Another serious vulnerability found in Android’s media processing service

Pixabay Android The Android service that processes multimedia files has been the source of several vulnerabilities recently, including a new one that could give rogue applications access to sensitive permissions.The latest vulnerability in Android's mediaserver component was discovered by security researchers from antivirus firm Trend Micro and stems from a feature called AudioEffect.The implementation of this feature does not properly check some buffer sizes that are supplied by clients, like media player applications. Therefore it is possible to craft a rogue application without any special permissions that could exploit the flaw to trigger a heap overflow, the Trend Micro researchers said Monday in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Car hacking news: Ransomware threat could reach auto dealerships

It would be a heck of time to be shopping for a new set of wheels. The theme of digitally beating up cars continued with two teams of security researchers at the 24th USENIX Security Symposium.After two years of having their research suppressed by Volkswagen and a UK court, Flavio Garcia, Roel Verdult, and Baris Ege were finally able to present their research (pdf) at USENIX. The researcher paper details "how the cryptography and authentication protocol used in the Megamos Crypto transponder can be targeted by malicious hackers looking to steal luxury vehicles."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

When a Port Channel Member Link Goes Down

Mohamed Anwar asked the following question on my post “4 Types of Port Channels and When They’re Used“.

“I need a clarification, where if a member link fails, what will happen to the traffic already sent over that link ? Is there any mechanism to notify the upper layer about the loss and ask it to resend ? How this link failure will be handled for data traffic and control traffic ?”
–Mohamed Anwar

I think his questions are really important because he hits on two really key aspects of a failure event: what happens in the data plane and what happens in the control plane.

A network designer needs to bear both of these aspects in mind as part of their design. Overlooking either aspect will almost always open the network up to additional risk.

I think it’s well understood that port channels add resiliency in the data plane (I cover some of that in the previous article). What may not be well understood is that port channels also contribute to a stable control plane! I’ll talk about that below. I’ll also address Mohamed’s question about what happens to traffic on the failed link.

Control Plane

The control Continue reading

Why Are These Slides Marked Confidential?

top-secret

Imagine you’re sitting in a presentation. You’re hearing some great information from the presenter and you can’t wait to share it with your colleagues or with the wider community. You are just about to say something when you look in the corner of the slide and you see…

Confidential Information

You pause for a moment and ask the presenter if this slide is a secret or if you should consider it under NDA. They respond that this slide can be shared with no restrictions and the information is publicly available. Which raises the question: Why is a public slide marked “confidential”?

I Fought The Law

The laws that govern confidential information are legion. Confidential information is a bit different than copyrighted information or intellectual property that has been patented. In most cases, confidential information is treated as a trade secret. Trade secrets can be harmful if they are divulged, since a trade secret can’t be patented.

A great example is the formula for Coca-Cola. If they tried to patent it they would have to write down all the ingredients. While that would protect the very specific formulation of their drink it would also allow their competitors to create something extremely Continue reading

IRS: Tax breach much worse than originally thought

The cyberattack on U.S. taxpayer data reported by the Internal Revenue Service earlier this year now appears to be much worse than originally thought, the agency announced Monday, with as many as 300,000 citizens now believed to be potential victims.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 6 simple tricks for protecting your passwords Whereas in May the IRS reported that sensitive information of about roughly 100,000 taxpayers had been stolen by thieves through its "Get Transcript" online application, its latest estimates more than double that number. It's now believed that the thieves potentially gained access to more than 300,000 taxpayer accounts after attempting to breach more than 600,000.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 more security startups to watch

The emergence of cybersecurity startups has continued unabated as entrepreneurs vie for corporate customers seeking new technologies to battle ever increasing and innovative attackers. The expertise of these new companies range from various improvements to encryption products to analyzing the wealth of security-incident data gathered from networks to gear that detects the potentially malicious wireless activity of Internet of Things devices.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 10 young security companies to watch in 2015 Based on the continued interest in these startups from venture capital investors, these companies will continue to proliferate. Here are 10 more security startups we are watching and why.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Darkode vendor of Facebook malware pleads guilty to one charge

A New York man pleaded guilty Monday to one federal spam-related charge for selling access to a botnet of Facebook accounts on a now-shuttered cybercriminal forum.Eric L. Crocker, 29, of Binghamton, New York, could face up to three years in prison and a US$250,000 fine, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania. He was charged with violating the CAN-SPAM Act, according to a court document.Crocker was accused of selling access to a botnet he and others built of compromised Facebook accounts, according to the indictment. His customers used the access to send high volumes of spam.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Gaming services, hosting companies hit with new type of DDoS attack

Gaming and hosting companies have been hit with a new kind of DDoS attack that could snowball without preventive steps, Level 3 Communications warned on Monday. Attackers have figured out how to abuse portmap services that have been left openly accessible on the Internet, said Dale Drew, chief security officer for Level 3. "We think it has the potential to be very, very bad," Drew said. Portmap, also referred to as RPCbind, is an open-source utility for Unix systems but also is in Windows. It maps network port numbers to available services. For example, portmap might be used if someone wants to mount a Windows drive from a Unix file system. Portmap would tell Unix where the drive is located and the right port number.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

When a Port Channel Member Link Goes Down

Mohamed Anwar asked the following question on my post “4 Types of Port Channels and When They're Used".

“I need a clarification, where if a member link fails, what will happen to the traffic already sent over that link ? Is there any mechanism to notify the upper layer about the loss and ask it to resend ? How this link failure will be handled for data traffic and control traffic ?”

— Mohamed Anwar

I think his questions are really important because he hits on two really key aspects of a failure event: what happens in the data plane and what happens in the control plane.

A network designer needs to bear both of these aspects in mind as part of their design. Overlooking either aspect will almost always open the network up to additional risk.

I think it's well understood that port channels add resiliency in the data plane (I cover some of that in the previous article). What may not be well understood is that port channels also contribute to a stable control plane! I'll talk about that below. I'll also address Mohamed's question about what happens to traffic on the failed link.

Drive a dumb car but buy Tesla stocks?

It would be a heck of time to be shopping for a new set of wheels. The theme of digitally beating up cars continued by two teams of security researchers at the 24th USENIX Security Symposium.After two years of having their research suppressed by Volkswagen and a UK court, Flavio Garcia, Roel Verdult and Baris Ege were finally able to present their research (pdf) at USENIX. The researcher paper details “how the cryptography and authentication protocol used in the Megamos Crypto transponder can be targeted by malicious hackers looking to steal luxury vehicles.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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