Facebook bug hunter stumbles on backdoor left by hackers

When Orange Tsai set out to participate in Facebook's bug bounty program in February, he successfully managed to gain access to one of Facebook's corporate servers. But once in, he realized that malicious hackers had beaten him to it.Tsai, a consultant with Taiwanese penetration testing outfit Devcore, had started by mapping Facebook's online properties, which extend beyond user-facing services like facebook.com or instagram.com.One server that caught his attention was files.fb.com, which hosted a secure file transfer application made by enterprise software vendor Accellion and was presumably used by Facebook employees for file sharing and collaboration.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Some People Don’t Get It: It Will Eventually Fail

Mark Baker left this comment on my Stretched Firewalls across Layer-3 DCI blog post:

Strange how inter-DC clustering failure is considered a certainty in this blog.

Call it experience or exposure to a larger dataset. Anything you build will eventually fail; just because you haven’t experienced the failure yet doesn’t mean that the system will never fail but only that you were lucky so far.

Read more ...

There is NO IPv6 Standard

Geoff Huston highlights that the IETF has never completed their standard process. One hundred and forty-six of these RFCs are Informational, four of these are Historic, 23 are Experimental, five are Best Current Practice and the remaining 193 are Standards Track documents. Of these 193 documents, 24 are already obsoleted, 164 are Proposed Standards, just five […]

The post There is NO IPv6 Standard appeared first on EtherealMind.

NANOG 67 Hackathon

Sponsored by:

Join us for the NANOG 67 Hackathon -- a one-day event Sunday, June 12, 2016, at the Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park. 

The NANOG 67 Hackathon will bring network operators together in a room to develop new ideas and hacks for automating production internet networks.  Tools and software beyond those provided by vendors and existing open-source projects are needed to keep those networks up and running. By gathering together at NANOG 67 to collaboratively hack on code or hardware, develop ideas, and documentation we can open the possibilities of holistic network management through automation.  And we will have fun while doing it!

Registration for the Hackathon is open on a space-available basis to all interested attendees of NANOG 67.  All skill levels are welcome, but participants are expected to actively participate in the hacks.  The theme of the Hackathon is holistic network management through automation.  Proposals of hacks will be solicited from registrants and published prior to NANOG 67 to allow the forming of teams of 1-6 individuals to work on hacks. And several example hacks will be available for inspiration.  A standardized hacking environment for prototyping will be provided or teams are welcome to Continue reading

Amazon Dash Button Events On A Catalyst

Lots of folks are detecting Amazon Dash button events by watching for ARP traffic with python.

I took a slightly different approach by watching for the button's MAC address with an EEM applet.

My Mac 'n Cheese button speaks on the network twice with each push: once right when it's pushed, and then a second time about 40 seconds later.

The applet sleeps for 60 seconds after it's fired to ensure that the button only creates a single event with each press.

 event manager applet macNcheese  
  event mat mac-address 00bb.3a4b.5a01 type add maxrun 90  
  action 1 syslog msg "It's Mac N Cheese time!"  
  action 2 cli command "enable"  
  action 3 cli command "copy https://username:password@some_server/path/to/events.php^V?eventtype=MAC%20N%20CHEESE%20TIME! null:"  
  action 4 wait 60  
  action 5 cli command "clear mac address-table dynamic address 00bb.3a4b.5a01"

event mat refers to "mac address table" changes. This applet fires only when the button's address is added to the table. Without the add keyword, the event would fire twice, once when the entry is added, and again when the entry is removed from the switch L2 filtering table.

I'm triggering an external event by hitting a web server that's already configured to receive Continue reading

The Importance of System Hardening

locksystemhardening

Most operating systems are not very secure out of the box and favor convenience and ease of use over security. IT Security professionals may not agree with a vendor’s user friendly approach to their OS, but that does not mean they have to accept it. There are steps that can be taken to harden a system and eliminate as many security risks as possible

System Hardening Examples

The most basic hardening procedure is to change the vendor default user name and password. You would be surprised how many vendor default access codes can found with a simple Google search!

System hardening can include configuration settings to remove unnecessary services, applying firewall rules, enforcing password complexity, setting failed login thresholds, and system idle time outs.

System hardening can also include installing an anti-virus program, forwarding logs to a centralized log management solution, and applying vendor released system patches.

Basically system hardening is a way to lock down the Operating System before the system goes into production. The hardening guides can not only detail the steps to follow to secure a system, but can complement any system deployment guides. Along with the list of procedures to follow to improve system security the hardening Continue reading

Junos and DHCP relay

There are two different ways to configure DHCP in Junos, bootp helper and dhcp relay. These work in very different manner, bootp helper is being phased out and is not supported for example in QFX10k. Behaviour of bootp helper is obvious, it works like it works in every other sensible platform. Behaviour of dhcp-relay is very confusing and it's not documented at all anywhere.

If it's possible in your platform to configure bootp helper, do it. If not, complain to Junos about dhcp-relay implementation and ask them to fix it. The main problem with dhcp-relay implementation is that once you've configured it, you're punting all dhcp traffic in all interfaces. Normal transit traffic crossing your router is subject to this punt, so transit customers will experience larger jitter and delay of packets being punted and almost certainly reordering, because the non-dhcp packet that came after but was not subject to punt will be forwarded first. Technically reordering does not matter, as long as it does not happen inside a flow, but it's not desirable.

How the sequence of operation works in Junos for dhcp-relay:

  1. Transit packet touches ingress NPU
  2. After L2 lookup, before L3 lookup ingress NPU punts the transit Continue reading

Tips for hiring the right remote worker

Interviewing remote workers is much different than hiring for a traditional, on-site position. In addition to the usual questions about knowledge, hard skills and experience, interviewing candidates for a remote position must take into account commitment, ability to work independently, oral and written communication skills, conflict resolution, motivation and technology prowess."There are some differences to look for when you're hiring remote workers. You need to emphasize constant communication, availability and collaboration skills, as well as the ability to work independently, to solve problems and resolve conflicts and be able to gauge productivity," says Madhav Bhandari, head of growth at cloud productivity management and time tracking software company Hubstaff.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple’s iBooks Store and iTunes Movies shut down by Chinese government

A Chinese regulator is said to have ordered Apple to shut down its iBooks Store and iTunes Movies only six months after the services were launched in the country.The action against Apple in a country, which it rates as its second largest market by revenue after the U.S., came from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, reported The New York Times, quoting two persons who spoke on the condition of anonymity.U.S. tech companies have been under pressure to comply with Chinese Internet regulations and censorship, with some Internet services like Facebook and Twitter blocked in the country.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows phones’ free-fall may force Microsoft to push harder on Windows 10 adoption

Poor little Windows phone could have a bigger effect on Microsoft's business than you'd think. As the company's mobile device strategy continues to disintegrate, Microsoft may feel compelled to push harder on Windows 10 adoption and paid services to prove it can survive without a viable smartphone—and that could be bad news for consumers. The raw numbers are shocking: Microsoft sold a minuscule 2.3 million Lumia phones last quarter, down from 8.6 million a year ago. Phone revenue declines will only “steepen” during the current quarter, chief financial officer Amy Hood warned during a conference call. That’s dragged down Microsoft’s results as a company, too.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Indians can now tweet for air pollution data

Indians love to discuss the weather and more recently the pollution that is on the increase in some of the country's cities. A new tool from Twitter could help people stay updated on pollution levels.The company has teamed up with a local data journalism outfit, IndiaSpend, to launch a service that provides users in Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai with updates on the pollution level in their locality if they send a tweet using the #Breathe hashtag with their location.Users will then get a reply with a real-time update about the air quality in the area, with a visual notification of the measurement of the air quality and the possible health implications, according to a Twitter blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

LG G5 vs. Samsung Galaxy S7: Which one is right for you?

If you’re an Android user and you’re looking to get the latest premium phone, you’re likely choosing between the recently-launched Samsung Galaxy S7 or the LG G5.Both phones are impressive in their own right, but because they’re virtually similar in their hardware offerings, choosing between one or the other could be tough. You could peruse through our reviews of both the G5 ($649 on Amazon) or Galaxy S7 ($633 on Amazon) to figure out which one is right for you, or you can simply peep through an abridged version we’ve put together for you here. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows 10’s upgrade model temporarily wipes $1.6B from Microsoft’s books

Microsoft's decision to radically change the distribution and maintenance of Windows 10 put a $1.6 billion temporary dent in its revenue, the company said Thursday.In a filing covering the March quarter, Microsoft pointed to the revenue deferral of Windows 10 -- a relatively new way of accounting for the Redmond, Wash. company -- as a reason for the 6% year-over-year decline in revenue."Revenue decreased $1.2 billion or 6%, primarily due to the impact of a net revenue deferral related to Windows 10 of $1.6 billion and an unfavorable foreign currency impact of approximately $838 million or 4%," Microsoft's 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) stated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why enterprise developers could save Windows 10 Mobile

Microsoft's Windows 10 Mobile platform, formerly known simply as Windows Mobile, has less than 3 percent mobile OS market share, and it is so far from the center of Microsoft's focus that it was barely even mentioned at last month's Build developer conference in San Francisco. The company also recently released iOS versions of some of its most popular apps, including Office, that were greatly improved, taking away one of Windows' traditional advantages over rival platforms.So why would a savvy software veteran like Alfredo Patron devote precious corporate resources to port enterprise apps to Windows 10 Mobile? "We're making a bet," says Patron, the vice president of business development for TeamViewer, a company that develops remote access software for enterprises. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Veriflow Systems applies formal verification to prevent network outages and breaches  

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  Last year the world watched in awe as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft sent stunning pictures of Pluto back to Earth. New Horizons had traveled 3 billion miles across the solar system over a decade's time to make its closest approach to Pluto—about 7,750 miles above the surface. That's roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India.This is quite an impressive scientific achievement. But what if one small bug in the navigation software had sent the spacecraft millions of miles off course? Instead of viewing the mesmerizing Pluto terrain nicknamed "the heart," disappointed NASA scientists would instead be looking at a whole lot of black nothingness. To ensure that nothing like that happens, NASA engineers use a methodology called formal verification to validate every possibility in the spacecraft's software code.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Veriflow Systems applies formal verification to prevent network outages and breaches  

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  Last year the world watched in awe as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft sent stunning pictures of Pluto back to Earth. New Horizons had traveled 3 billion miles across the solar system over a decade's time to make its closest approach to Pluto—about 7,750 miles above the surface. That's roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India.This is quite an impressive scientific achievement. But what if one small bug in the navigation software had sent the spacecraft millions of miles off course? Instead of viewing the mesmerizing Pluto terrain nicknamed "the heart," disappointed NASA scientists would instead be looking at a whole lot of black nothingness. To ensure that nothing like that happens, NASA engineers use a methodology called formal verification to validate every possibility in the spacecraft's software code.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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