1210, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Talk: Brace Yourselves – Exploit Automation is Coming! – Andreas Follner

Sanna/ October 12, 2016/ Conference, Development, Security

Automating tasks is not only the domain of system administrators. We use computers for a lot of dull and boring processes. This enhances productivity and enables us to focus on problem solving. That’s good news. The bad news is that your adversaries can do this, too. While there are still more than enough hand-crafted attacks Out There™, there are classes of exploits that follow a certain pattern. So if you want to find out how this auto0wning works, you should listen to the presentation by Andreas Follner. Gone are the days of simple stack smashing and code injection (thanks, DEP / W^X!), says Andreas Follner. Today, return-oriented programming (ROP) is the foundation of exploitation. Most ROP exploits are created as follows: you use a tool to dump all gadgets in a binary to the disk, grep specific

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2109, 2016

DeepSec2016 Workshop: Secure Web Development – Marcus Niemietz

Sanna/ September 21, 2016/ Development, Security, Training

The World Wide Web is everywhere. It has become the standard protocol for transferring data, accessing applications, configuring devices, controlling software, or even multimedia streaming. Most software development can’t be done without web applications. Despite the easy concept the technologies used in „HTTP/HTTPS“ have grown in very complex beasts. Few get it right, lots of developers make mistakes and end up at the wrong side of a security presentation at a conference. Fortunately there is help. We offer you a workshop at DeepSec 2016 to make your web software development great again! The “Secure Web Development” training by Marcus Niemietz systematically covers the OWASP Top 10 threats as well as threats, which may be important in the future (e.g. HTML5 and AngularJS attacks). At the end of the training each attendee will be able to create her/his

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0709, 2016

DeepSec2016 Talk: badGPO – Using GPOs for Persistence and Lateral Movement – Yves Kraft & Immanuel Willi

Sanna/ September 7, 2016/ Conference, Development, Security

System administration has evolved a lot during the past decades. Instead of enjoying long walks through the forests of servers and clients, the modern sysadmin controls the whole infrastructure by policies. Most operating systems can take advantage of this technology. As with software upgrades, these tools can make your life easier – or help an intruder to get a firm hold onto your infrastructure. Malicious activity can exploit your management networks/systems. Once this happens, you are in deep trouble. We have invited two security experts who created a demonstration. They used the Microsoft® Windows platform in combination with native tools: Group Policy is a feature which provides centralized management and configuration functions for the Microsoft operating system, application, and user settings. Group Policy is simply the easiest way to reach out and configure computer

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2107, 2016

A Perspective on Code and Components – assert(), don’t assume()

René Pfeiffer/ July 21, 2016/ Development, Discussion, High Entropy

Have you ever looked closely at the tools you use on a daily basis? Taking things apart and putting them back together is an integral part of understanding the universe. Scientists do it all of the time (well, at least some do, there are things that can’t be put together easily once taken apart). So lets focus on components and how they interact. ASN.1 and libraries that deal with it are popular components. Few people get a kick out of ASN.1, so they use code that does it. It’s just an example for parts that handle data being sent to and received from other systems. We live in a networked world, so communication is a crucial part of modern software. So to use business lingo: Most software works by delegating tasks to third-party code.

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0810, 2015

DeepSec 2015 Talk: Extending a Legacy Platform Providing a Minimalistic, Secure Single-Sign-On-Library – Bernhard Göschlberger & Sebastian Göttfert

Sanna/ October 8, 2015/ Conference, Development, Security

Upgrading existing infrastructure and migrating from one architecture to another is often the way to keep your information technology up-to-date. Changing major revisions of software is not for the faint of heart. Many sysadmins sacrificed a good portion of their life force just to jump to the next version. Sometimes you are simply stuck. Code is not always maintained. Products might be obsolete. Developers might have abandoned the project. However the application is still in place and keeps on working. When changes hit this kind of environment, you can’t decline the challenge. Meet the legacy systems that will ruin your day. Bernhard Göschlberger and Sebastian Göttfert have spent thoughts on this problem. They will tell you all about it in their presentation at DeepSec 2015. Well elaborated principles of software engineering foster interoperability between

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0310, 2015

DeepSec 2015 Talk: Continuous Intrusion – Why CI Tools Are an Attacker’s Best Friend – Nikhil Mittal

Sanna/ October 3, 2015/ Conference, Development, Security

In information security pessimism rules. Unfortunately. Extreme Programming might breed extreme problems, too. The short-lived app software cycle is a prime example. If your main goal is to hit the app store as soon and as often as possible, then critical bugs will show up faster than you can spell XCodeGhost. The development infrastructure has some nice features attackers will love and most probably exploit. In his presentation Nikhil Mittal will show you how Continuous Integration (CI) tools can be turned into a Continuous Intrusion. Continuous Integration (CI) tools are part of build and development processes of a large number of organizations. I have seen a lot of CI tools during my penetration testing engagements. I always noticed the lack of basic security controls on the management consoles of such tools. On a default installation, many CI tools

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2906, 2015

Software Security: The Lost Art of Refactoring

René Pfeiffer/ June 29, 2015/ Development, Discussion, Security

A sysadmin, a software developer, and an infosec researcher almost walked into a bar. Unfortunately they couldn’t agree where to go together. So they died of thirst. Sounds familiar? When it comes to information technology, there is one thing that binds us all together: software. This article was written and published by software. You can read it by using (different) software. This doesn’t automagically create stalwart bands of adventurers fighting dragons (i.e. code vulnerabilities) and doing good deeds (i.e. not selling 0days). However it is a common ground where one can meet. Since all software has bugs, and we all use software, there’s also a common cause. Unfortunately this is where things go wrong. Code has a life cycle. It usually starts out as a (reasonably) good idea. Without a Big Bang. Then the implementation

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1311, 2013

DeepSec 2013 Talk: Building The First Android IDS On Network Level

René Pfeiffer/ November 13, 2013/ Conference, Development, Security

Being popular is not always a good thing and here’s why: As mobile devices grow in popularity, so do the incentives for attackers. Mobile malware and threats are clearly on the rise, as attackers experiment with new business models by targeting mobile phones. The threat to mobile devices, however, is not limited to rogue versions of popular apps and adware. Threat actors are also pouncing on mobile users’ banking transactions. Android continues to be a primary target for malware attacks due to its market share and open source architecture. Nowadays, several behaviour-based malware analysis and detection techniques for mobile threats have been proposed for mobile devices but only about 30 percent of all Android smart phones and tablets have security apps installed. At DeepSec 2013 Jaime Sanchez (@segofensiva) will present AndroIDS, a signature-based intrusion

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2406, 2010

Native Code Protection and Security

René Pfeiffer/ June 24, 2010/ Development, Internet

The Mozilla vice president of products announced that Firefox doesn’t need to run native code anymore when it comes to plugins. The idea is called crash protection for it aims to keep the web browser alive when a plugin fails to run correctly. At the same time the magical words about the future being in the hands of (open) web standards and HTML5 are uttered. What does this imply in terms of security? Is there any benefit? The thought of having more reliable web browsers is certainly tempting. It is also true that overloading the browser with plugins increases the „angle of attack” to the point of stalling or most probably catching some malware floating around on the Web. The message seems to be that seperating vulnerable plugins from the browser doesn’t rule out

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