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Mirai, Bitcoin, and numeracy

Newsweek (the magazine famous for outing the real Satoshi Nakamoto) has a story about how a variant of the Mirai botnet is mining bitcoin. They fail to run the numbers.

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Pranksters gonna prank

So Alfa Bank (the bank whose DNS traffic link it to trump-email.com) is back in the news with this press release about how in the last month, hackers have spoofed traffic trying to make it look like there's a tie with Trump. In other words, Alfa claims these packets are trying to frame them for a tie with Trump now, and thus (by extension) it must've been a frame last October.

There is no conspiracy here: it's just merry pranksters doing pranks (as this CNN article quotes me).

Indeed, among the people pranking has been me (not the pranks mentioned by Alfa, but different pranks). I ran a scan sending packets from IP address to almost everyone one the Internet, and set the reverse lookup to "mail1.trumpemail.com".



Sadly, my ISP doesn't allow me to put hyphens in the name, so it's not "trump-email.com" as it should be in order to prank well.

Geeks gonna geek and pranksters gonna prank. I can imagine all sorts of other fun pranks somebody might do in order to stir the pot. Since the original news reports of the AlfaBank/trump-email.com connection last year, we have to assume any further data Continue reading

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Assert() in the hands of bad coders

Using assert() creates better code, as programmers double-check assumptions. But only if used correctly. Unfortunately, bad programmers tend to use them badly, making code worse than if no asserts were used at all. They are a nuanced concept that most programmers don't really understand.

We saw this recently with the crash of "Bitcoin Unlimited", a version of Bitcoin that allows more transactions. They used an assert() to check the validity of input, and when they received bad input, most of the nodes in the network crashed.

The Bitcoin code is full of bad uses of assert. The following examples are all from the file main.cpp.


Example #1: this line of code:

1.     if (nPos >= coins->vout.size() || coins->vout[nPos].IsNull())
2.         assert(false); 

This use of assert is silly. The code should look like this:

1.     assert(nPos < coins->vout.size());
2.     assert(!coins->vout[nPos].IsNull());

This is the least of their problems. It understandable that Continue reading

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Some confusing language in the 0day debate

As revealed in last week's CIA #Vault7 leaks, the CIA has some 0days. This has ignited the debate about whether organizations like the CIA should be disclosing these 0days so that vendors can fix them, rather than "stockpiling" them. There seems to be some confusion about language.


Stockpile

The word "stockpile" has multiple connotations, as shown below:


This distorts the debate. Using the word "stockpile" strongly implies "reserve for use" at some time in the future. This prejudices the debate. If the the 0day is sitting on a shelf somewhere not being used, then it apparently has little value for offense, and thus, should be disclosed/patch for defense.

The truth is that that government does not buy 0days to sit on the shelf. With few exceptions, it buys 0days because it plans to use them in an offensive operation. This was described in that recent RAND report:

It's the sellers who might keep 0days on the shelf, because the buyers have no immediate need. It's not the government buyers who are stockpiling.

Words like "stockpiling", "amassing", or "hoarding" also bring the connotation that the number is too big. Words like "hoarding" bring the connotation that the government is doing something Continue reading

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FBI: what to look for in the Trump/AlfaBank connection

As CNN reports, the FBI seems to be looking into that connection between Trump and Alfa Bank. Here are some things to look for.

First, get your own copy of the logs from root name servers. I don't trust the source of the original logs. I suspect they've been edited in order to show a relationship with Alfa Bank. You've got lots of sources both inside government and in private industry that can provide a copy of these logs without a warrant. (Which sucks, you should need a warrant, but that's the current state of affairs).

Second, look at the server in question. It's probably located at 140 Akron Road, Ephrata, PA. What you are looking for are the logs of anything sent from the server during that time, specifically any e-mails.

Third, talk to Cendyn, and ask them what that server was used for during that time. Their current statement is that it was used by the Metron meeting software. In other words, they say that after they stopped using it to send marketing emails, they started using it for their meeting product. They seem a little confused, so it'd be nice to pin them down. Specifically, get Continue reading

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Some notes on the RAND 0day report

The RAND Corporation has a research report on the 0day market [ * ]. It's pretty good. They've got the pricing about right ($1 million for full chain iPhone exploit, but closer to $100k for others). They've got the stats about right (5% chance somebody else will discover an exploit). Yet, they've got some problems, namely phrasing the debate as activists want, rather than a neutral view of the debate.

The report frequently uses the word "stockpile". This is a biased term used by activists. According to the dictionary, it means:

a large accumulated stock of goods or materials, especially one held in reserve for use at a time of shortage or other emergency.

Activists paint the picture that the government (NSA, CIA, DoD, FBI) buys 0day to hold in reserve in case they later need them. If that's the case, then it seems reasonable that it's better to disclose/patch the vuln then let it grow moldy in a cyberwarehouse somewhere.

But that's not how things work. The government buys vulns it has immediate use for (primarily). Almost all vulns it buys are used within 6 months. Most vulns in its "stockpile" have been used in the previous year. These Continue reading

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A note about “false flag” operations

There's nothing in the CIA #Vault7 leaks that calls into question strong attribution, like Russia being responsible for the DNC hacks. On the other hand, it does call into question weak attribution, like North Korea being responsible for the Sony hacks.

There are really two types of attribution. Strong attribution is a preponderance of evidence that would convince an unbiased, skeptical expert. Weak attribution is flimsy evidence that confirms what people are predisposed to believe.


The DNS hacks have strong evidence pointing to Russia. Not only does all the malware check out, but also other, harder to "false flag" bits, like active command-and-control servers. A serious operator could still false-flag this in theory, if only by bribing people in Russia, but nothing in the CIA dump hints at this.

The Sony hacks have weak evidence pointing to North Korea. One of the items was the use of the RawDisk driver, used both in malware attributed to North Korea and the Sony attacks. This was described as "flimsy" at the time [*]. The CIA dump [*] demonstrates that indeed it's flimsy -- as apparently CIA malware also uses the RawDisk code.

In the coming days, biased partisans are going Continue reading

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Only lobbyist and politicians matter, not techies

The NSA/CIA will only buy an 0day if they can use it. They can't use it if they disclose the bug.

I point this out, yet again, because of this WaPo article [*] built on the premise that the NSA/CIA spend millions of dollars on 0day they don't use, while unilaterally disarming tiself. Since that premise is false, the entire article is false. It's the sort of article you get when all you interview are Washington D.C. lobbyists and Washington D.C. politicians -- and no outside experts.


It quotes former cyberczar (under Obama) Michael Daniel explaining that the "default assumption" is to disclose 0days that the NSA/CIA get. This is a Sean Spicer style lie. He's paid to say this, but it's not true. The NSA/CIA only buy 0day if they can use it. They won't buy 0day if the default assumption is that they will disclose it. QED: the default assumption of such 0day is they won't disclose them.

The story quotes Ben Wizner of the ACLU saying that we should patch 0days instead of using them. Patching isn't an option. If we aren't using them, then we aren't buying them, and hence, there are Continue reading

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Some comments on the Wikileaks CIA/#vault7 leak

I thought I'd write up some notes about the Wikileaks CIA "#vault7" leak. This post will be updated frequently over the next 24 hours.


The CIA didn't remotely hack a TV. The docs are clear that they can update the software running on the TV using a USB drive. There's no evidence of them doing so remotely over the Internet. If you aren't afraid of the CIA breaking in an installing a listening device, then you should't be afraid of the CIA installing listening software.


The CIA didn't defeat Signal/WhattsApp encryption. The CIA has some exploits for Android/iPhone. If they can get on your phone, then of course they can record audio and screenshots. Technically, this bypasses/defeats encryption -- but such phrases used by Wikileaks arehighly misleading, since nothing related to Signal/WhatsApp is happening. What's happening is the CIA is bypassing/defeating the phone. Sometimes. If they've got an exploit for it, or can trick you into installing their software.


There's no overlap or turf war with the NSA. The NSA does "signals intelligence", so they hack radios and remotely across the Internet. The CIA does "humans intelligence", so they hack locally, with a human. The sort of thing they do Continue reading

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Journalists: How hacking details matter

When I write my definitive guide for journalists covering hacking, I'm going to point out how easy it is for journalists to misunderstand the details of a story -- especially when they change the details to fit the story they want to tell.


For example, there is the notorious "CIA hacked Senate computers" scandal. In fact, the computers in question were owned by the CIA, located in a CIA facility, and managed/operated by CIA employees. You can't "hack" computers you own. Yes, the CIA overstepped the bounds of an informal agreement with the Senate committee overseeing them, but in no way did anything remotely like "hacking" occur.

This detail matter. If the CIA had truly hacked the Senate committee, that would be a constitutional crisis. A small misstep breaking an informal agreement is not.


A more recent example is this story, which mentions that AlfaBank-Trump connection, claiming the server was in Trump Tower [*]:

What about the computer server at Trump Tower?
Several news media outlets have reported that investigators last year were puzzled by data transmissions between a computer server at Trump Tower and a computer server associated with a Russian bank. Although Mr. Trump on Twitter Continue reading

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Some moon math

So "Brianna Wu" (famous for gamergate) is trending, and because I love punishment, I clicked on it to see why. Apparently she tweeted that Elon Musk's plan to go to the moon is bad, because once there he can drop rocks on the Earth with the power of 100s of nuclear bombs. People are mocking her for the stupidity of this.

But the math checks out.


First of all, she probably got the idea from Heinlein's book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress where the rebel moon colonists do just that. I doubt she did her own math, and relied upon Heinlein to do it for her. But let's do the math ourselves.

Let's say that we want to stand at the height of the moon and drop a rock. How big a rock do we need to equal the energy of an atomic bomb. To make things simple, let's assume the size of bombs we want is that of the one dropped on Hiroshima.

As we know from high school physics, the energy of a dropped object (ignoring air) is:

energy = mass * gravity * height

Solving for mass, the equation is:

mass = energy/(gravity * height)

So Continue reading

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Some notes on space heaters (GPU rigs)

So I carried my GPU rig up to my bedroom to act as a space heater. I thought I'd write some notes on it.

This is a "GPU rig", containing five graphics cards. Graphics cards have highly parallel processors (GPUs) with roughly 10 times the performance of a CPU -- but only for highly parallel problems.

Two such problems are password cracking [*] and cryptocurrency mining.


Password cracking is something cybersecurity professionals regularly need to do. When doing a pentest, or assessment, we'll get lists of passwords we need to crack. Having a desktop computer with a couple of graphics cards is a useful thing to have.

There are three popular cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and ZCash. Everyone is using ASICs for Bitcoin, so you can't mine them on a GPU any more, but GPUs are still useful for Ethereum and ZCash.

The trick to building a rig with lots of GPU is to get a PCIe 1x extender, so that you can mount the card far away from the motherboard for better cooling. They cost around $10 each. You then need to buy a motherboard with lots of PCIe slots. One with lots of 1x slots will do Continue reading

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A quick note about iconoclasm

I'm an iconoclast [*]. Whenever things become holy, whereby any disagreement is treated as heresy, then I disagree. There are two reasonable sides to every argument. When you vilify one of the sides in the argument, then I step into defend them -- not that they are right, but that they are reasonable.

This makes many upset, because once a cause has become Holy, anybody disagreeing with orthodoxy (like me) is then, by definition, a horrible person. I get things like the image to the right.

(Please don't harass/contact this person -- she believes what many do, and singling her out would be mean).

For the record, I'm rabidly feminist, anti-racist, pro-LGBT, pro-civil-rights. It's just that while I care a lot, I'm not Orthodox. I likely disagree with you about the details. When you vilify those who disagree with you, I will defend them.

...which is the best troll, ever. Admitting somebody is wrong, but defending them as reasonable, seems to upset people more than just arguing the other side is right.

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Border Digital Safety for Journalists

The CPJ, the "Committee to Protect Journalists", offers some horrible advice [*] on Digital Security, especially when crossing the border.

The most important piece of advice I can give you is this: if somebody's life depends upon it, then no simple piece of advice, no infographic, is going to help you. You have to learn about cybersecurity enough to make intelligent decisions for yourself. You have to make difficult tradeoffs yourself. Anybody giving you simple advice or infographics is a charlatan.

So I thought I'd discuss what's wrong with the following infographic:


I. Passwords, managers, and two-factor

The biggest issue is don't reuse passwords across different accounts. If you do, when hackers breach one of your accounts, they breach all of them. I use a simple password for all the accounts I don't care about, then complex unique passwords for all my important accounts. I have to write them down on a piece of paper I've got hidden at home, because sometimes I forget them.

Password managers certainly help you have multiple strong passwords across many accounts. On the other hand, it puts all your eggs in one basket, and the police can grab them from the company.

Continue reading

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Skillz: editing a web page

So one of the skillz you ought to have in cybersec is messing with web-pages client-side using Chrome's Developer Tools. Web-servers give you a bunch of HTML and JavaScript code which, once it reaches your browser, is yours to change and play with. You can do a lot with web-sites that they don't intend by changing that code.

Let me give you an example. It's only an example -- touching briefly on steps to give you an impression what's going on. It's not a ground up explanation of everything, which you may find off-putting. Click on the images to expand them so you can see fully what's going on.

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You don’t need printer security

So there's this tweet:

The guy at the HP printer security booth seriously told a customer that he needs print security "because stuxnet exploits the print spooler" pic.twitter.com/WRyfEGj9hR

— Jake Williams (@MalwareJake) February 15, 2017

What it's probably refering to is this:


This is an obviously bad idea.

Well, not so "obvious", so some people have ask me to clarify the situation. After all, without "security", couldn't a printer just be added to a botnet of IoT devices?

The answer is this:

Fixing insecurity is almost always better than adding a layer of security.

Adding security is notoriously problematic, for three reasons

1. Hackers are active attackers. When presented with a barrier in front of an insecurity, they'll often find ways around that barrier. It's a common problem with "web application firewalls", for example.
2. The security software itself can become a source of vulnerabilities hackers can attack, which has happened frequently in anti-virus and intrusion prevention systems.
3. Security features are usually snake-oil, sounding great on paper, with with no details, and no independent evaluation, provided to the public.

It's the last one that's most important. HP markets features, but there's no guarantee they work. In particular, similar features in Continue reading

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1984 is the new Bible in the age of Trump

In the age of Trump, Orwell's book 1984 is becoming the new Bible: a religious text which few read, but which many claim supports their beliefs. A good demonstration is this CNN op-ed, in which the author describes Trump as being Orwellian, but mostly just because Trump is a Republican.

He has provided us with Betsy DeVos, a secretary of education nominee who is widely believed to oppose public education, and who promotes the truly Orwellian-sounding concept of "school choice," a plan that seems well-intentioned but which critics complain actually siphons much-needed funds from public to private education institutions.

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Uber was right to disable surge pricing at JFK

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Is ‘aqenbpuu’ a bad password?

Press secretary Sean Spicer has twice tweeted a random string, leading people to suspect he's accidentally tweeted his Twitter password. One of these was 'aqenbpuu', which some have described as a "shitty password". Is is actually bad?

No. It's adequate. Not the best, perhaps, but not "shitty".


It depends upon your threat model. The common threats are password reuse and phishing, where the strength doesn't matter. When the strength does matter is when Twitter gets hacked and the password hashes stolen.

Twitter uses the bcrypt password hashing technique, which is designed to be slow. A typical desktop with a GPU can only crack bcrypt passwords at a rate of around 321 hashes-per-second. Doing the math (26 to the power of 8, divided by 321, divided by one day) it will take 20 years for this desktop to crack the password.

That's not a good password. A botnet with thousands of desktops, or a somebody willing to invest thousands of dollars on a supercomputer or cluster like Amazon's, can crack that password in a few days.

But, it's not a bad password, either. A hack of a Twitter account like this would be a minor event. It's not Continue reading

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The command-line, for cybersec

On Twitter I made the mistake of asking people about command-line basics for cybersec professionals. A got a lot of useful responses, which I summarize in this long (5k words) post. It’s mostly driven by the tools I use, with a bit of input from the tweets I got in response to my query.

bash

By command-line this document really means bash.

There are many types of command-line shells. Windows has two, 'cmd.exe' and 'PowerShell'. Unix started with the Bourne shell ‘sh’, and there have been many variations of this over the years, ‘csh’, ‘ksh’, ‘zsh’, ‘tcsh’, etc. When GNU rewrote Unix user-mode software independently, they called their shell “Bourne Again Shell” or “bash” (queue "JSON Bourne" shell jokes here).

Bash is the default shell for Linux and macOS. It’s also available on Windows, as part of their special “Windows Subsystem for Linux”. The windows version of ‘bash’ has become my most used shell.

For Linux IoT devices, BusyBox is the most popular shell. It’s easy to clear, as it includes feature-reduced versions of popular commands.


man

‘Man’ is the command you should not run if you want help for a command.

Man pages are designed to drive away Continue reading