About René Pfeiffer

System administrator, lecturer, hacker, security consultant, technical writer and DeepSec organisation team member. Has done some particle physics, too. Prefers encrypted messages for the sake of admiring the mathematical algorithms at work.

0802, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: Top 10 Security Mistakes In Software (Development)

René Pfeiffer/ February 8, 2014/ Conference, Security, Stories

Everybody makes mistakes. It’s no surprise that this statement applies to software development, too. When you deal with information security it is easy to play the blame game and say that the application developers must take care to avoid making mistakes. But how does software development work? What are the processes? What can go wrong? Answering these questions will give you an insight into ways to avoid being bitten by bugs. Peter af Geijerstam of Factor 10 talked about security mistakes in software development in his presentation held at the DeepSec 2013 conference. We recommend his presentation for everyone dealing with information security, not just software developers.

0702, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: Malware Datamining And Attribution

René Pfeiffer/ February 7, 2014/ Conference, Security

Popular culture totally loves forensics (judging by the number of TV shows revolving around the topic). When it comes to software a detailed analysis can be very insightful. Most malicious software isn’t written from scratch. Some components are being reused, some are slightly modified (to get past the pesky anti-virus filters). This means that (your) malware has distinct features which can be used for attribution and further analysis. In his talk at DeepSec 2013 Michael Boman explained what you do with malicious software in order to extract information about its origins. Use the traces of its authors to attribute malware to a a individual or a group of individuals. It gives you an idea about the threats you are exposed to and is a good supplement to your risk assessment.

0602, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: Trusted Friend Attack – (When) Guardian Angels Strike

René Pfeiffer/ February 6, 2014/ Conference, Internet, Security, Stories

We live in a culture where everybody can have thousands of friends. Social media can catapult your online presence into celebrity status. While your circle of true friends may be smaller than your browser might suggest, there is one thing that plays a crucial role when it comes to social interaction: trust. Did you ever forget the password to your second favourite social media site? If so, how did you recover or reset it? Did it work, and were you really the one who triggered the „lost password“ process? In a world where few online contacts can meet each other it is difficult for a social media site to verify that the person requesting a new password is really the individual who holds the account. Facebook has introduced Trusted Friends to facilitate the identity

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0502, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: Auditing Virtual Appliances – An Untapped Source Of 0-days

René Pfeiffer/ February 5, 2014/ Conference, Security, Stories

Appliances are being sold and used as security devices. The good thing about these gadgets is an improvement of your security (usually, YMMV as the Usenet folks used to write). The bad thing about inserting an unknown amount of code into your defence system are the yet to be discovered flaws in its logic. In the old days you have to do some reverse engineering in order to find these bugs. Modern technology bring you the Magic of the „Cloud“™ – virtual appliances! Since everything runs under a hypervisor nowadays, your appliances have been turned into binary images which can be moved around and started anywhere you like. At DeepSec 2013 Stefan Viehböck of SEC Consult spoke about the advantages of virtual appliances and their benefit for security analysis. It seems the „Cloud“ has

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0402, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: The Economics Of False Positives

René Pfeiffer/ February 4, 2014/ Conference, Discussion, Security

Once you set up alarm systems, you will have to deal with false alarms. This is true for your whole infrastructure, be it digital or otherwise. When it comes to intrusion detection systems (IDS) you will have to deal with false positives. Since you want to be notified of any anomalies, you cannot ignore alarms. Investigating false alarms creates costs and forces you to divert efforts from other tasks of your IT infrastructure. In turn attackers can use false positives against you, if they know how to trigger them and use them in heaps. Where do you draw the line? In his presentation at DeepSec 2013 Gavin ‘Jac0byterebel’ Ewan (of Alba13 Research Labs) introduced an interesting approach to deal with false positives: „…Taking false positive figures from a number of real business entities ranging

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0302, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: Uncovering your Trails – Privacy Issues of Bluetooth Devices

René Pfeiffer/ February 3, 2014/ Conference, Security

Devices with Bluetooth capabilities are all around us. We have all gotten used to it. Smartphones, laptops, entertainment electronics, gaming equipment, cars, headsets and many more systems are capable of using Bluetooth. Where security is concerned Bluetooth was subject to hacking and security analysis right from the start. Bluedriving, Bluejacking, cracking PIN codes, and doing more stuff severely strained the security record. Either people have forgotten Bluetooth’s past, ignore it, or have it turned off. At DeepSec 2013 Verónica Valeros and Sebastián García held a presentation which revisits the information Bluetooth devices transmit into their environment. They developed a suite to do Bluedriving more efficiently and shared their findings with the DeepSec audience. If you think Bluetooth is not a problem any more, you should take a look at their talk.

3001, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: Effective IDS Testing – The OSNIF’s Top 5

René Pfeiffer/ January 30, 2014/ Conference, Security

Intrusion detection systems can be a valuable defence mechanism – provided you deploy them correctly. While there are some considerations to your deployment process, these devices or software installations require some more thought before you choose a specific implementation. Testing might be a good idea. If you want to detect intruders, then it would be nice if your IDS can do the job. How do you find out? Well, in theory you could use the specifications of the IDS systems as published by the vendors/developers. In practice this information lacks the most important figure: How many intrusions can you detect in a given time frame? True, you have to deal with specific signatures of attacks, so comparing isn’t easy provided you take different sets of rules. Then again some IDS engines have their own

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2901, 2014

DeepSec supports BSidesLondon – join the Rookie Track!

René Pfeiffer/ January 29, 2014/ Administrivia, Conference

The next BSidesLondon on 29 April will feature a Rookie Track again. We are glad to support the event with a ticket to DeepSec 2014 and two accommodations at our conference hotel for the best rookie delivering a presentation. We will also be present at BSidesLondon to get in touch with you (and to watch all talks of the Rookie Track, of course). Supporting young talents in information security has always been on our agenda. This is why we maintain a special category of talks, the U21 slots, for speakers under 21 years of age. Conferences are meant to exchange ideas and to present new perspectives. IT security is all about creativity and thinking outside the box. We have seen lots of promising content from young infosec researchers while encouraging them to submit to

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2901, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: Hacking Medical Devices

René Pfeiffer/ January 29, 2014/ Conference, Security

Modern technology expands into various areas of our lives all by its own. Medical facilities also use networks and networked devices. This makes sense since monitoring vital signs creates data you want to transport to your staff. Regardless of the technology used, once you expose the device to the outside world it needs to be hardened against tampering and abuse. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is aware of this issue and has published a recommendation regarding the security of medical devices. „…manufacturers and health care facilities take steps to assure that appropriate safeguards are in place to reduce the risk of failure due to cyberattack, which could be initiated by the introduction of malware into the medical equipment or unauthorized access to configuration settings in medical devices and hospital networks…” At DeepSec

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2801, 2014

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

René Pfeiffer/ January 28, 2014/ Conference

Did you know that you can do more than playing Angry Birds on your smartphone? You can get attacked for example. Since your smart phone is Turing complete, you can do what you want. Jaime Sánchez presented the first Android Intrusion Detection System at DeepSec 2013. Mobile malware and threats are clearly on the rise, as attackers experiment with new business models by targeting mobile phones. This is a reason to deploy security software on these devices, too. With the help of custom built signatures, Jaime’s framework can also be used to detect probes or attacks designed for mobile devices, fool and cheat operating system fingerprinting attempts. Have a look!

2701, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: Finux’s Historical Tour Of IDS Evasion, Insertions, and Other Oddities

René Pfeiffer/ January 27, 2014/ Conference, Security

Ever since intrusion detection systems were put into operation, attackers have found ways to evade discovery. So what can you expect from the wonderful tools that are designed to detect intrusions? If you are looking for metrics which can easily compared and have a connection to your typical production environment, then you are mistaken. There is no such thing as a magical box, ready to be installed to solve all your intrusion problems. Arron ‘Finux’ Finnon of Alba13 Labs held a presentation at DeepSec 2013 about this topic. He illustrated the evasion techniques used and discussed the history of IDS/IPS systems. If you follow the talk closely, you will understand why detection systems like IDS/IPS can work, but why they’re set to fail all at the same time.

1901, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: Cracking Open “Secure” Android Containers

René Pfeiffer/ January 19, 2014/ Conference

Cell phones, especially the smart ones, become more and more part of your company’s infrastructure. These devices accumulate software (a.k.a. „apps“), authentication tokens, passwords, and a lot of data worthy of protection. While smartphone systems have their own protection mechanisms, not every one of them might work reliably. Chris John Riley explains in his presentation held at DeepSec 2013 why „secure“ containers on Android phones might not be as secure as advertised. Please make sure that you show this presentation to anyone riding the „BYOD“ train. You might want to rethink what you let your users put on their phones.

1701, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: Cracking And Analyzing Apple iCloud Protocols

René Pfeiffer/ January 17, 2014/ Conference

The „Cloud“ has been advertised as the magic bullet of data management. Basically you put all your precious eggs into one giant basket, give it to someone else, and access your data from everywhere – provided you have a decent Internet connection. Since someone else is now watching over your data, you do not always know what protocols and security measures are in place. Few „cloud“ solutions publish what they actually do. Apple’s iCloud system is no different. Vladimir Katalov (ElcomSoft Co. Ltd.) explained in his talk at DeepSec 2013 how the iCloud protocol works and how you can develop your own clients to access your own data in Apple’s „cloud“ infrastructure. His reverse-engineering work is based on publicly available information. Have a look!

1501, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: spin – Static Instrumentation For Binary Reverse-Engineering

René Pfeiffer/ January 15, 2014/ Conference

Reverse engineering is a fundamental tool of information security research. The news coverage of the past year have given black boxes a bad name. David Guillen Fandos introduces methods for binary reverse-engineering in his presentation at DeepSec 2013. Binary instrumentation is used for performance evaluation, CPU emulation, tracing, and profiling. It can also be used for malware and threat analysis. David’s tool called spin is able to characterize and identify security-critical functions by applying conditions. If you are into reverse engineering or simply are curious, take a look at the video from his talk:

1401, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video – Relax Everybody: HTML5 Is Securer Than You Think

René Pfeiffer/ January 14, 2014/ Conference

A lot of tags have been created since the 1980s when the foundation of the modern World Wide Web was born. HTML5 is being deployed on servers around the world. Just like the many 802.11xyz wireless standards it is being used before the stable standard has been released by the W3C. Moving targets attract all kinds of developers and information security enthusiasts. This is why we invited Sebastian Lekies of SAP to hold a presentation about HTML5. He systematically explores security relevant HTML5 APIs and summarises what web developers need to know when designing, implementing and deploying web applications. We will see at DeepSec 2014 if HTML5-based sites will be still featured in talks. ☺