0911, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Talk: Obfuscated Financial Fraud Android Malware: Detection And Behavior Tracking – Inseung Yang

Sanna/ November 9, 2016/ Conference, Development, Internet, Report, Security

In Korea in particular, hackers have distributed sophisticated and complex financial fraud android malware through various means of distribution, such as SMS phishing, Google play, compromised web servers and home routers (IoT). In some cases, both smartphone and PC users are targeted simultaneously. Inseung Yang and his team collect mobile android malware via an automated analysis system, detect obfuscations and malicious packer apps. In his presentation Inseung Yang will describe trends of malicious android apps and obfuscated mobile malware in Korea. He’ll explain the policy methods for Korean mobile banking and the attack methods used by hackers, f.ex. the stealing of certifications, fake banking apps that require the  security numbers issued to users when they open their accounts, Automatic Response Service(ARS) phishing attacks in conjunction with Call Forwarding, and the requesting of the One Time Password(OTP) number. But

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2910, 2015

MJS Article: The Compromised Devices of the Carna Botnet by Parth Shukla

René Pfeiffer/ October 29, 2015/ Internet, Report, Security

Last year we talked about publishing the proceedings of past DeepSec conferences  with a collection of articles covering presentation held in Vienna. We like to introduce Parth Shukla, who presented a report of the devices compromised by the Carna Botnet. This article will showcase the latest analysis and the progress of industry collaboration on the problem of Internet facing devices that have default credential logins through telnet. The Carna Botnet, which was used to perform the first-ever map of the Internet – Internet Census 2012 – highlighted a major information security concern with devices that allow default credential login from the Internet by default. For more information on the Internet Census 2012, please refer to the anonymous researcher’s paper. A complete list of compromised devices that formed part of the Carna Botnet was obtained

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1706, 2015

New MJS Article: Trusting Your Cloud Provider – Protecting Private Virtual Machines

René Pfeiffer/ June 17, 2015/ Report, Security

Once you live in the Cloud, you shouldn’t spent your time daydreaming about information security. Don’t cloud the future of your data. The Magdeburger Journal zur Sicherheitsforschung published a new article by Armin Simma (who talked about this topic at DeepSec 2014). The Paper titled »Trusting Your Cloud Provider: Protecting Private Virtual Machines« discusses an integrated solution that allows cloud customers to increase their trust into the cloud provider including cloud insiders. This article proposes an integrated solution that allows cloud customers to increase their trust into the cloud provider including cloud insiders (e.g. administrators). It is based on Mandatory Access Control and Trusted Computing technologies, namely Measured Boot, Attestation and Sealing. It gives customers strong guarantees about the provider’s host system and binds encrypted virtual machines to the previously attested host. This article

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2010, 2011

Security Intelligence, two different Approaches

Mika/ October 20, 2011/ Internet, Report, Security

We are monitoring activities around Security Intelligence since a while and found quite different understandings and approaches. Security Intelligence is one the newest disciplines in the area of Information Security and the goals seems to be quite vague. Different organizations seem to have totally different understandings of what Security Intelligence should be about. To illustrate this I would like to compare two of the leading IT vendors and what they publish as “Security Intelligence”: Cisco Security Intelligence Operations http://tools.cisco.com/security/center/home.x Cisco lists on the Security Intelligence Portal mainly security advisories, alerts, responses and information about Cisco product updates, signature updates, mitigation bulletins virus watch and similar topics. To provide this kind of information is in my humble opinion the task of a CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) or a PSIRT (Product Security Incident Response Team).

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2008, 2011

Discussion about Data Protection and the Game Industry at GamesCon

René Pfeiffer/ August 20, 2011/ Report, Security

The GamesCon is taking place in Cologne. We were present at the first day in order to participate in a discussion about data protection in online games. Discussion partners were Konstantin Ewald, a lawyer and blogger (Online. Spiele. Recht) and Ulrich Lepper, North Rhine-Westphalia’s Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information. Online gaming is tied to user accounts and personal data. It is linked with targeted advertising. Since the Sownage series of attacks the issue has arrived in the mainstream media. There is no need to name Sony or any other company as a culprit, or to shift the blame around. Just as web applications, the world of online games is complex by itself. Hardening your infrastructure is fine, but this is only a part of the story. There are other components such

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0708, 2011

Explaining Security to non-technical Audiences

René Pfeiffer/ August 7, 2011/ Discussion, Report

A few days ago we had the opportunity to present a review of vulnerabilities in mobile phone networks and typical attack vectors to a non-technical audience (we announced the event in a previous blog posting, the event language was German). The background of the attendees was a spectrum of social sciences, political sciences, different technical science (but not information science), governmental agencies (again non-technical) and journalists. We adapted the slides in order to reduce the complexity and the technical details. The reaction was positive, but most of the questions were aimed at how to defend against the risks. Thus our reduction only lasted until the QA section. If you really want to defend yourself, you have to deal with the details. If you don’t dive into the details, you can give superficial answers at

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