0810, 2016

DeepSec2016 Talk: The (In)Security or Sad State of Online Newspapers – Ashar Javed

Sanna/ October 8, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Press

Web sites are simply, one might think. The client requests a page, the server sends it, the layout is applied, and your article appears. This is a heavy simplification. It worked like this back in 1994. Modern web sites are much more complex. And complexity attracts curious minds. Usually that’s what gets you into trouble. Now content management systems serve the web page of the 1990s with a lot of queries, executable code, and from different servers. The ever changing Top 10 list of mistakes from the Open Web Application Security Project can show you the tip of the iceberg. Ashar Javed took a closer look at online newspapers, and he found some scary stuff. The goal of his talk is to raise awareness about the (in)securities of online newspapers. Ashar Javed hopes that their

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0410, 2016

DeepSec2016 Talk: Behavioral Analysis from DNS and Network Traffic – Josh Pyorre

Sanna/ October 4, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security

What’s in a name? A rose? The preparation for an attack? Or simply your next web page you will be looking at? The Domain Name System (DNS) has gone a long way from replacing text lists of hosts to a full directory service transporting all kinds of queries. DNS even features a security protocol for cryptographically signed zone data. In order to balance the load, name resolution has caches that temporarily store DNS information. Usually organisations run their own DNS resolvers as caches for their infrastructure. Even if it’s just a flat network with local clients all DNS requests are channelled to hit your resolvers. Before applications open a data connection, they will query the local resolver to get address data or other hints on how to contact the other endpoint of the communication.

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2009, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Talk: 802.11 Complexity. An Introduction to 802.11 Protocol Chaos – Andrés Blanco

Sanna/ September 20, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security

Do you remember the days of Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)? One might almost say security design was bad back then. The question is: Has it really improved? Proper encryption and authentication is only a part of the design. In the case of wireless networking there is a whole lot more to consider. Shooting clients off the network is still possible. Penetration testers can tell you much more about the quirks and weaknesses of wireless protocols. This is why we asked Andrés Blanco to give a presentation about the state of wireless affairs. WiFi is everywhere and everyone is using it everyday. Employees connect to enterprise networks using their mobile devices, and later the same day to a WiFi network at a coffee shop or their home network. WiFi networks give users mobility and wire-less

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0509, 2016

Deep Sec2016 Talk: DROWN – Breaking TLS using SSLv2 – Nimrod Aviram

Sanna/ September 5, 2016/ Conference, Internet

In the past years encrypted communication has been subject to intense scrutiny by researchers. With the advent of Transport Layer Security (TLS) Internet communication via HTTP became a lot more secure. Its predecessor Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) must not be used any more. The real world has its own ideas. SSLv2 and SSLv3 is still present. Attackers can try to downgrade the TLS session by switching to insecure ciphers. When using the correct configuration, these downgrade attacks cannot happen. The question is: Are all of your devices, applications, and systems correctly configure? If you are not sure, better check again. In order to illustrate how these attacks work, we have invited Nimrod Aviram for DeepSec 2016. He will explain the inner workings of the DROWN attack. We present a novel cross-protocol attack on TLS

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0209, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Workshop: Hacking Web Applications – Case Studies of award-winning Bugs in Google, Yahoo!, Mozilla and more – Dawid Czagan

Sanna/ September 2, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security, Training

Have you been to the pictures lately? If so, what’s the best way to attack an impenetrable digital fortress? Right, go for the graphical user interface! Or anything exposed to the World Wide Web. The history of web applications is riddled with bugs that enable attackers to do things they are not supposed to. We bet that you have something exposed on the Web and even probably don’t know about it. Don’t worry. Instead attend the DeepSec training session „Hacking Web Applications“ conducted by Dawid Czagan. He will teach you about what to look for when examining web applications with a focus on information security. This hands-on web application hacking training is based on authentic, award-winning security bugs identified in some of the greatest companies (Google, Yahoo!, Mozilla, Twitter, etc.). You will learn how bug hunters

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1407, 2016

The Internet of Threats revisited

René Pfeiffer/ July 14, 2016/ Communication, High Entropy, Internet

Everyone is talking about the Internet of Things. Connecting household applications (yes, applications, appliances is so 1990s) to a network hasn’t been more fun than now. Also measuring things is great. Today most sensors are deployed to generate endless streams of data because we can, not because there is a need for it. And I haven’t even talked about the information security aspect yet. Let’s take a step back into 1995/1996. Those were the days of the first browser wars. Jamie Zawinski has a quote of the Law of Software Envelopment on his web site. Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can. The proof of concept was undertaken by creating the Netscape Mail and News client. Processing email once

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0203, 2016

DeepSec Video: Remote Browser-Based Fingerprinting of Local Network Devices

René Pfeiffer/ March 2, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security

Reconnaissance is first, then comes the attack. This is why fingerprinting devices is the first step. Manfred Kaiser (Josef Ressel Zentrum) explained at DeepSec 2015 how this can be done by the local web browser(s) in the locally connected network segment. Manfred discusses remote device fingerprinting techniques for SOHO routers and other network-connected devices offering a browser-based configuration interface. While consumer network devices provided to customers by their ISPs are typically based on very few different hardware platforms, they are equipped with highly customized firmwares and thus contain different vulnerabilities. The knowledge of a specific device’s vulnerabilities is vital to the success of a remote attack. In a live demo Manfred shows how a remote attacker can exploit the feature-richness of modern web technologies (HTML5, WebRTC, JavaScript, CSS) to perform device discovery and fine-grained

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2302, 2016

DeepSec Video: DDoS – Barbarians at the Gate(way)

René Pfeiffer/ February 23, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Stories

Unfortunately the Internet doesn’t follow the rules of economic theory. Unlimited growth is a myth best kept for feeding your unicorns. Of course, the Internet has grown, but the mathematics and physics behind network flows stay the same. If your pipe is full, then you are going nowhere. This is why Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks still work. You can counter or evade these attacks, but they can happen. We invited Dave Lewis of Akamai to DeepSec 2015 to hear his view on the current state of affairs where DDoS is concerned. For the record: DDoS is not hacking and no hacking attack. Spread your „cyber“ somewhere else.

2202, 2016

DeepSec Video: HORNET – High-speed Onion Routing at the Network Layer

René Pfeiffer/ February 22, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security

Given that reconnaissance is the first step of a successful attack, anonymity has become more important than ever. The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) and the TOR project are prominent tools to protect against prying eyes (five or more). TOR is widely used. Users of anonymity services will notice that the price for extra protection is less speed in terms of latency and probably bandwidth. Researchers have published a method to attain high-speed network performance, called HORNET. HORNET is designed as a low-latency onion routing system that operates at the network layer thus enabling a wide range of applications. Our system uses only symmetric cryptography for data forwarding yet requires no per-flow state on intermediate nodes. This design enables HORNET nodes to process anonymous traffic at over 93 Gb/s. At DeepSec 2015 Chen Chen explained

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1502, 2016

DeepSec Video: illusoryTLS – Nobody But Us. Impersonate,Tamper and Exploit

René Pfeiffer/ February 15, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security

Cryptographic backdoors are a timely topic often debated as a government matter to legislate on. At the same time, they define a space that some entities might have practically explored for intelligence purposes, regardless of the policy framework. The Web Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) we daily rely on provides an appealing target for attack. The entire X.509 PKI security architecture falls apart if a single CA certificate with a secretly embedded backdoor enters the certificate store of trusting parties. Do we have sufficient assurance that this has not happened already? Alfonso De Gregorio presented at DeepSec 2015 his findings and introduced illusoryTLS. Aptly named illusoryTLS, the entry is an instance of the Young and Yung elliptic curve asymmetric backdoor in the RSA key generation. The backdoor targets a Certification Authority public-key certificate, imported in

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1302, 2016

DeepSec Video: Measuring the TOR Network

René Pfeiffer/ February 13, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security

A lot of people use TOR for protecting themselves and others. Fortunately the TOR network is almost all around us. But what does it do? How can you get access to metrics? TOR is an anonymisation network and by design doesn’t know anything about its users. However, the question about the structure of the user base often arises. Some people are just interested in the size of the network while others want details about the diversity of its users and relays. Furthermore, TOR is used as a circumvention tool. It is interesting to automatically detect censorship events and to see how the number of users changes in those countries. TOR’s measurement team tries to give answer to those (and more) questions. At DeepSec 2015 Jens Kubieziel explained the collection of different data and how

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0902, 2016

DeepSec Video: Hacking Cookies in Modern Web Applications and Browsers

René Pfeiffer/ February 9, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security

Cookies are solid gold when it comes to security. Once you have logged in, your session is the ticket to enter any web application. This is why most web sites use HTTPS these days. The problem is that your browser and the web applications needs to store these bits of information. Enter cookie hacking. A lot has changed since 1994,  and Dawid Czagan of Silesia Security Lab held  presentation at DeepSec 2015 about what you can and cannot do with cookies in modern web applications and browsers. Learn about user impersonation, remote cookie tampering, XSS and more. .

0502, 2016

DeepSec Video: Cryptography Tools, Identity Vectors for “Djihadists”

René Pfeiffer/ February 5, 2016/ Conference, Discussion, High Entropy, Internet

Wherever and whenever terrorism, „cyber“, and cryptography (i.e. mathematics) meet, then there is a lot of confusion. The Crypto Wars 2.0 are raging as you read this article. Cryptography is usually the perfect scapegoat for a failure in intelligence. What about the facts? At DeepSec 2015 Julie Gommes talked about results of the studies done by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). The Internet is the method of choice for communication: the number of sites calling for a “jihad” rose from 28 in 1997 to over 5,000 in 2005. The basic use of these sites for the purpose of basic classical communication began in the 2000s. It was replaced by that of social networks, allowing almost instant mass communication. Julie’s talk give you an overview about the tools used according to the study.

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0202, 2016

DeepSec Video: Advanced SOHO Router Exploitation

René Pfeiffer/ February 2, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security

Routers are everywhere. They hold the networks together, Internet or not. Most small office/home office (SOHO) infrastructure features routers these days. Given the development cycles and rigorous QA cycles there have to be bugs in the firmware (apart from the vendor supplied backdoors). Lyon Yang (Vantage Point Security) held a presentation about a series of 0-day vulnerabilities that can be used to hack into tens of thousands of SOHO Routers. Even though the corporate „cloud“ might be „super secure“ against „cyber attacks“, the lonely office router most probably isn’t. Weak links sink ships, or something. We recorded the presentation at DeepSec 2015, and you can watch it online. It’s worth learning MIPS and ARM shell code. x86 (and x86_64) is sooooo 1990s. Happy hacking!

2801, 2016

DeepSec Video: Cyber Cyber Cyber Warfare: Mistakes from the MoDs

René Pfeiffer/ January 28, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security

The  word cyber has entered the information security circus a couple of years ago. It should have been long gone according to its creator William Gibson. Meanwhile everything has developed into something being cyber – CSI, war, politics, security, homes, cars, telephones, and more. Inventing new words helps to distract. Distraction is what Raoul Chiesa has seen in the last five years, while training various military units in different countries. He held a presentation at DeepSec 2015 about his experiences. While we don’t use the word cyber when talking about (information) security, others sadly do. So think of Information Warfare or Information Offensive Operations when hearing cyber and don’t let yourself be distracted by the fog of war.