At Facebook, a sharpening focus on virtual reality

In 10 years, there may be no need to check Facebook’s site to see what that friend overseas is up to. You might just pick up a pair of goggles, reach out and hold her hand at her birthday party.You won’t have to actually be there. The experience could be made possible through virtual reality.Facebook sees it as a radical and important technology that in the not-too-distant future could provide new ways to help people connect and transport them to places that are out of reach or don’t even exist. Providing those experiences is among Facebook’s ambitious long-term goals, along with providing Internet access through aerial drones and deepening its artificial intelligence technology to better understand what people want.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

An SDN vulnerability forced OpenDaylight to focus on security

Open-source software projects are often well intended, but security can take a back seat to making the code work.OpenDaylight, the multivendor software-defined networking (SDN) project, learned that the hard way last August after a critical vulnerability was found in its platform.It took until December for the flaw, called Netdump, to get patched, a gap in time exacerbated by the fact that the project didn’t yet have a dedicated security team. After he tried and failed to get in touch with OpenDaylight, the finder of the vulnerability, Gregory Pickett, posted it on Bugtraq, a popular mailing list for security flaws.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

An SDN vulnerability forced OpenDaylight to focus on security

Open-source software projects are often well intended, but security can take a back seat to making the code work. OpenDaylight, the multivendor software-defined networking (SDN) project, learned that the hard way last August after a critical vulnerability was found in its platform. It took until December for the flaw, called Netdump, to get patched, a gap in time exacerbated by the fact that the project didn’t yet have a dedicated security team. After he tried and failed to get in touch with OpenDaylight, the finder of the vulnerability, Gregory Pickett, posted it on Bugtraq, a popular mailing list for security flaws.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Go Go Gadget Networking Lab!

For the last few years, if you wanted to set up a virtual network environment (for testing purposes, or setting up a lab, etc), it was more or less a manual process of installing software like the CSR 1000v from an ISO or OVA. Rinse and repeat. If you were fortunate enough to work at a company with decent virtual machine automation and infrastructure (and had access to it) then you could in theory make this a little easier, but it’s hardly portable.

Go Go Gadget Networking Lab!

How to boot an encrypted system safely

These are my notes on how to set up a system securely, in a way that would prevent attackers from being capable of performing an “evil maid attack”.

The threat model

You have a Linux server that you want to protect against data theft and other backdoors. The attacker can get physical access to your hardware, for example by having access to the server room that houses your rack.

Your attacker is funded, but not super well funded. This will not protect you against intelligence agencies.

The attacker can buy a new server that looks just like the one you have. You will not be able to tell the difference from physical inspection.

You want to know that it’s safe to log in to your server after a suspicious power outage or reboot.

This solution assumes that once the system is booted and you log in, you have access to the secret data. In other words, this is not a protection for gaming consoles or kiosks.

Overview of the solution

First of all, full disk encryption using dm-crypt. Obviously. (other FDE also acceptable, of course)

Walking up to the server and typing the passphrase every reboot is not only tedious Continue reading

How to boot an encrypted system safely

These are my notes on how to set up a system securely, in a way that would prevent attackers from being capable of performing an “evil maid attack”.

The threat model

Your attacker is funded, but not super well funded. This will not protect you against intelligence agencies.

The attacker can buy a new server that looks just like the one you have. You will not be able to tell the difference from physical inspection.

You want to know that it’s safe to log in to your server after a suspicious power outage or reboot.

This solution assumes that once the system is booted and you log in, you have access to the secret data. In other words, this is not a protection for gaming consoles or kiosks.

Overview of the solution

First of all, full disk encryption using dm-crypt. Obviously. (other FDE also acceptable, of course)

Walking up to the server and typing the passphrase every reboot is not only tedious Continue reading

BGP Optimizer Causes Thousands Of Fake Routes

Earlier today many BGPmon users received one or more alerts informing them that their autonomous system (AS) started to announce a more-specific prefix. BGPmon classified many of these alerts as possible BGP man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. Here is an example alert:

==================================================================== Possible BGP MITM attack (Code: 21) ==================================================================== Your prefix: 23.20.0.0/15: Prefix Description: acxiom-online.com --- Amazon EC2 IAD prefix Update time: 2015-03-26 11:27 (UTC) Detected by #peers: 24 Detected prefix: 23.21.112.0/20 Announced by: AS14618 (AMAZON-AES - Amazon.com, Inc.,US) Upstream AS: AS3257 (TINET-BACKBONE Tinet SpA,DE) ASpath: 4608 24130 7545 6939 40633 18978 3257 14618

The alert shows the user was monitoring 23.20.0.0/15, normally announced by Amazon, Inc. (AS14618). In this case however, the detected prefix was the more specific 23.21.112.0/20. The netblock owners would have verified their BGP announcements and quickly recognized they did not originate this more-specific prefix. Further analysis pointed to the suspicion that a bad actor was impersonating Amazon. BGPmon algorithms alerted to this as well, and–within moments of the initial change–marked these events as a possible BGP MITM attack.

One reason for this classification is the way BGPmon understands and interprets AS Continue reading

Message to Errata employees

Dear employees,

Starting next week, Errata Security will be following RSA Conference's lead and institute a "Morality Dress Code" in order to deal with the problem of loose women on the premises.

Attire of an overly revealing or suggestive nature is not permitted. Examples of such attire may include but are not restricted to:

Tops displaying excessive cleavage;
Tank tops, halter tops, camisole tops or tube tops;
Miniskirts or minidresses;
Shorts;
Lycra (or other Second-Skin) bodysuits;
Objectionable or offensive costumes.

These guidelines are applicable to all staff, regardless of gender, and will be strictly enforced. Therefore, Dave's practice of showing up on casual Friday's in a miniskirt and push-up bra will no longer be tolerated. We have burkas on hand of varying sizes for those who fail to comply.

If you have any questions, please consult the Morality Officer for your department.

Regards,

Robert Graham

CEO, Errata Security

"Shalim" by Zivya - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shalim.JPG#/media/File:Shalim.JPG

PS: This is satire, of course. We don't support RSA's morality code.

Court throws out lawsuit over storage on iPhones, iPads

A federal court has dismissed a lawsuit against Apple over the amount of storage available in mobile devices that come with iOS 8.The district court in San Jose, California, threw out the proposed class-action suit on Wednesday after Apple filed a motion saying the plaintiffs failed to back up their arguments. The case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning the plaintiffs can’t sue Apple again for the same thing.In the suit, filed last December, Paul Orshan and Christopher Endara charged that Apple misled consumers about how much of the storage on iPhones and iPads was taken up by the OS. For example, they said a 16GB iPhone 6 really had just 13GB of capacity available.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Court throws out lawsuit over storage on iPhones, iPads

Apple asks court to throw out lawsuit over storage on iPhones, iPads

Apple has asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing it of misleading customers about the amount of storage available in mobile devices that come with iOS 8.Apple filed a motion for dismissal Wednesday at the district court in San Jose, California, saying the plaintiffs failed to back up their arguments. It wants the case dismissed with prejudice, which would prevent the plaintiffs from suing Apple again for the same thing. Judge Edward Davila will now have to rule on the motion.In the suit, filed last December, Paul Orshan and Christopher Endara charged that Apple misled consumers about how much of the storage on iPhones and iPads was taken up by the OS. For example, they said a 16GB iPhone 6 really had just 13GB of capacity available.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple asks court to throw out lawsuit over storage on iPhones, iPads

Quick script: backup multiple Alcatel Omniswitch configuration files

A quick batch script I did to backup configuration files of multiple Alcatel Omniswitch via FTP. All files are named boot.cfg so the script renames each file appending the IP address. Create a file with all the IP of switches…

Salt – The basics

In my last post, I showed you how I automated my Kubernetes lab build out by using Salt. This took the build time and cut it by more than 70% (Im guessing here but you get the point). In addition, I’ve been making all of my changes for the cluster in Salt rather than applying them directly to the host. Not only does this give me better documentation, it allows me to apply changes across multiple nodes very quickly. You might be wondering why I chose Salt since I’ve blogged about Chef in the past. The answer isn’t cut and dry, but Salt just made sense to me. On top of that, there is VERY good documentation out there about all of the state and state functions so it’s pretty easily consumable. As I walk through the process I used to create the lab build scripts, I hope you’ll start to catch onto some of the reasons that made me decide to learn Salt.

Let’s start by taking a look at me GitHub repo…

While there’s a lot here, the pieces we really want to talk about are the files that end Continue reading

Flaw in common hotel router threatens guests’ devices

Corporate travelers should be warned that a Wi-Fi router commonly used in hotels is easily compromised, putting guests passwords at risk and opening up their computers to malware infections and direct attacks.The good news is that there is a patch for the flaw, but there is no guarantee affected hotels will install it right away.+ More on Network World: 10 young security companies to watch in 2015 +Cylance, a security vendor whose research team found the problem, says 277 InnGate routers in 29 countries are affected. The routers are made by ANTLabs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Flaw in common hotel router threatens guests’ devices

Work Smarter, Not Harder with Security Baseline Configuration Automation

Many security baseline processes are rife with challenges. Whether organizations use scripts to manually brute-force their system-level compliance baseline, or perhaps leverage the all-too-common “Gold Disk” approach, routine security baseline compliance remediation remains largely an unsolved and constant challenge even for the most mature of IT organizations.

Even for organizations that are using an existing management tool to help with their security baselining, issues frequently arise around how to identify systems that require baselining as they come online, and then immediately recognize what needs to be done on those systems in order to verify their compliance.

To add to the challenge, applying a baseline to a newly deployed server or application is one thing, but validating compliance throughout the server and application lifecycle typically requires a separate set of tools or processes, or at very least scripts that are smart enough to smartly change the existing state of a server or application without impacting its availability.

MindPoint Group knew there was a better way. The security folks at MindPoint group are leveraging the power and simplicity of Ansible to bring automation to the problem of security baselines. And thanks to Ansible’s design, the work that MindPoint group has done is Continue reading

Cheap mobile subscriptions the bait as Euro operators become more aggressive

Consumers seem to be coming out on top as a growing number of European telecom and cable operators offer discounted mobile subscriptions as a bonus for choosing other services.Bundles with broadband, telephony and TV across fixed and mobile networks are becoming increasingly important for operators across the continent. The latest example is British operator BT, which on Wednesday announced its return to the consumer mobile market.The expressed goal is to offer the best-value, 4G SIM-only mobile deals as a reward for its broadband customers. The cheapest plan costs £5 (US$7.40) per month and includes 500MB of data, unlimited texts and 200 voice minutes. BT’s broadband subscribers can also choose a plan with 2GB of data, unlimited texts and 500 voice minutes for £12 per month, the operator said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cheap mobile subscriptions the bait as Euro operators become more aggressive

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