eriksson told Swedish outlet NyTeknik., “We will evaluate whether we could have done otherwise. We then made great efforts in a short period of time. We take the intrusion seriously, but no system is safe to 100 percent”, At the time there is no information on the way hackers breached the company systems, an internal investigation is under way., “An internal investigation is under way. In parallel, we will continue to review our systems. We have already implemented a number of measures to increase security, and more efforts may be made if the investigation shows more weaknesses in the system.” said CEO Jimmie Eriksson., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – cybercrime, Data Breach) |
462_11834 | Earlier this month is has been spread the news that South Korea is investing to improve the cyber capabilities of the country recruiting and training hackers to involve in the cyber defense due the increasing number of attacks suffered., A cyber attack hit recently the presidential transition team, in particular the press rooms server, but real extent of the damage caused by the event was not determined according the, Yonhap News Agency reports. The authorities has identified the servers used by the attackers, 17 units were located in 10 foreign countries and 2 systems have been found within the country.
One of the servers was constantly connected to an IP address of the Joson Telecommunication Company, an affiliate of North Korea’s Posts and Telecommunications Ministry. North Korean cyber units are accused also for another attack that last year in June hit conservative JoongAng Ilbo, a newspaper published in South Korea that is considered one of the big three newspapers of the country with an edition of 1.96 million copies. The popular paper also publishes an English edition, Korea JoongAng Daily, in partnership with the English International Herald Tribune., The news has been provided by the National Police Agency’s Cyber Terror Response Center, the cyber division of the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA), operated within the Agency’s Investigation Bureau, that verified the origin of the attack against the newspaper’s website., The security specialists form South traced back the attack to an IP address at North Korea’s Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, the address was used repeatedly by the hackers to access to daily’s main server since a couple of months before the attacks, probably for cyber espionage purpose., The National Police Agency’s Cyber Terror Response Center declared:, “The first hacking attack on the server was nearly timed with the North Korean Army’s warning on April 23 last year of provocation that a ‘revolutionary force will take action soon,'” “It seems that the North made meticulous preparations once it singled out a particular media outlet for the cyber attack.” , The hackers gained the access to the administrator’s pc of the journal on June 7th and accessed to production environment two days later, defacing the front end of the Korea JoongAng with a picture of a white cat grinning and covering its mouth with the words, “Hacked by IsOne,” flashing beneath the picture., The effect of the attacks was serious, it succeeded to blog the production of the paper, the Cyber Terror Response Center of the National Police Agency explained that their investigation was very difficult because the hackers wiped out entire system., The North Korea, one of the most active countries in the cyber space, is not new to similar offensives, it launched a couple of large DDoS attacks on various targets in South Korea on July 7, 2009 on government website and on March 4th, 2011, state sponsored hackers also attacked Nonghyup Bank’s computer systems and accessed to e-mail accounts of students and alumni of Korea University., During the attack occurred on July 7th, 435 different servers in 61 countries were used to conduct a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against South Korean government Internet sites, meanwhile in the offensive of 2011, March 4th, the DDoS hit state institutions such as the presidential office, the National Assembly and media media., The national Police also succeeded to trace the origin of the DDoS attack, 17 servers used in the offensive are located in 10 in 10 countries overseas and one them has been also involved in the attack occurred in 2011 on Nonghyup Bank., The malware used were the same that had been used in the DDoS attacks in July 2009 and in the hacking of the Korea University e-mail accounts. North Korea is considered a country with considerable hacking capabilities, According US official declarations North Korea has added new sophisticated cyber weapons to its arsenal causing much concern in political and military., The professor Lee Dong hoon at the Center for Information Security Technologies at Korean University in Seoul declared that North Korea has been preparing for cyber warfare since the late 1980s and ranks third worldwide in this field after Russia and the US., North Korea has the highest percentage of military personnel in relation to population than any other nation in the world, with approximately 40 enlisted soldiers per 1000 people with a considerable impact on the economy of the country., A defector has declared that North Korea has increased its cyber warfare unit to staff 3,000 people and it is massive training its young prodigies to become professional hackers., Intelligence sources in South Korea believe that the Nation has a large a cyber force that responds to the command of the country’s top intelligence agency, the General Reconnaissance Bureau that is responsible for collecting strategic, operational, and tactical intelligence for the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces., According the revelation of Army General James Thurman, the commander of US Forces Korea, the government of Pyongyang is massive investing in cyber warfare capabilities, recruiting and forming high skilled team of hackers. The groups will could be engaged in offensive cyber operation against hostile government and in cyber espionage activities., The central government reserves for young hackers several incentives providing best tools on the market and providing living conditions for them and their families extremely advantageous. The importance assigned to the professional development of new cyber military is indicative of the perception of how the cyber warfare is strategic for the nation., Last year in internet have been published satellite photos of the area that is suspected to host North Korea’s ‘No. 91 Office’, a unit based in the Mangkyungdae-district of Pyongyang dedicated to computer hacking, its existence was revealed in a seminar on cyber terror in Seoul., , North Korea is a little states that due its cyber capabilities and the affinity with Chinese PLA it could scare the West, we are in the cyber era and every body could became, through the proper investment and political choice, a giant., Pierluigi Paganini, 2013/01/18 UPDATE, , The presidential transition team that Thursday blamed North Korean hackers for an attack on its press room now says there was no hacking. It all appears to have been a misunderstanding., Reporting on the reversal, Yonhap quoted an official on the team as saying the allegations stemmed from a disconnect in communications within the team., “Security authorities had asked the administrative office of the transition committee to advise reporters to use antivirus programs and change passwords often as the press room is vulnerable to outside hacking attempts,” spokesman Yoon Chang-jung said., “There was some misunderstanding in the course of delivering this,” he said. — Yonhap News, January 17, 2013., So in warning of a potential hacking attack, the message seems to have been misunderstood as a report of an actual hack., The spokesman declined to say if there was any hacking attempt at all. – Yonhap News, January 17, 2013. |
3160_42937 | It may help the fact that Facebook is leaving Flash behind and it is adopting HTML5 (YouTube has done in the a recent past)., “We recently switched to HTML5 from a Flash-based video player for all Facebook web video surfaces, including videos in News Feed, on Pages, and in the Facebook embedded video player. We are continuing to work together with Adobe to deliver a reliable and secure Flash experience for games on our platform, but have shipped the change for video to all browsers by default.” States the announcement issued by Facebook., “From development velocity to accessibility features, HTML5 offers a lot of benefits. Moving to HTML5 best enables us to continue to innovate quickly and at scale, given Facebook’s large size and complex needs.”, We are big supporters of the HTML5 since it eliminates the weakest link in the user environment and in terms of development, it makes the job easier for developers., , Facebook explains the benefits of HTML5 that they will be using:, Development velocity, “Using web technologies allows us to tap into the excellent tooling that exists in browsers, among the open source community, and at Facebook in general. Not having to recompile code and being able to apply changes directly in the browser allow us to move fast.”, Testability, “We have an excellent testing infrastructure at Facebook. By moving to HTML5 video, we can avail ourselves of all the web tools in that infrastructure, like jest and WebDriver, at our disposal.”, Accessibility, “HTML5 made it possible for us to build a player that is fully accessible to screen readers and keyboard input. We can leverage the accessibility tools that HTML5 provides to make it easier for people with visual impairments to use our products. Making Facebook accessible to everyone is an important part of our mission to make the world more open and connected.”, When doing such a big move, there are challenges that needs to be overcome, and Facebook is no exception, and for that reason Facebook needed to:, Getting logging right, “To ensure logging correctness, we created a test suite that performs the same user-interaction scenarios against both video players and then validates that the logs are equivalent. This way we had high confidence in the data that our new HTML5 video player reports.”, Browser bugs, “One of the major issues we wanted to solve before shipping the HTML5 player was the number of bugs in various browsers around HTML5 videos. One specific bug in Chrome’s implementation of the SPDY protocol caused the browser to simply stop loading and playing videos in News Feed. We determined that the issue was triggered by loading too many videos concurrently, so we reduced the number of videos we load at the same time and make sure we cancel loading videos as soon as they are no longer required.”, Worse performance in older browsers, “In theory, most browsers in use support HTML5 video. However, in practice we noticed that a lot of the older browsers would simply perform worse using the HTML5 player than they had with the old Flash player. We saw more errors, longer loading times, and a generally worse experience. We decided to initially launch the HTML5 player to only a small set of browsers, and continuously roll out to more browsers, versions, and operating systems as we improved it and fixed small bugs. That’s why we waited until recently to ship the HTML5 player to all browsers by default, with the exception of a small set of them.”, Page load time regression, “The last major issue we faced while launching the HTML5 player was a regression in the time it takes to load Facebook. At Facebook, we care about the experience we provide to people. How long Facebook takes to load is a contributing factor we look at to gauge user experience. When we shipped the HTML5 player, we noticed that on average it took slightly longer for Facebook to load. By fixing several small performance regressions and making multiple micro-optimizations, we finally reached a level we felt happy with shipping.”, As said before, this can be a huge improvement for the user but also for the developers. On the user side, they will have an improved video experience, videos will start playing faster which is good., It is good that big companies like Facebook and Google are adopting HTML5 forcing sooner or later other websites to switch to HTML5, making everyone a bit safer., About the Author Elsio Pinto, Edited by Pierluigi Paganini, , (Security Affairs – HTML5, Flash) |
5924_65318 | Security experts at McAfee observed the Russian APT group APT28 using the recently reported the DDE technique to deliver malware in targeted attacks., The cyber spies were conducting a cyber espionage campaign that involved blank documents whose name referenced the recent terrorist attack in New York City., “During our monitoring of activities around the APT28 threat group, McAfee Advanced Threat Research analysts identified a malicious Word document that appears to leverage the Microsoft Office Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) technique that has been previously reported by Advanced Threat Research. This document likely marks the first observed use of this technique by APT28.” reported McAfee., The Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) is a protocol designed to allow data transferring between applications, attackers have devised a method to achieve the execution of malicious code embedded in Office documents without user’s interaction by using DDE., The DDE protocol allows an Office application to load data from another Office application, it was replaced by Microsoft with Object Linking and Embedding (OLE), but it is still supported., The DDE technique was implemented by several threat actors such as the FIN7 APT group in DNSMessenger malware attacks, and the operators behind the Hancitor malware campaign spotted and detailed by Internet Storm Center (ISC) handler Brad Duncan., Recently the technique was used by threat actors behind the Necurs botnet to deliver the Locky ransomware., Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn’t plan to introduce security countermeasures to mitigate the DDE attack because the tech giant considers the feature as legit., In the recent campaign conducted by APT28, hackers used a document referencing the New York City attack to deliver the first-stage payload tracked as Seduploader., The Seduploader malware, also known as GAMEFISH backdoor, Sednit, JHUHUGIT and Sofacy, is a strain of malware that has been already used by the threat actor in other campaigns against NATO representatives., The Seduploader is a reconnaissance malware that was used for years by APT28, it is composed of 2 files: a dropper and a payload., The malware is downloaded from a remote server using PowerShell commands, experts, The analysis of the malware and command and control (C&C) domains used in the campaign revealed the campaign involving DDE started on October 25., According to the experts, the recent attacks are part of a campaign that also involved documents referencing Saber Guardian, a multinational military exercise involving approximately 25,000 military personnel from over 20 participating nations. The military exercise was conducted by the U.S. Army in Eastern Europe in an effort to deter an invasion (by Russia) into NATO territory., , Just two week ago, researchers with Cisco Talos have spotted another cyber espionage campaign conducted by the APT28 group targeting individuals with spear-phishing messages using documents referencing a NATO cybersecurity conference., The hackers targeted individuals with a specific interest in the CyCon US cybersecurity conference organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) in collaboration with the Army Cyber Institute at West Point on November 7-8 in Washington, D.C., “APT28 is a resourceful threat actor that not only capitalizes on recent events to trick potential victims into infections, but can also rapidly incorporate new exploitation techniques to increase its success. Given the publicity the Cy Con U.S campaign received in the press, it is possible APT28 actors moved away from using the VBA script employed in past actions and chose to incorporate the DDE technique to bypass network defenses.” concluded McAfee. “Finally, the use of recent domestic events and a prominent US military exercise focused on deterring Russian aggression highlight APT28’s ability and interest in exploiting geopolitical events for their operations.”, , Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – DDE attack, cyber espionage) |
3431_44860 | The German Interior Ministry has approved the use a spyware developed by the German Federal Criminal Police, aka the ‘federal Trojan’ or Bundestrojaner, for the investigative purpose., “Soon the state could re-enter the computer of suspicious citizens. The Bundeskriminalamt has had to develop their own Trojan horse that should receive the application approval in the coming weeks, as the Germany radio has been confirmed. The Chaos Computer Club and Green remain skeptical whether the new software meets the requirements of the Federal Constitutional Court.” reports the Deutschlandfunk., The German Federal Criminal Police completed the development of the malware in autumn 2015, it allows investigators to spy on suspects’ phone calls, emails, chats, and access files and sensitive data stored on the mobile devices. The federal Trojan is also able to record video or audio from the surrounding environment., The authorities can now use the federal Trojan under a court order, the spyware could be used in any investigation on individuals involved in a crime threatening citizens’ “life, limb or liberty.”, Experts from the German Chaos Computer Club (CCC) expressed their concern for the Federal Trojan, Frank Rieger, a spokesman for the organizations, highlights the abilities of the malware of setting up a video or audio surveillance., In 2011, the experts at Chaos Computer Club analyzed another sample of the Federal Trojan. The experts discovered that the spyware had the ability to set up a backdoor on the suspect’s machine and spy on surround environment via camera and microphone., , The ministers of several German states admitted the use of the malware and explained that the malware analyzed by the CCC was a beta version of a spyware created by the German firm DigiTask. The spyware was rejected by authorities because it implemented many surveillance operations instead the only telecommunication surveillance., The experts at CCC speculates that the so-called Federal Trojan is dangerous for citizens, in fact, it could be easy that also innocent users fall victims of the surveillance activities operated by the authorities., Another aspect highlighted by privacy advocates is the way such kind of malware is developed, the authors of the spyware need to access zero-day exploit to compromise suspects’ devices, but this implies that authorities will not share such knowledge within the IT community putting citizens at risk., The Deutschlandfunk also confirmed that German police also use other spyware, including the infamous FinFisher malware developed by Gamma International., “The Bundeskriminalamt had a software ordered parallel to the self-development even in a controversial company to source telecommunication surveillance. According to the BKA, the adaptation of the product is FinFisher the German-British company Elaman / Gamma International is not yet complete, however, is to be promoted following the own development.” states Deutschlandfunk., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Federal Trojan, law enforcement) |
1289_26030 | On June 16, Amazon decided to stop providing DNS hosting service to HKU POP and UDomain withdrew its security protection service. Cloudflare is now the only service provider to support the voting system., Cloudflare confirms that the company network was able to drain the malicious traffic on PopVote website, it has set up a series of DNS sinkholes to track malicious sources involved in the attack., “Since we had advanced warning the attack was coming, we’d put in place measures to sinkhole traffic in certain regions so it never hit our network,” Prince added., , Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – PopVote, DDoS) |
3351_44295 | The security researcher Benjamin Kunz Mejri from Vulnerability Laboratory has discovered an authentication bypass-sized hole in both iPhones and iPads running iOS 8 and iOS 9 that can be exploited by attackers to thwart lock screen passcode., This threat is real people, there is a video of it and documentation available online. It’s all pretty technical but the upshot is the vulnerability lets an attacker bypass the lockscreen on handsets running iOS 8 and iOS 9., It is important to highlight that the attacker requires physical access to an unlocked iOS device, for this reason the threat is considered not so critical., “An application update loop that results in a pass code bypass vulnerability has been discovered in the official Apple iOS (iPhone5&6|iPad2) v8.x, v9.0, v9.1 & v9.2. The security vulnerability allows local attackers to bypass pass code lock protection of the apple iphone via an application update loop issue. The issue affects the device security when processing to request a local update by an installed mobile ios web-application.” states the technical description published by the vulnerability-lab.com., The attacker can bring the iOS devices into an unlimited loop resulting in a temporarily deactivate of the pass code lock screen., “Local attacker can trick the iOS device into a mode were a runtime issue with unlimited loop occurs. This finally results in a temporarily deactivate of the pass code lock screen. By loading the loop with remote app interaction we was able to stable bypass the auth of an iphone after the reactivation via shutdown button. The settings of the device was permanently requesting the pass code lock on interaction. Normally the pass code lock is being activated during the shutdown button interaction. In case of the loop the request shuts the display down but does not activate the pass code lock like demonstrated in the attached poc security video.”, , The issue could be triggered by powering off the iOS device, upon reboot the passcode authentication feature remains disabled, allowing an attacker to access the device without providing the passcode., , The advisory describes the following attack scenario:, Kunz reported the vulnerability to the Apple Product Security Team in late 2015, but at the time I was writing the issue is still present., Are you an iOS user? You should be careful when leaving the mobile device unattended., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – iOS device, hacking) |
5639_62458 | SAP POS is client-server technology that belongs to the SAP for Retail line-up, it is widely adopted, it has been estimated that it is used by 80 per cent of the retailers in the Forbes Global 2000., The discovery was made by researchers at firm ERPScan that presented the hack at the Hack in the Box hacking conference held in Singapore last week., , The attackers can exploit the vulnerability to steal customer’s card data and gain full control over the server., “Once you are in, you have unlimited control over the backend and front-end of the POS system, as the tool can upload a malicious configuration file on the SAP POS Xpress Server without any authentication procedure.” reads a security advisory published by ERPScan. , “New parameters are limited by hackers’ imagination: they can set special price or discount, the time the discount is valid, the conditions under which it works – for example, when purchasing a specific product. In our case, we set up an incredible discount to a MacBook.”, Attackers can provide Xpress Server new settings and apply them by sending certain commands to the Xpress server so that it restarts a POS terminal. Then the PoS terminal downloads the attacker’s configurations and applies them., The company reported the issue to SAP in April, according to the experts the SAP POS Xpress Server fails the authentication checks for critical functionality., This means that privileged functions could be accessed without any authentication., , “The vulnerabilities enable remote starting and stopping POS terminals,” states the analysis from ERPScan. “An attacker can remotely turn off all POS terminals within a merchant. Such DoS attack can be very costly for big retailers.”, The vulnerability could be exploited to record credit card number data and send them directly to a hacker’s server., Unfortunately, similar problems affect many POS systems with equivalent architectures., All vulnerabilities in SAP POS Retail Xpress Server have been addressed by SAP, organizations need to install the appropriate patches (SAP Security Note 2476601 and SAP Security Note 2520064) as soon as possible to protect their systems. |
211_5361 | The experts of Trusteer firm have discovered a new variant Zeus malware responsible of a series of attacks against principal internet service providers. The variant carried out attacks using the P2P network architecture targeting users of Facebook, Hotmail and Yahoo and Google Mail., The Zeus Trojan is one of most notourios malware that we have found in several cases, we can consider it as one of the better products of the malware industry. The malware is really appreciated by cyber criminals that have improved its feature over the months. Zeus Trojan is born as an agent able to steal banking information by logging keystrokes and form grabbing, it is spread mainly through phishing and drive-by downloads schemes., With an eye on the malware distribution model and support services, commonly referred to as “software-as-a-service”, I point out the ZeuS offshoot, Citadel, to true web store advertised on several members-only forums that proposed malicious hackers developments ., Recently I reported the news on the commercial distrubution of the famous Zeus Trojan, a malware designed as an open project that can be customized with new features to meet customer demands. Consider that the several Zeus botnets are estimated to include millions of compromised computers (around 3.6 million in the United States). As of October 28, 2009 over 1.5 million phishing messages sent on Facebook Were with the purpose of spreading the Zeus’ Trojan . Regarding ZeuS diffusion I suggest the consultation of the web site that provides updated statistics on the localizzation of the Command&Control servers of the botnet based on the agent. Between the huge quantity of statistics presents I have found a couple of issue that I consider really indicative the Average Antivirus detection rate (last 60 days) and the list of the Top C&C servers., , The principle used to trick unsuspecting users is simple, the cyber criminals behind the malware with the intent to steal user’s debit card data, have offered discounted product through the famous platform. The malware relies on the psychological conditioning of the user that seeing attractive discounts offered on the famous platforms is pushed to believe them as genuine., The scams exploit the trust relationship between users and these well-known service providers, as well as the Visa and MasterCard brands, to steal users’ debit card data. Let’s in details the features of the principal attacks observed., The malware variant that hit Facebook uses a web injection mechanism to propose to the victim a special price reduced of 20% for purchases made with Visa or MasterCard debit card using their Facebook account. The scam promises in fact that after registering debit card information, the victim will earn cash back when they purchase Facebook points., Of course to the user is proposed a form for the registration of debit card info that is equivalent to a legitimate one also in term of proposed layout., , A transaction using Verified by Visa/SecureCode will initiate a redirect to the website of the card issuing bank to authorize the transaction. Each issuer could use any kind of authentication method (the protocol does not cover this) but typically, a password-based method is used, so to effectively buy on the Internet means using a password tied to the card., Different schema has been implemented in the attacks against Hotmail, Google Mail and Yahoo users, in this cases Zeus variant offers an new way of authenticating to the 3D Secure service offered by the Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode programs., 3-D Secure is an XML-based protocol designed to be an added layer of security for online credit and debit card transactions. It was developed by Visa with the intention of improving the security of Internet payments and offered to customers as the Verified by Visa service. Services based on the protocol have also been adopted by MasterCard, under the name MasterCard SecureCode., The basic concept of the protocol is to tie the financial authorization process with an online authentication. This authentication is based on a three domain model (hence the 3-D in the name). The three domains are:, The protocol uses XML messages sent over SSL connections with client authentication (this ensures the authenticity of both peers, the server and the client, using digital certificates)., The malware operates in the phase of the online transaction used by merchants to require cardholders to authenticate using their personal 3D Secure password., In the scam that circumvents Google Mail and Yahoo users claims, the customer is convinced that linking his 3D code to the mail account making it available for future purchases. The malware propose a sort of single sign on schema, convincing the user that simply registering its data on the mail platform he wil be able to perform purchases logging to its email account using the protected services Google Checkout and Yahoo Checkout., The advantage proposed to the user is of course a secure channel for his online transactions. Also in this case is proposed to the user a fake page to collect the victim’s debit card information reporting the logos of Visa and MasterCard circuits., , , A similar schema has been adopted also against Hotmail offering a free new security service., Zeus is undoubtedly one of history’s longest-running malware used for different purposes, just remember that the dangerous malware was used to strike the hacktivists of Anonymous. On that occasion, a modified variant of the tools used in the attacks infected with Zeus malware, in this case the tool Slowloris, was spread using the standard channels as Pastbin. The hackers have copied and pasted an original entry Pastebin Anonymous Replacing the download link with an infected version. In this way the agent was extremely rapid diffusion., The example is purely demonstrative, we don’t know who is behind the hack, but what really worried about is the extensive use of malware by cybercrime an governments for operations of cyberespionage.
The approach pursued for these agents is evolutionary and permanently eradicate a threat that evolves over time in unexpected ways in the future will require an increasing effort., Pierluigi Paganini, |
3199_43196 | A team of experts composed of Sergey Gordeychik, Alexander Timorin and Gleb Gritsai of SCADA StrangeLove, recently disclosed their findings at the 32nd Chaos Communication Congress (32C3) in Germany., , Railroads belong to the critical infrastructure of a country, along with power-plants, water facilities, electric grids. The team of experts are warning of the presence of security holes in the railroad systems that open them to cyber attacks, during the Chaos Communication Congress they disclosed a long list of security issued affecting railroad systems., The experts did not mention specific trains when presented the results of their study, their presentation was focused on an overview of the security issues that potentially affect modern railroad systems., In their presentation, the team of experts detailed SIBAS, a train protection system that is widely adopted in Europe. The SIBAS used the Siemens SIMATIC components, including the WinAC RTX controller, which is designed for different purposes, such as the PC-based automation solutions. The WinAC RTX is affected by several security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers., The researchers also examined the computer-based interlocking (CBI), a signaling system designed to prevent the setting up of conflicting routes. The hacking of CBI would cause serious problems, including physical damage., , According to Sergey Gordeychik, for threat actors, “it’s absolutely easy,” to exploit these vulnerabilities, despite in some cases, the attackers would need a deep knowledge of railroad systems to exploit the flaws., Most of the problems affects automated systems in railroad networks, such as signaling components and locks, the experts highlighted the huge presence of technology in modern railway systems., The railway systems examined by the team are affected by a large number of vulnerabilities, including the lack of authentication protections, poor maintenance, operating systems and software components not updated, and of course, hard-coded passwords., The attack surface of modern railway systems is enlarging due to the presence of new solutions, including connected systems and entertainment devices., “We worked with operators for 3 years and at the beginning there was a lot of skepticism, but now they understand the threats,” Gordeychik said via email to SecurityWeek. “A lot of devices work on the same channel: like engineering equipment and user systems,” , Fortunately, there is no news of significant cyber attacks against trains and other transportation systems., “People probably hack into them,” repdet said, “but they don’t have an opportunity to conduct security research to understand,” what exactly they’re dealing with., While cyber criminals are not financially motivated in hacking such kind of systems, other illegal activities are more profitable for them, nation-state hackers could start exploring this opportunity., Cyber security of railroad systems must be a priority for any government, the risk that hackers will exploit the vulnerabilities discovered by the experts is concrete., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – modern railroad systems, hacking) |
4355_52167 | The IoT botnets represent one the most dangerous threats in the security landscape, recently we have assisted to cyber attacks powered by these infrastructures that reached magnitude never seen before., The recent DDoS attacks powered by IoT botnets hit target websites with HTTP traffic, in some cases reaching more than one million requests per second. These IoT botnets leveraged on the Mirai malware specifically designed to scan the Internet for vulnerable IoT devices., Cloudflare firm has published a report that analyzes two recent attacks that represent a sort of milestone in the DDoS attacks because the attackers switched from SYN flood- and ACK flood-based attacks at Layer 3, to HTTP-based attacks at Layer 7., The company observed the DDoS attacks through their automatic DDoS mitigation systems examining specific features of the attacks such as the number of HTTP requests per second., Cloudflare confirmed that two attacks peaked at more than 1 million HTTP requests per second. In one case the DDoS attack involved more than 52,000 IP addresses peaking at 1.75 million requests per second., , “This attack continued for 15 minutes. Multiple recent attacks had >1 Mrps and lasted for minutes.” states the report published by Cloudflare., “This particular attack peaked at 1.75 Mrps. It was composed of short HTTP requests (around 121 bytes per request), without anything unusual in the HTTP headers. The requests had a fixed Cookie header. We counted 52,467 unique IP addresses taking part in this attack.”, According to Cloudflare the attack was powered through hundreds of autonomous systems networks, the biggest sources in the Ukraine (AS15895) and Vietnam (AS45899)., Cloudflare reported also data related to a second attack that peaked at 360 Gbps and leveraged on longer HTTP requests., The attack lasted roughly one hour and was launched from 128,833 unique IP addresses, most of the attack concentrated on Frankfurt., “It’s the long payload sent after the request headers that allowed the attackers to generate substantial traffic. Since this attack we’ve seen similar events with varying parameters in the request body,” states Cloudflare.“Sometimes these attacks came as GET requests, sometimes as POST. Additionally, this particular attack lasted roughly one hour, with 128,833 unique IP addresses.”, , The analysis of the IoT devices involved in both attacks revealed that they have port 23 (telnet) open (closing connection immediately) or closed. Never filtered., The vast majority of the IoT devices from the Vietnamese networks are connected CCTV cameras, most of them having open port 80 with presenting “NETSurveillance WEB” page., What will happen in the future?, IoT devices will continue to be exploited by threat actors in the wild, “as more and more devices (fridges, fitness trackers, sleep monitors, …) are added to the Internet they’ll likely be unwilling participants in future attacks.”, It’s time to consider seriously the security of IoT devices., Pierluigi Paganini, Security Affairs – (IoT devices, IoT botnet) |
5710_63119 | Last week, Google announced that future versions of Chrome will label resources delivered via the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) as “Not secure.”, , The security improvement will be implemented starting with Chrome 63 version that is planned for release in December 2017. Google continues its effort to encourage website owners and administrators to migrate adopting HTTPS., “As part of our ongoing effort to accurately communicate the transport security status of a given page, we’re planning to label resources delivered over the FTP protocol as “Not secure”, beginning in Chrome 63 (sometime around December, 2017).” said Google software engineer Mike West., “We didn’t include FTP in our original plan, but unfortunately its security properties are actually marginally worse than HTTP (delivered in plaintext without the potential of an HSTS-like upgrade),” Google software engineer Mike West explained., According to Google, the FTP usage for top-level navigations was 0.0026% in the last month. Roughly 5% of the downloads were not conducted over HTTP/HTTPS, which could be FTP., “We didn’t include FTP in our original plan, but unfortunately its security properties are actually marginally worse than HTTP (delivered in plaintext without the potential of an HSTS-like upgrade). Given that FTP’s usage is hovering around 0.0026% of top-level navigations over the last month, and the real risk to users presented by non-secure transport, labeling it as such seems appropriate.” continues West., Google encouraged developers to follow the example of the linux kernel archives by migrating public-facing downloads from FTP to HTTPS and terminating all FTP services by the end of the year., FTP has been around since the 1980s, even if support for the SSL and TLS protocols can be added via the FTP Secure (FTPS) extension the FTPS is not supported by web browsers., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Chrome, FTP) |
5954_65627 | Once an attacker compromises a Bluetooth-enabled device, he can infect any other device on the same network., The IoT security firm Armis now reported that an estimated 15 million Amazon Echo and 5 million Google Home devices are vulnerable to BlueBorne attack., “Following the disclosure of the BlueBorne attack vector this past September, Armis discovered that critical Bluetooth vulnerabilities impact the Amazon Echo and Google Home. These new IoT voice-activated Personal Assistants join the extensive list of affected devices.” reads the blog post published by Armis. , “Personal Assistants are rapidly expanding throughout the home and workplace, with an estimated 15 million Amazon Echo and 5 million Google Home devices sold. Since these devices are unmanaged and closed sourced, users are unaware of the fact their Bluetooth implementation is based on potentially vulnerable code borrowed from Linux and Android.”, The researchers highlighted that other Echo devices running Linux or Android operating systems are affected by other Blueborne vulnerabilities., Google Home devices are affected only by the CVE-2017-0785 vulnerability that is an information disclosure flaw in Android’s Bluetooth stack., The voice-activated personal assistants are constantly listening to Bluetooth communications, an attacker within the range of the vulnerable IoT device can easily hack them., “These devices are constantly listening to Bluetooth communications. There is no way to put an agent/antivirus on these devices. And given their limited UI, there is no way to turn their Bluetooth off” continues the blog post., Experts from Armis published a video proof-of-concept (PoC) to show how to hack an Amazon Echo device., , Armis reported the issues to both Amazon and Google that have released patches and issued automatic updates for the affected problems., Amazon Echo users can check that their devices are using a version that is newer than v591448720., “The Amazon Echo and Google Home are the better examples as they were patched, and did not need user interaction to update. However, the vast bulk of IoT devices cannot be updated. However, even the Echos and the Homes will eventually be replaced by new hardware versions (as Amazon and Google recently announced), and eventually the old generations will not receive updates – potentially leaving them susceptible to attacks indefinitely.” concluded Armis., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Bluetooth hacking, BlueBorne attack) |
4546_53824 | We have written a lot about the Mirai botnet after the clamorous attacks against the Dyn DNS service and the OVH hosting, it is a dangerous threat that was designed to target IoT devices that could be used to power massive DDoS attacks., The Mirai botnet is becoming very popular in the criminal underground, so it is natural that crooks started offering it as a DDoS hire service to other cyber criminals., The hackers Popopret and BestBuy are offering a DDoS-for-hire service leveraging a Mirai botnet composed of around 400,000 compromised devices., We recognize BestBuy as the author of the GovRAT malware that offered the source code of his threat, including a code-signing digital certificate, for nearly 4.5 Bitcoin on the TheRealDeal black market., Popopret was linked by experts from threat intelligence firm InfoArmor to Bestbuy, the researchers pointed out that Bestbuy started using also the moniker “Popopret.”, The RAT was delivered through spear-phishing and drive-by downloads attacks. Among the victims, government and military organizations. Stolen data from military organizations were also offered for sale on the black market., Catalin Cimpanu from Bleeping Computer published an interesting post that confirms that the two monikers Popopret and BestBuy (it is not clear if they are the same person) are renting access to a Mirai botnet composed of more than 400,000 infected bots, the largest one till date offered for rent., “Two hackers are renting access to a massive Mirai botnet, which they claim has more than 400,000 infected bots, ready to carry out DDoS attacks at anyone’s behest.” wrote Cimpanu., This botnet offered by Popapret and BestBuy represents an evolution of the original Mirai botnet because it included new features like SSH supported brute-force attacks to exploit zero-day vulnerabilities., The experts at the Bleepingcomputer highlighted the fact that this Mirai botnet isn’t cheap because Popopret requests its customers to rent it for a minimum period of two weeks., “Price is determined by amount of bots (more bots more money), attack duration (longer = more money), and cooldown time (longer = discount),” Popopret told Bleeping Computer., Customers could get a discount if they rent the Mirai botnet for long DDoS cooldown time, which is the time between two consecutive DDoS attacks., “DDoS botnets use cooldown times to avoid maxing out connections, filling and wasting bandwidth, but also preventing devices from pinging out and disconnecting during prolonged attack waves.” reported BleepingComputer., Popopret provided an example of price for this Mirai Botnet, 50,000 bots with attack duration of 3600 secs (1 hour) and 5-10 minute cooldown time goes for roughly 3-4k per 2 weeks. The experts highlighted that the service is very expensive., The botnet is controlled through a console hidden on the Tor network that could be accessed via Telnet., Source: Bleeping Computer, The hackers Popopret and BestBuy declined to run a test in order to show real capabilities of their botnet., You can monitor the Mirai botnet with the following tracker., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Mirai botnet, IoT) |
5871_64806 | New precious details emerge from the analysis of malware researchers at Cisco Talos and F-Secure who respectively discovered and confirmed the presence an NSA exploit in the Bad Rabbit ransomware., On October 24, hundreds of organizations worldwide were hit by the Bad Rabbit ransomware, mostly in Russia and Ukraine., The first reports on the ransomware revealed that the malicious code also relies on the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol to spread within the targeted network. Many experts excluded the use of the SMB exploits EternalBlue and EternalRomance for the lateral movements., Previous reports confirmed that the Bad Rabbit ransomware does not use NSA-linked EternalBlue exploit, but researchers at Cisco Talos discovered the malicious code leverages EternalRomance to propagate in the network., “Despite initial reports, we currently have no evidence that the EternalBlue exploit is being leveraged. However, we identified the usage of the EternalRomance exploit to propagate in the network. This exploit takes advantage of a vulnerability described in the Microsoft MS17-010 security bulletin. The vulnerability was also exploited during the Nyetya campaign.” reads the analysis published by the Talos team., , The EternalRomance vulnerability was patched by Microsoft in March 2017 with the release of the MS17-010 security bulletin that also fixed the EternalChampion, EternalBlue and EternalSynergy exploits., Both exploits were disclosed by the Shadow Brokers hacker group earlier this year when the crew leaked a portion of the arsenal of the NSA-Linked Equation Group, a database containing hacking tools and exploits., Almost every analysis produced since the discovery of the Bad Rabbit ransomware revealed many similarities between Bad Rabbit and NotPetya, including the targeting of Ukraine and Russia, the usage of Mimikatz tool, and the same type of file encryption., However, while NotPetya is a wiper disguised by a ransomware, Bad Rabbit appears to be a real ransomware., Another interesting aspect emerged by further analysis is related to the alleged planning of the attack that seems to be dated back months ago. Some of the compromised domains used in the Bad Rabbit ransomware attack had been set up since at least July 2017 and some of the injection servers were first seen more than a year ago., According to malware researchers, NotPetya has been linked to BlackEnergy APT, for this reason, some experts suggest the same threat actor could be behind the Bad Rabbit ransomware., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Bad Rabbit ransomware, hacking) |
4260_51365 | The news was announced, during the Billington CyberSecurity Summit held in Washington DC, by the GCHQ director general of cyber security Ciaran Martin., The British GCHQ recently created the National Cyber Security Centre, led by Martin, that has the task to protect national infrastructure from attacks originated on the Internet., “The NCSC will be based in London and will open in October. Ciaran Martin, currently Director General Cyber at GCHQ will lead it. Dr Ian Levy, currently Technical Director of Cyber Security at GCHQ, will join the organisation as Technical Director.” reads a press release issued by the UK Government., “The UK faces a growing threat of cyber-attacks from states, serious crime gangs, hacking groups as well as terrorists. The NCSC will help ensure that the people, public and private sector organisations and the critical national infrastructure of the UK are safer online.” , , In March 2016, then Minister for the Cabinet Office, Matt Hancock highlighted the importance of the Centre., “It will be the authoritative voice on information security in the UK and one of its first tasks will be to work with the Bank of England to produce advice for the financial sector for managing cyber security effectively.” said Hancock., “Martin used the term “flagship project” while he was describing the plans of the GCHQ about the national firewall. The infrastructure will protect government websites and national security agencies from hackers., The national firewall would be used by government agencies and internet service providers to repel cyber threats., “What better way of providing automated defences at scale than by the major private providers effectively blocking their customers from coming into contact with known malware and bad addresses?” Martin said during his speech, The National Cyber Security Centre will start its activities next month, it represent of the pillars of the cyber strategy of the UK Government as announced last year by the former Chancellor Mr Osborne., Osborne also announced the plans of the Government to almost double the cybersecurity budget to £1.9 billion for the years 2016 – 2021., The UK Government will also add 1,900 new professionals to the National intelligence agencies., “In the Spending Review, I have made a provision to almost double our investment to protect Britain from cyber attack and develop our sovereign capabilities in cyberspace, totalling £1.9 billion over five years. If you add the spending on core cyber security capabilities government protecting our own networks and ensuring safe and secure online services, the government’s total cyber spending will be more than £3.2 billion.” said Osborne., Cyber security is crucial for any government, the number of “national security level cyber incidents” in the last year is almost doubled, the intelligence agency now detects about 200 serious incidents every month aimed to disrupt national infrastructure and services., Cyber attacks are asymmetric and instantaneous, difficult to repel without the aid of a new generation of tools., The National Cyber Security Centre also has plans to design a new generation of automated defense systems to neutralise a large number of attacks having a low level of sophistication, such as phishing attacks spoofing government email addresses to target members of the public., “We trialled it, and whoever was sending 58,000 malicious emails per day from [email protected] isn’t doing it anymore,” added Martin., , Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – GCHQ , National Cyber Security Centre) |
2155_35799 | A British channel hosted a rare interview with Snowden in Moscow, the interview was conducted by John Oliver from “John Oliver Tonight.”, Aside from jokes like “Do you miss a hot pocket“, or “Do you miss the state of Florida” the interview got serious enough for Snowden to explain one again that the NSA have huge intercepting capabilities, and that yes, it’s good to have these capabilities to fight “Chinese hackers, but now to use it against the American people.”, To support these claims, Snowden gave an example, saying that the NSA spied on UNICEF, does it justify to spy on UNICEF and other organizations? Which gain exists there?, , He also told that inside the NSA, nude pictures are passed along, and it’s not considered a big deal. But as he said:, “they are still collecting everybody’s information”, Snowden also explained that every time people use let’s say Gmail, and an e-mail is sent to someone in America “your mail is kept”, or every time that you keep an e-mail and the backup of the email is moved around the world (without you realizing)., One of the lines that makes more sense for me it’s when Snowden says, that we shouldn’t change our habits of sharing whatever we want to share, just because the government its doing the wrong thing. We shouldn’t sacrifice our values, because of that., As a last note related to this interview, the Patriot Act, active since September 11, 2001, continues working and is what permits from the US Government to do all these., About the Author Elsio Pinto, Edited by Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Snowden, surveillance) |
2849_40788 | In 2013, security experts at Kaspersky Lab uncovered a cyber espionage that targeted the gaming industry with a malware signed with a valid digital certificate. The threat actor behind the campaign was dubbed the Winnti group, it was targeting the gaming industry to steal game community currency and source code., The experts at Kaspersky Lab discovered that the Winnti group has been active since 2009 targeting more than 30 gaming companies and hitting various popular online games., According to the researchers the Winnti group is based in China and most victims are located in Southeast Asia, Germany, United States, Japan, China, Russia, Brazil, Peru, and Belarus. In June 2015, the security experts at Kaspersky collected evidence that the Winniti APT is moving beyond the gaming industry targeting telecoms and companies in the pharmaceutical industry., , Further analysis allowed the experts to discover that the Winnti group has been using as an attack platform for infecting the systems of organizations in South Korea and other countries worldwide. The hacking tool in the arsenal of the APT is the “HDRoot,” a malicious code based on a bootkit installer named “HDD Rootkit” that was developed in 2006. It is likely that the author of the HDD Rootkit joined Winnti when the group was formed in 2009, or the APT simply acquired it on the underground market., The HDRoot is used by hackers to deliver backdoors in the targeted system and obtain persistence., The researchers discovered that the HDRoot bootkit had been protected with VMProtect, a commercial software used to protect source code from reversing and cracking. Also in this case attackers digitally signed the code of the HDRoot bootkit with a compromised digital certificate, already used in the past by Winnti hackers, issued to a Chinese company named Guangzhou YuanLuo Technology., “It was protected by a commercial VMProtect Win64 executable signed with a known compromised certificate from Chinese entity Guangzhou YuanLuo Technology. Moreover, the properties of the executable read as if it were Microsoft’s Net Command net.exe, and even running the sample also resulted in output typical of the original net.exe utility:” states the blog post published by SecureList., The experts identified two sample of backdoors delivered by HDRoot, one of them targeted products that are popular in South Korea, but Kaspersky has also spotted one infection in the United Kingdom and one in Russia., The level of sophistication of the HDRoot is low, the developer that designed it have made some mistakes that could make advantage the detection of the threat on an infected machine., “The Winnti group took a risk, because it probably knows from experience which signs should be covered-up and which ones can be overlooked because organizations don’t always apply all the best security policies all of the time. System administrators have to keep on top of many things, and if the team is small, the chance that cybercriminal activity will remain undetected is even higher.” said Dmitry Tarakanov, Senior Security Researcher in Kaspersky Lab’s GReAT team., Stay Tuned!, Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – Winnti APT, hacking) |
7735_80928 | Thousands of instances of a temperature control system made by Resource Data Management (RDM) are exposed to remote attacks because they were using default passwords and failed in implementing other security measures. , The vulnerable instances are used by organizations from several industries, including healthcare providers and supermarket chains such as Marks & Spencer, Ocado, and Way-On., The experts have found 7,400 devices exposed online by querying the Shodan search engine, most of them in Russia, Malaysia, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, Australia, Israel, Germany, the Netherlands, and Iceland., Systems exposed online could be accessed via HTTP on ports 9000, 8080, 8100, or 80. An attacker can easily access the vulnerable instances because they use a known default username and password combination. In many cases, the web interface can be accessed without authentication., “They all come with a default username and “1234” as the default password, which is rarely changed by system administrators.” reads the analysis published by Safety Detective., “All the screenshots taken in this report didn’t require entering the user and password but it came to our knowledge that almost all devices used the default password.”, Experts pointed out that many systems can be easily found using a simple Google search, they explained that the office secretary of the company quickly discovered a cooling factory in Germany and a hospital in the UK., Accessing the exposed refrigeration systems, an unauthorized attacker can change user and alarm settings. Imagine the damages that could be caused by activating the defrost function, especially when dealing with hospitals where refrigeration systems are used to store blood and drugs., Safety Detective reported its findings to RDM, but the vendor initially downplayed the report. RDM later acknowledged the risks but highlighted that the issues reported by the experts were caused by wrong installations made by users and installers., “To clarify the situation from RDM we would
confirm that the default passwords must be changed by the installer at the time
of setup. RDM does not have any control over where our systems go and who
install them. We clearly state in our documentation that the default passwords
MUST be changed when the system is installed. It’s similar to an off the shelf
router with default user names and passwords Admin Admin,” replied an RDM
spokesman., “We would also point out that we do not have
remote connectivity to many systems and even though it is possible to upgrade
our software remotely we are unable to do this without the consent of the
owner. We will inform owners that we have new software available with new
functions and features but ultimately it is up to them to request an upgrade
which can be done via USB locally or by there installer / maintainer remotely,”, Pierluigi Paganini, (SecurityAffairs – refrigeration systems, hacking) |
7250_76839 | According to a report published by Bloomberg News, China used tiny chips implanted on computer equipment manufactured for US companies and government agencies, including Amazon and Apple, to steal secret information., The tiny chips have a size of a grain of rice, they were discovered after an investigation that is still ongoing and that that started three years ago., “Nested on the servers’ motherboards, the testers found a tiny microchip, not much bigger than a grain of rice, that wasn’t part of the boards’ original design. Amazon reported the discovery to U.S. authorities, sending a shudder through the intelligence community.” reads the report., , The tiny chips were used as a “stealth doorway” into computer equipment, a hardware backdoor very hard to detect., According to unnamed US officials cited in the report, the spying hardware was designed by a unit of the People’s Liberation Army and was inserted on equipment manufactured in China for US-based Super Micro Computer Inc., Amazon discovered the tiny chips when it acquired software firm Elemental and conducted a security assessment of equipment made for Elemental by California-based Supermicro., Elemental manufactured equipment for Department of Defense data centers, the CIA’s drone operations, and onboard networks of Navy warships., “Elemental also started working with American spy agencies. In 2009 the company announced a development partnership with In-Q-Tel Inc., the CIA’s investment arm, a deal that paved the way for Elemental servers to be used in national security missions across the U.S. government.” continues the report., “Public documents, including the company’s own promotional materials, show that the servers have been used inside Department of Defense data centers to process drone and surveillance-camera footage, on Navy warships to transmit feeds of airborne missions, and inside government buildings to enable secure videoconferencing. NASA, both houses of Congress, and the Department of Homeland Security have also been customers. This portfolio made Elemental a target for foreign adversaries.”, The tiny chips were designed to be implanted directly on the motherboards, the backbone for computer equipment used in data centers of the major US firms., Amazon confirmed that it was not aware of the supply chain compromise., “It’s untrue that AWS knew about a supply chain compromise, an issue with malicious chips, or hardware modifications when acquiring Elemental,” Amazon wrote., Apple denied having found the spy chips on his equipment., “On this we can be very clear: Apple has never found malicious chips, ‘hardware manipulations’ or vulnerabilities purposely planted in any server,” Apple wrote., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – China, hardware backdoor) |
7663_80218 | Bad news for users that have downloaded the PHP PEAR package manager from the official website in the past 6 months because hackers have replaced it with a tainted version. , The PHP Extension and Application Repository (PEAR) is a framework and distribution system that allows anyone to search and download free packages written in PHP programming language. , Last week, the maintainers at PEAR took down the official website because hackers have replaced the legitimate PHP PEAR package manager (go-pear.phar) with a malicious version in the core PEAR file system. Maintainers pointed out that the GitHub copy of go-pear.phar is not compromised. , “A security breach has been found on the webserver, with a tainted go-pear.phar discovered. The PEAR website itself has been disabled until a known clean site can be rebuilt. A more detailed announcement will be on the PEAR Blog once it’s back online.” reads a security alert published by the admins last week. , “If you have downloaded this go-pear.phar in the past six months, you should get a new copy of the same release version from GitHub (pear/pearweb_phars) and compare file hashes. If different, you may have the infected file.”, Hackers compromised the website at least six months ago, the investigation is still ongoing. PEAR maintainers are working to determine how hackers breached the server and how many users have been impacted. , A security breach has been found on the webserver, with a tainted go-pear.phar discovered. The PEAR website itself has been disabled until a known clean site can be rebuilt. A more detailed announcement will be on the PEAR Blog once it's back online., The PEAR download manager (go-pear.phar) is pre-installed for Unix/Linux/BSD systems, meanwhile Windows and Mac OS X users need to manually install it. , The hack could have a significant impact on a large number of websites because many web hosting providers allow running PEAR., PEAR maintainers have released a clean version 1.10.10 of pearweb_phars on Github. , “This is a fresh release to assist in clearing up the issue with tainted file go-pear.phar that was discovered on the pear.php.net server. There were no code changes between v1.10.9 and v1.10.10.” reads the release note., “Beginning with v1.10.10, the GitHub repository will now contain GPG signature files for each phar file. This release’s files are signed by Chuck Burgess (C245F175).”, Pierluigi Paganini, (SecurityAffairs – hacking, PHP PEAR), , |
5918_65271 | Researchers at Volexity has been tracking the threat actor since May 2017, they observed attacks aimed at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and media, human rights, and civil society organizations., “In May 2017, Volexity identified and started tracking a very sophisticated and extremely widespread mass digital surveillance and attack campaign targeting several Asian nations, the ASEAN organization, and hundreds of individuals and organizations tied to media, human rights and civil society causes.” reads the analysis published by Volexity. “These attacks are being conducted through numerous strategically compromised websites and have occurred over several high-profile ASEAN summits. Volexity has tied this attack campaign to an advanced persistent threat (APT) group first identified as OceanLotus by SkyEye Labs in 2015.”, The researcher compared the hacker group with the dreaded s Russia-linked Turla APT., , The APT32 group, also known as OceanLotus Group, has been active since at least 2012, according to the experts it is a state-sponsored hacking group., The hackers targeted organizations across multiple industries and foreign governments, dissidents, and journalists., Since at least 2014, experts at FireEye have observed APT32 targeting foreign corporations with an interest in Vietnam’s manufacturing, consumer products, and hospitality sectors. The APT32 is also targeted peripheral network security and technology infrastructure corporations, and security firms that may have connections with foreign investors., “APT32 leverages a unique suite of fully-featured malware, in conjunction with commercially-available tools, to conduct targeted operations that are aligned with Vietnamese state interests.” states the analysis published by FireEye in May., FireEye highlighted that currently, it is impossible to precisely link the group to the Vietnamese government even if the information gathered by the hackers would be of very little use to any other state., The APT32 has used both Windows and Mac malware in its campaign, the group devised sophisticated techniques to evade detection., “Volexity believes the size and scale of this attack campaign have only previously been rivaled by a Russian APT group commonly referred to as Turla,” continues the firm., APT32 conducted a large-scale campaign powering watering hole attacks the involved more than 100 compromised websites belonging to government, military, media, civil society, human rights and oil exploitation entities., The attacks were surgical, the compromised websites only served malware to visitors who were on a whitelist. Victims have displayed a fake screen designed to trick them into authorizing a malicious Google app that could access their emails and contacts., Other websites were used to deliver malicious code, including backdoors and custom malware., Volexity published key findings of its analysis related to the last wave of attacks that are still ongoing:, The APT32 has rapidly evolved and increased its capabilities, for this reason the experts consider this threat actor one of the most advanced in the current threat landscape., “Volexity believes the OceanLotus threat group has rapidly advanced its capabilities and is now one of the more sophisticated APT actors currently in operation,” the company concluded., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – APT32, cyber espionage) |
167_3986 | The encounter with terrorism technology, widely defined cyber terrorism, is one of the main threats for each country. Wrongly, we tend to associate a terrorist act to a physical event as an explosion, a conflict, a tragedy, but the common people totally ignore the potential threat of a cyber offensive., We learned about the devastating effects of a cyberweapon, ie tools capable of attacking critical infrastructures with devastating consequences. Think of a virus as Stuxnet that may affect the proper functioning of control systems of a nuclear power plant, could be a catastrophic accident. Not least would be a incident to a control systems of a dam and we can find hundreds of similar analogies.
A terrorist could have clear advantages in conducting such an operation, primarily the ability to remain anonymous and silent in time., Second error made when one thinks of a terrorist attack is thought the attack in to consider it in the final phase, one linked to the damage, striking and destructive event. A cyber attack requires meticulous preparation, the step of gathering information on the target is crucial and cyber tools and malware are excellent for conducting this phase. Today there are countless exploits to help gain control of remote PCs, these options would certainly facilitate the preparation of a terrorist act. Through emails and documents of a pc it’s possible to trace a profile of an objective, reconstruct its history, deepening vulnerabilities, clear that we are faced with a threat as dangerous as the event itself because the same information could be used for subsequent attacks., A a secret report issued December 21 by the Canadian Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Services raises the specter of a possible future cyber attack by agents or sympathizers of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terrorist organization. Although to date there is no proof of the al Qaeda’s interest in a cyber offensive the possibility of conducting a cyber attack is high considering the huge financial resources of the group to purchase the equipment required and to acquire the needed expertise., “Bin Laden’s vast financial resources, however, would enable him or his organization to purchase the equipment and expertise required for a cyber attack and mount such an attack in very short order.”,
, In one of its interviews bin Laden has spoken regarding the possible constitution of a cyber army., “hundreds of Muslim scientists were with him who would use their knowledge … ranging from computers to electronics against the infidels,”, according to the Canadian report bin Laden may have planned a cyber attacks against the West., , Of course we have to aspect similar attacks coming from all over the world organized by sympathizers in other countries having as possible targets such as telecommunications grid, electric power facilities and oil and natural gas pipelines., Yesterday Al-Qaeda’s main internet forums have been attacked, they were offline for during the entire day, several others sites were downed during last weeks including two of the terrorist organization’s top sites, al-Fida and Shamukh al-Islam. At the moment there are no claims but the nature of the attacks suggests the intervention of groups of hackers hired by governments committed to the fight against terrorism., Some rumors cite that the managers of the web sites intentionally stopped their services because they noticed the infiltration of foreign spies, this occurrence in my opinion is absurd., Personally I think such attacks aren’t very useful, even counterproductive, for several reasons, first of all events like these will induce the activists of Al-Qaeda to increase security measures to protect their computer resources making it difficult cyber espionage operations and infiltration., Another negative aspect related to the attacks is that they could call for similar reactions bringing the level of attention of the group on cyber weapons to worrying levels., As stated by these terrorists have substantial financial resources and industry of cybercrime would be happy to forge new alliances in the name of the business. In this way we can induce the genesis of a new and unpredictable cyber threats from which defend themselves would be complicated., Pierluigi Paganini |
460_11763 | Stuxnet first and news of countless zero-day vulnerabilities in the wild have strengthened the idea that citizens security is constantly menaced by group of hackers that for different purposes are able to inflict serious damages to the structures that surround us., Critical infrastructures represent privileged targets for very different actors such as cyber terrorists or foreign state-sponsored hackers, a heated debate is underway in the worldwide security community that is concerned about the cyber threats that need to mitigate in dire economic conditions and with limited budgets., The security portal ThreatPost recently published the news related to new cyber attacks, malware-based, that hit two Power Plants using USB drivers as method of infection., The events raised the needs to adopt, at corporate level, best practices for any security aspect included removable storage, a critical issue for security of control system inside critical infrastructures., According a report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT), three instance of malware were discovered fortuitously after a scan of an USB drive used to back up control systems configurations. One of the instances detected is considered very sophisticated, increasing the level of alert on the event., Further analysis revealed other absurd security flaw, for example it was absent a backup management for critical workstations inside the plant., “The organization also identified during the course of the investigation that it had no backups for the two engineering workstations. Those workstations were vital to the facility operation and, if lost, damaged, or inoperable, could have a significant operational impact. The recommended practice is to maintain a system of ‘hot spares’ or other effective backups for all critical systems.”, The main problem is that majority of control systems are privately owned, and leak of investment in security advantages the work of hackers. Elementary security measures could sensibly improve security level of infrastructures, let’s think to the establishment of proper defensive measures of the correct configuration of any devices exposed in internet., The report states:, “While the implementation of an antivirus solution presents some challenges in a control system environment, it could have been effective in identifying both the common and the sophisticated malware discovered on the USB drive and the engineering workstations,” , Similar incidents are not rare, in October, ISC-CERT reported the infection of 10 computers linked to another power company’s turbine always via a USB drive…and the list is long., Summarizing the vulnerability analysis proposed by ICS-CERT :, “in fiscal year 2012, ICS-CERT tracked 171 unique vulnerabilities affecting ICS products. ICS-CERT coordinated the vulnerabilities with 55 different vendors. The total number of different vulnerabilities increased from FY 2011 to FY 2012, but buffer overflows still remained as the most common vulnerability type”, , , , Besides the security aspect, as I mentioned before, it’s necessary to evaluate the financial prospective of cyber security market in the defense sector., Cyber strategy of any state puts the security of critical infrastructures at the topmost priority, in particular for the global oil and gas industry also in response to recent series of attacks. An analysis from Frost & Sullivan revealed that the market earned revenues of $18.31 billion in 2011 and estimates this to reach $31.27 billion in 2021. The investments are driven by the growth of the sector and related need of physical and cyber security., Anshul Sharma, Senior Research Analyst at Frost & Sullivan Aerospace, Defence & Security, declared:, “Global oil and gas companies are investing capital in new infrastructure projects, driving the need for security solutions at these facilities,” “With increasing awareness of threats, companies are adopting a security-risk management approach and implementing risk assessment of their facilities to ensure security Return on Investment (ROI).” “The threats may vary from information theft to a terrorist attack, but the economic impact and financial damage in case of an attack will be much more significant,” “It would also depend on the motive of the attacker. For example, a cyber attack to remotely control a SCADA system can have more serious consequences than a cyber attack to steal information.”, ,
It’s clear that new opportunities for cyber security experts will be created in the incoming years, probably something is changing the mind of top manager that are driving the companies of the sector is a profitable business., Pierluigi Paganini, (Security Affairs – NIST, critical infrastructure), |
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