Some notes on DRAM (#rowhammer)
My twitter feed is full of comments about the "rowhammer" exploit. I thought I'd write some quick notes about DRAM. The TL;DR version is this: you probably don't need to worry about this, but we (the designers of security and of computer hardware/software) do.There are several technologies for computer memory. The densest, and hence cheapest-per-bit, is "DRAM". It consists of a small capacitor for each bit of memory. The thing about capacitors is that they lose their charge over time and must be refreshed. In the case of DRAM, every bit of memory must be read them re-written every 64-milliseconds or it becomes corrupt.
These tiny capacitors are prone to corruption from other sources. One common source of corruption is cosmic rays. Another source is small amounts of radioactive elements in the materials used to construct memory chips. So, chips must be built with radioactive-free materials. The banana you eat has more radioactive material inside it than your DRAM chips.
The upshot is that capacitors are unreliable (albeit extremely cheap) technology for memory which readily get corrupted for a lot of reasons. This "rowhammer" exploit works by corrupting the capacitors by overwriting adjacent rows hundreds of thousands Continue reading
Thirteen new Official Repositories added in January and February
We are excited to highlight thirteen new Official Repositories that were added to Docker Hub in January and February. These repos feature both open-source and enterprise-ready content that will empower dev teams to build and deploy distributed applications. Check them … ContinuedCliché: Safen Up!
RSA Conference is often a mockery of itself. Yesterday, they posted this tweet:
This is similar to the Simpsons episode where Germans buy the power plant. In fear for his job, Homer (the plant's Safety Inspector) starts going around telling people to "Stop being so unsafe!".
Security is not a platitude; insecurity is not a moral weakness. It's a complex set of tradeoffs. Going around telling people to "safen up" will not improve the situation, but will instead breed resentment. Infosec people are widely disliked because of their moralizing.
The only way to be perfectly secure is to cut the cables, turn off the machines, thermite the drives, and drop the remnants in a deep ocean trench. Anything less and you are insecure. Learn to deal with insecurity instead of blaming people for their moral weaknesses.
Secured at Docker – Diogo Mónica and Nathan McCauley
I’m thrilled to officially announce that Nathan McCauley and I are joining Docker to lead the Security Team. Back in 2011, Nathan and I were fortunate enough to join Square just as it was picking up steam. Square disrupted traditional … ContinuedBeing Hacked Is Good For Business! or Why You Need To Security Detection not Security Prevention
I've always said that its pointless investing in strong IT security because it will drag down profits and productivity which impacts your stock price in the current quarter. Be prepared for the media campaign that reacts to a security breach and make the most of the media coverage for promotion, exposure and business growth.
The post Being Hacked Is Good For Business! or Why You Need To Security Detection not Security Prevention appeared first on EtherealMind.
Exploiting the Superfish certificate
As discussed in my previous blogpost, it took about 3 hours to reverse engineer the Lenovo/Superfish certificate and crack the password. In this blog post, I described how I used that certificate in order to pwn victims using a rogue WiFi hotspot. This took me also about three hours.The hardware
The setup is shown above. You see the little Raspberry Pi 2 computer, with a power connection at the upper left, an Ethernet at the lower-left, and the WiFi to the right. I chose an "Alfa AWUS050NH" WiFi adapter, but a lot of different ones will work (not all, but most). You can probably find a good one at Newegg or Amazon for $10. Choose those with external antennas, though, for better signal strength. You can't really see it in this picture, but at Continue reading
Discard Routing for RFC1918 Addresses
While working with firewalls for the last few years, I’ve seen many logs polluted with scanning traffic. Obviously this is the type of thing that I want to see when someone is legitimately scanning, or attempting to scan, through the firewall. However, there are a few cases that seeing this traffic is simply an indication of some other issue in the network.
An example I have seen on several occasions is someone configuring a network management station to discover 192.168.0.0/16, 172.16.0.0/12 or 10.0.0.0/8. If not properly handled in the routed network architecture, the associated traffic could make its way to the firewall or even to the ISP. An ASA might block the traffic due to policy, reroute it back toward the internal network, drop it due to the intra-interface hairpin configuration, or forward it onward. In most cases, this traffic will cause a lot of “noise” in the syslogs produced by the firewall.
To fully understand the problem, the diagram below can be used for discussion–
In this example, R1 has a static default route that points to the IP address of FW1. R1 advertises this via EIGRP to its internal neighbors. If a networked host attempts to reach Continue reading
Extracting the SuperFish certificate
I extracted the certificate from the SuperFish adware and cracked the password ("komodia") that encrypted it. I discuss how down below. The consequence is that I can intercept the encrypted communications of SuperFish's victims (people with Lenovo laptops) while hanging out near them at a cafe wifi hotspot. Note: this is probably trafficking in illegal access devices under the proposed revisions to the CFAA, so get it now before they change the law.I used simple reversing to find the certificate. As reported by others, program is packed and self-encrypted (like typical adware/malware). The proper way to reverse engineer this is to run the software in a debugger (or IDApro), setting break point right after it decrypts itself. The goal is to set the right break point before it actually infects your machine -- reversers have been known to infect themselves this way.
The ghetto way is to just to run this on a machine, infecting yourself, and run "procdump" (by @markrussinovich) in order to dump the process's memory. That's what I did, by running the following command:
procdump -ma VisualDiscovery.exe super.dmp
The proper reversing is to actually tear apart the memory structures, such Continue reading
Some notes on SuperFish
What's the big deal?
Lenovo, a huge maker of laptops, bundles software on laptops for the consumer market (it doesn't for business laptops). Much of this software is from vendors who pay Lenovo to be included. Such software is usually limited versions, hoping users will pay to upgrade. Other software is add supported. Some software, such as the notorious "Ask.com Toolbar", hijacks the browser to display advertisements.
Such software is usually bad, especially the ad-supported software, but the SuperFish software is particularly bad. It's designed to intercept all encrypted connections, things is shouldn't be able to see. It does this in a poor way that it leaves the system open to hackers or NSA-style spies.
Marc Rogers has a post where he points out that what the software does is hijack your connections, monitors them, collects personal information, injects advertising into legitimate pages, and causes popup advertisement.
Marc Rogers has a post where he points out that what the software does is hijack your connections, monitors them, collects personal information, injects advertising into legitimate pages, and causes popup advertisement.
What's the technical detail?
It does two things. The first is that SuperFish installs a transparent-proxy (MitM) service on the computer intercepting browser connections. I don't know the details of exactly how they do this, but Windows provides easy hooks for such interception.
But such interception still cannot decrypt SSL. Therefore, SuperFish Continue reading
How to add Cisco ASA 8.4(2) or ASA 9.1(5) to GNS3 1.2.x and get it working ?
GNS3 team has done a great job in stabilizing the ASA implementation. On the new version1.2.x they have already set all default optionsSecuring BFD now possible!
Confession Time.
I am guilty of committing several sins. One that egregiously stands out is writing two IETF specs for BFD security (here and here) without considering the impact on the routers and switches implementing those specs. Bear in mind that Bi-directional Forwarding Detection (BFD) is a hard protocol to implement well. Its hard to get into a conversation with engineers working on BFD without a few of them shedding copious quantities of tears on what it took them to avoid those dreaded BFD flaps in scaled setups. They will tell you how they resorted to clever tricks (hacks, if you will) to process BFD packets as fast as they could (plucking them out of order from a shared queue, dedicated tasks picking up BFD packets in the ISR contexts, etc) . In a candid conversation, an ex-employee of a reputed vendor revealed how they stage managed their BFD during a demo to a major customer since they didnt want their BFD to flap while the show (completely scripted) was on. So, long story short — BFD is hard when you start scaling. It just becomes a LOT worse, when you add security on top of it.
The reason BFD is hard is because of Continue reading
Securing BFD now possible!
Confession Time.
I am guilty of committing several sins. One that egregiously stands out is writing two IETF specs for BFD security (here and here) without considering the impact on the routers and switches implementing those specs. Bear in mind that Bi-directional Forwarding Detection (BFD) is a hard protocol to implement well. Its hard to get into a conversation with engineers working on BFD without a few of them shedding copious quantities of tears on what it took them to avoid those dreaded BFD flaps in scaled setups. They will tell you how they resorted to clever tricks (hacks, if you will) to process BFD packets as fast as they could (plucking them out of order from a shared queue, dedicated tasks picking up BFD packets in the ISR contexts, etc) . In a candid conversation, an ex-employee of a reputed vendor revealed how they stage managed their BFD during a demo to a major customer since they didnt want their BFD to flap while the show (completely scripted) was on. So, long story short — BFD is hard when you start scaling. It just becomes a LOT worse, when you add security on top of it.
The reason BFD is hard is because of Continue reading
Technical terms are not ambiguous
I see technical terms like "interference" and "authorization" in laws. As a technical person, this confuses me. I have a different understand of these terms than how the courts might interpret them. Courts insist that these words must be interpreted using their common everyday meanings, not their technical meanings. Yet, situations are inherently technical, so the common meanings are ambiguous.Take for example the law that forbids causing radio interference:
No person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communications of any station licensed or authorized by or under this chapter or operated by the United States Government.Interference seems like a common, non-technical term, but it's unlikely that's the meaning here. Interference has a very technical meaning, as demonstrated by this long Wikipedia article on "radio interference". There are entire books dedicated this this subject. It's a big technical deal, it's unreasonable to think the law means anythings else.
This is important when looking at the recent "Marriott WiFi Jamming" case, because Marriott did not cause "radio interference" or "jamming". Instead, what they did was send "deauth" packets. Using a real world analogy, jamming is like a locked door, blocking access against Continue reading
No, you can’t make things impossible to reverse-engineer
I keep seeing this Wired article about somebody announcing a trick to make software "nearly impossible" to reverse-engineer. It's hype. The technique's features are no better at stopping reverse-engineering than many existing techniques, but has an enormous cost on the system that makes it a lot worse.We already have deterrents to reverse-engineering. Take Apple iTunes, for example, which has successfully resisted reverse-engineering for years. I think the last upgrade to patch reverse-engineered details was in 2006. Its anti-reverse-engineering techniques aren't wonderful, but are instead simply "good enough". It does dynamic code generation, so I can't easily reverse engineer the static code in IDApro. It does anti-debugging tricks, so I can't attach a debugger to the running software. I'm sure if I spent more time at it, I could defeat these mechanisms, but I'm just a casual reverse-engineer who is unwilling to put in the time.
The technique described by Wired requires that the software install itself as a "hypervisor", virtualizing parts of the system. This is bad. This is unacceptable for most commercial software, like iTunes, because it would break a lot of computers. It might be acceptable for really high-end software that costs more than the computer, in Continue reading
8 Networking Trends to Watch in 2015
by Kevin Dooley originally published on the Auvik blog Let’s lay it on the table: I’m really bad at predicting long-termExplaining the Game of Sony Attribation
Attribution is a blame game. It’s not about who did it, but who is best to blame. Ambulance chasing lawyers sue whoever has the most money, not who is most responsible. I point this out because while the U.S. “attributes” the Sony hack to North Korea, this doesn’t mean North Korea did the attack. Instead, it means that North Korea was involved enough to justify sanctions. It still leaves the question of “who did it” unresolved.The situation is comparable to the recent terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in France. Two brothers committed the crime, but “Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula” (AQAP) claims credit. The precise facts are murky, but we have a good idea what happened. While AQAP probably provided some training, it appears the attack was conceived, planned, financed, and executed by the two brothers themselves without AQAP help. The brothers took out bank loans and purchased the weapons from the criminal (not terrorist) underground. They appear to have planned the attacks with a friend from ISIS (the Islamic “Caliphate”), an organization hostile to AQAP. It appears most of their training was in France rather than during their trip to AQAP camps in Yemen. AQAP waited Continue reading
A lesson in the corrupt press
In the last few days, both President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie made similar statements about vaccination. They both said that parents should absolutely vaccinate their children, but that it's still ultimately the parent's choice (and not government's). While the statements were similar, the press reported these stories completely differently. They praised Obama for calling for vaccination, and lambasted Christie for siding with anti-vaxxers on parental choice.The White House's statement is the following:
The President certainly believes that these kinds of decisions are decisions that should be made by parents, because ultimately when we’re talking about vaccinations, we’re typically talking about vaccinations that are given to children. But the science on this, as our public health professionals I’m sure would be happy to tell you, the science on this is really clear.
Christie's statement is the following:
Mary Pat and I have had our children vaccinated and we think that it’s an important part of being sure we protect their health and the public health. I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that’s the balance that the government has to decide.
The thing is, not only is Continue reading
Securing Your Connection Anywhere You Go
We all know that there are a lot of incomplete security models. Firesheep made this fact painfully obvious to those who regularly work from public hotspots. Although this issue extends beyond insecure wireless deployments, unencrypted hotspots are an easy target. When network traffic isn’t secured in the application layers AND that same traffic is not secured in the network or datalink layers, bad things can and do happen.
TLDR–This article solves this problem by utilizing a Meraki MX60 and the VPN client Native on OSX. To skip to the good stuff, click here.
One approach that some people decide to employ is utilizing a VPN connection for their Internet traffic when connected to untrusted networks. For years, enterprises have utilized these controls to allow secure access to corporate resources. A common trend to day includes utilizing “the cloud” for sensitive enterprise and personal data. While these systems *should* be appropriate resilient, we know that is not always the case. In addition to that, federated authentication schemes and password reuse can also pose additional risk to broken systems and less security conscious users.
Having easy access to some gear, I have been using a Meraki MX60 for a few months. This device makes the configuration Continue reading
The Vast World of Fraudulent Routing
As network security engineers have attempted to categorize blocks of IP addresses associated with spam or malware for subsequent filtering at their firewalls, the bad guys have had to evolve to continue to target their victims. Since routing on the global Internet is based entirely on trust, it’s relatively easy to commandeer IP address space that belongs to someone else. In other words, if the bad guys’ IP space is blocked, well then they can just steal someone else’s and continue on as before.
In an attempt to cover their tracks, these criminals will sometimes originate routes using autonomous system numbers (ASNs) that they don’t own either. In one of the cases described below, perpetrators hijacked the victim’s ASN to originate IP address space that could have plausibly been originated by the victim. However, in this case, the traffic was misdirected to the bad guy and an unsophisticated routing analysis would have probably shown nothing amiss.
The weakness of all spoofing techniques is that, at some point, the routes cross over from the fabricated to the legitimate Internet — and, when they do, they appear quite anomalous when compared against historical data and derived business Continue reading
Nobody thought BlackPhone was secure — just securer
An exploitable bug was found in BlackPhone, a "secure" Android phone. This is wildly misinterpreted. BlackPhone isn't a totally secure phone, such a thing is impossible. Instead, it's a simply a more secure phone. I mention this because journalists can't tell the difference.
BlackPhone is simply a stock version of Android with the best settings and with secure apps installed. It's really nothing different than what you can do with your own phone. If you have the appropriate skill/knowledge, you can configure your own Android phone to be just like BlackPhone. It also comes with subscriptions to SilentCircle, a VPN service, and a cloud storage service, which may be cheaper as a bundle with installed separately on the phone.
BlackPhone does fork Android with their "PrivateOS", but such a fork is of limited utility. Google innovates faster than a company like BlackPhone can keep up, including security innovations. A true fork would quickly become out of date with Google's own patches, and hence be insecure. BlackPhone is still new, so I don't know how they plan on dealing with this. Continually forking the latest version of Android seems the most logical plan, if not convincing Android to accept their changes.
The Continue reading