Critical VPN key exchange flaw exposes Cisco security appliances to remote hacking

Cisco Systems patched a critical vulnerability that could allow remote attackers to take over Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) firewalls configured as virtual private network servers by simply sending malformed network packets to them.For devices that are designed to protect private networks from Internet attacks, this is as bad as it gets. That's why Cisco rated the vulnerability with the maximum score of 10 in the Common Vulnerability Scoring System.The flaw is located in the Cisco ASA code that handles the Internet Key Exchange version 1 (IKEv1) and IKE version 2 (IKEv2) protocols. More precisely, it stems from a buffer overflow condition in the function that processes fragmented IKE payloads.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Saving a Cloonix network topology

The Cloonix network simulator has been updated to version 29, which adds the ability to save network simulation topologies and node configurations to a directory.

Users may save a network topology and all node configurations to a directory of their choice. They may also load saved topologies into Cloonix so they can restore a network scenario they previously created. The save function of Cloonix v29 supports copy-on-write filesystems and also allows users to save the full filesystems of nodes, if they wish.

This post will work through a detailed tutorial showing how to save, load, and re-save topologies and node configurations using the Cloonix GUI or command-line interface.

Different methods to save a Cloonix project

In this tutorial we will show three ways Cloonix may be used to save filesystems and network topologies:

  1. Create a new base filesystem by starting a VM in Cloonix, loading software and configurations, then saving either a full VM disk image or a derived VM disk image.
    • This simple case is useful when upgrading or modifying disk images that will be used in simulation scenarios.
       
  2. Start the Cloonix graph, set up the VMs, load software, and configure them. Then save the topology and filesystems.

Can You Keep a Secret? (Part 2)

In part one, we saw how AES can be used to encrypt sensitive data so that it can be retrieved only by using an encryption key. The problem with this approach is that everyone who needs access to the data must have a copy of the key. If any one of these copies becomes compromised, the entire database must be re-encrypted using a new key, and the new key must be distributed securely to all parties involved. In this article, we'll see how symmetric encryption can be combined with asymmetric cryptography (namely RSA) to create a hybrid cryptosystem.

Let's begin by encrypting some data using AES as we did in part one. First we pad our plaintext's length to a multiple of 16 using null bytes, then generate a 256-bit encryption key and a 128-bit IV, and finally encrypt it with CFB-mode AES to generate a string of ciphertext.

>>> from Crypto.Cipher import AES
>>> import os
>>> plaintext = "Operation Neptune will launch on June 6th"
>>> plaintext += (16 - len(plaintext) % 16) * chr(0)
>>> encryption_key = os.urandom(32)
>>> iv = os.urandom(16)
>>> cipher = AES.new(encryption_key, AES.MODE_CFB, iv)
>>> ciphertext =  Continue reading

Can You Keep a Secret? (Part 2)

In part one, we saw how AES can be used to encrypt sensitive data so that it can be retrieved only by using an encryption key. The problem with this approach is that everyone who needs access to the data must have a copy of the key. If any one of these copies becomes compromised, the entire database must be re-encrypted using a new key, and the new key must be distributed securely to all parties involved. In this article, we'll see how symmetric encryption can be combined with asymmetric cryptography (namely RSA) to create a hybrid cryptosystem.

Let's begin by encrypting some data using AES as we did in part one. First we pad our plaintext's length to a multiple of 16 using null bytes, then generate a 256-bit encryption key and a 128-bit IV, and finally encrypt it with CFB-mode AES to generate a string of ciphertext.

>>> from Crypto.Cipher import AES
>>> import os
>>> plaintext = "Operation Neptune will launch on June 6th"
>>> plaintext += (16 - len(plaintext) % 16) * chr(0)
>>> encryption_key = os.urandom(32)
>>> iv = os.urandom(16)
>>> cipher = AES.new(encryption_key, AES.MODE_CFB, iv)
>>> ciphertext =  Continue reading

Can You Keep a Secret? (Part 2)

In part one, we saw how AES can be used to encrypt sensitive data so that it can be retrieved only by using an encryption key. The problem with this approach is that everyone who needs access to the data must have a copy of the key. If any one of these copies becomes compromised, the entire database must be re-encrypted using a new key, and the new key must be distributed securely to all parties involved. In this article, we'll see how symmetric encryption can be combined with asymmetric cryptography (namely RSA) to create a hybrid cryptosystem.

Let's begin by encrypting some data using AES as we did in part one. First we pad our plaintext's length to a multiple of 16 using null bytes, then generate a 256-bit encryption key and a 128-bit IV, and finally encrypt it with CFB-mode AES to generate a string of ciphertext.

>>> from Crypto.Cipher import AES
>>> import os
>>> plaintext = "Operation Neptune will launch on June 6th"
>>> plaintext += (16 - len(plaintext) % 16) * chr(0)
>>> encryption_key = os.urandom(32)
>>> iv = os.urandom(16)
>>> cipher = AES.new(encryption_key, AES.MODE_CFB, iv)
>>> ciphertext =  Continue reading

Change the (S)Channel! Deconstructing the Microsoft TLS Session Resumption bug

Initial Problem Report

Several months ago we started hearing occasional reports from .NET developers that they were having trouble maintaining HTTPS sessions with one of our customer’s websites. Establishing connections worked just fine but they would periodically get disconnected, resulting in an exception that crashed their application. Around the same time, we also started hearing reports that two other Microsoft products—Internet Explorer and its heir-apparent, Edge—were also having trouble with our edge.

Just a few weeks prior, we had updated our handling of TLS session tickets to be more performant and more secure. We suspected these improvements were the trigger and focused our investigation there. What we learned was that the problem ran much deeper than .NET or IE. It went all the way down to the SChannel security package, which provides TLS functionality for a vast array of Microsoft applications.

TLS Session Tickets

Before diving into the story further, however, it’s helpful to understand exactly what TLS session tickets are, how they’re beneficial to HTTPS, and what optimizations CloudFlare does to use them at scale. (If you’d like to skip over the primer and jump right to the punchline, go ahead and click here.)

Overview

First introduced in Continue reading

OSPF LSA Types

OSPF LSA (link state advertisements) are used to create a logical network topology. But Why we have 11 different LSAs ? What are their purposes ? Most important questions many time is not asked by the engineers thus you can’t find many places on the Internet which provides these answers. The reason of having 11 […]

The post OSPF LSA Types appeared first on Orhanergun.

SD-WAN: What it is and why you’ll use it one day

Managing the Wide Area Network (WAN) for Redmond Inc., a supplier of industrial and commercial products – from salt that’s used to protect winter roadways to organic dairy products and health items – is an easier job today for the company’s technical project manager Aaron Gabrielson than it was a year ago.Redmond manages a phone system, point of sale and fax centrally out of headquarters in Heber City, Utah, which means each of Redmond’s 10 branch sites across the Midwest need a reliable connection back to headquarters in Utah. That’s easier for some sites, like those in Salt Lake City, than others, such as rural areas where there may only be a handful of workers on a farm.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Android root malware widespread in third-party app stores

Four third-party app stores for Android have apps with a malicious component that seeks root access to devices, according to Trend Micro. The security company found 1,163 Android application packages containing the malware, which it calls ANDROIDOS_ LIBSKIN.A, wrote Jordan Pan, a mobile threats analyst with Trend. The malware obtains root access to the phone, the highest level of access and privilege. The apps containing the component were downloaded across 169 countries between Jan. 29 and Feb. 1 from marketplaces called Aptoide, Mobogenie, mobile9 and 9apps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hackers aren’t smart — people are stupid

The cliche is that hackers are geniuses. That's not true, hackers are generally stupid.

The top three hacking problems for the last 10 years are "phishing", "password reuse", and "SQL injection". These problems are extremely simple, as measured by the fact that teenagers are able to exploit them. Yet they persist because, unless someone is interested in hacking, they are unable to learn them. They ignore important details. They fail at grasping the core concept.


Phishing

Phishing happens because the hacker forges email from someone you know and trust, such as your bank. It appears nearly indistinguishable from real email that your bank might send. To be fair, good phishing attacks can fool even the experts.

But when read advice from "experts", it's often phrased as "Don't open emails from people you don't know". No, no, no. The problem is that emails appear to come from people you do trust. This advice demonstrates a lack of understanding of the core concept.

What's going on here is human instinct. We naturally distrust strangers, and we teach our children to distrust strangers.Therefore, this advice is wired into our brains. Whatever advice we hear from experts, we are likely to translate it Continue reading

So, You Want To Be A Manager

And so it was as a young man that I aspired to be a manager. Management looked like control to me. After all, I thought that as I acquired technical expertise in operating systems, security, and networking, I should be the one holding the reins. That’s logical, perhaps. But it’s naive.
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