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!

3001, 2016

DeepSec Video: 50 Shades of WAF – Exemplified at Barracuda and Sucuri

René Pfeiffer/ January 30, 2016/ Conference, Security

Sometimes your endpoint is a server (or a couple thereof). Very often your server is a web server. A lot of interesting, dangerous, and odd code resides on web servers these days. In case you have ever security-tested web applications, you know that these beasts are full of surprises. Plus the servers get lots of requests, some trying to figure out where the weaknesses are. This is how web application firewalls (WAF) come into play. Firewalls have come a long way from inspecting layer 3/4 traffic up to all the peculiarities of layer 7 protocols. Once your firewall turns ALG and more, things get complicated. Since security researchers love complexity Ashar Javed has taken a look at WAF systems. Here is his presentation held at DeepSec 2015. He found 50 ways to bypass the

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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.

2601, 2016

DeepSec Video: Deactivating Endpoint Protection Software in an Unauthorized Manner

René Pfeiffer/ January 26, 2016/ Conference, Security

The information technology world is full of fancy words that re-invent well-known and well-understood terms. Everyone is talking about the endpoint these days. Endpoint is the trusty old client in disguise. Plus the end in endpoint doesn’t means that something ends there. From the information security point of view all your troubles actually start there. So the client is the start of all your endpoint problems. Why? Because attacks start at the endpoint, regardless how you call it. At DeepSec 2015 Matthias Deeg held a presentation on how malicious software (a.k.a. malware, the good old virus/trojan horse/worm) can deactivate endpoint protection software (a.k.a. anti-virus software) in order to turn your endpoint into a startpoint. Enjoy!

2501, 2016

DeepSec Video: Bridging the Air-Gap – Data Exfiltration from Air-Gap Networks

René Pfeiffer/ January 25, 2016/ Conference, Security

Isolation is a prime ingredient of information security. The air-gap is the best way to isolate systems. Only wireless communication can transport data across these gaps. Apart from Wi-Fi the signals of mobile radio communication are very common. At DeepSec we have seen a lot of hacking when it comes to mobile phones and their networks. Mordechai Guri and Yisroel Mirsky (both of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) held a talk about how to overcome the air-gap barrier by means of cellular frequencies. Their presentation addresses the way of exfiltrating data across the air-gap: „Although the feasibility of invading such systems has been demonstrated in recent years, exfiltration of data from air-gapped networks is still a challenging task. In this talk we present GSMem, a malware that can exfiltrate data through an air-gap over

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2401, 2016

DeepSec Video: Yes, Now YOU Can Patch That Vulnerability Too!

René Pfeiffer/ January 24, 2016/ Conference, Security

Once you got software, you most probably got yourself some decent bugs. Software vulnerabilities are everywhere. They come with the code. Managing patches and changes is they way of handling these weaknesses. At DeepSec 2015 Mitja Kolsek spoke about a new way of addressing vulnerabilities: „Software vulnerabilities are likely the biggest problem of information security, fuelling a rapidly growing market for “0days”, “1days” and exploits alike. It can be highly intellectually challenging to find a vulnerability and create an exploit for it, and super entertaining to reveal it all to the bug-hungry crowds (preferably along with a logo and a catchy name, courtesy of the marketing department). As a result, there’s been a lot of innovation and progress on the offensive side of information security, and a corresponding defensive industry is thriving providing quasi-solutions

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2101, 2016

DeepSec Video: A Case Study on the Security of Application Whitelisting

René Pfeiffer/ January 21, 2016/ Conference, Discussion, Security

Application whitelisting is a method where you create a baseline selection of software on a system. You then freeze the state, and after this point any code not being part of your original „white list“ is considered dangerous and blocked from execution. In theory this should prevent the execution of malware and therefore protect against the pesky advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks everyone is talking about. What does this mean for your daily business? René Freingruber of SEC Consult talked about a case study at DeepSec 2015. This should save you some time and pain. Theory is not always the same when deployed in the field. René’s presentation even contains vendor names, so you can talk to the sales executive of your favourite brand of security products. This presentation is also a prime example

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1811, 2015

Terrorism – No Time for Backdoors

René Pfeiffer/ November 18, 2015/ Communication, Discussion, High Entropy, Security

Every successful project needs proper planning and a good project management. You know this from your business life, probably. Projects can’t be done without tools for communication. We all use these day by day. Email, telephone, collaboration platforms, social media, instant messengers, and more software is readily available. Access to communication tools has spread. Exchanging messages has also evolved a lot since the 1990s. Given the diversity of the Internet, messages are now encrypted (hopefully). It is a very basic defence against any third parties, or Eve, both being unable to eavesdrop on the conversation. Especially when you do business and talk money, encryption is your closest friend. Why else would you meet indoors and control the access of persons to your office space? Why not discuss business internals while riding public transport? Some

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0611, 2015

Endangered Species: Full Disclosure in Information Security

Sanna/ November 6, 2015/ Discussion, High Entropy, Legal, Security

History, fictive or real, is full of situations where doubts meet claims. Nearly every invention, every product will be eyed critically, analysed, and tested. There are even whole magazines fully dedicated to this sport, be it for example, consumer protection, reviews of computer games or the car of the year. When it comes to testing the sector of information security is particularly sensitive. Depending on the hard- or software concerned, testing is not only about comfort or in search of a particularly good storyline, but about incidents, which can cause real damage in the real world. How should one deal with the knowledge of a design flaw affecting the security of a system? Locks In 1851 the American lock-smith Alfred Charles Hobbs visited the Great Exhibition in London. He was the first to pick

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0511, 2015

Debugging Information Security: Self Defence for Entrepreneurs

Sanna/ November 5, 2015/ Conference, High Entropy, Internet, Security, Security Intelligence

In our economy data leaks are a constant companion. That’s the impression one gets when reading the news. Customer portals, online shops, digital communications, plans of products, personnel data, and more can be found in department stores throughout the shadow economy. Blind faith in global networks has indeed suffered in recent years, but companies and individuals still have a partially carefree attitude when it comes to the imminent risk their data is exposed to. “Who cares about our data?”, is often said. This year’s DeepSec IT Security Conference has some very specific answers to this question. Duncan Campbell and James Bamford open IT Security Conference in Vienna Duncan Campbell is a freelance British journalist, author, and television producer. Since 1975 he has specialized in intelligence and security services, defence, policing and civil liberty rights.

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0411, 2015

DeepSec 2015 Talk: Bridging the Air-Gap: Data Exfiltration from Air-Gap Networks – Mordechai Guri & Yisroel Mirsky

Sanna/ November 4, 2015/ Conference, Internet, Security

Air does not conduct electricity, usually. Using air gaps between parts transporting electric power by high voltages is a standard method in electrical engineering. Similar strategies are used in information security. Compartmentalisation can be done by network components, logical/physical separation, solid walls, and space filled with air. The only threat you have to worry about are wireless transmissions. Since mobile phone networks permeate our private and business life, access to wireless networks is everywhere. Unless you live in a cave, literally. Mordechai Guri and Yisroel Mirsky have found a way to use cellular frequencies as a carrier in order to transport data out of an air-gapped environment. They will present their results at DeepSec 2015. Air-gapped networks are isolated, separated both logically and physically from public networks. Although the feasibility of invading such systems

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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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1410, 2015

DeepSec 2015 Talk: Agile Security – The Good, The Bad, and mostly the Ugly – Daniel Liber

Sanna/ October 14, 2015/ Conference, Security

Particle collisions are a rich source for insights into the inner workings of Nature. Physicists know this. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) demonstrates this to the extreme. You can to the same in information security if you lock developers and security experts into a room. Acceleration can be achieved by asking for the best way for implementing security. Analyse the high energetic trails of heated arguments to gain new insights. This recipe works best with certain models of software development. David Liber will show you the results of the collisions and tell you what you can learn about security with a specific software development methodology. Moving away from Waterfall and traditional development processes towards Agile methodologies has become more and more popular recently. Talking about sprints, looking

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0910, 2015

DeepSec 2015 Talk: DDoS – Barbarians at the Gate(way) – Dave Lewis

Sanna/ October 9, 2015/ Conference, Internet, Security

There really is strength in numbers. It’s true for Big Data, high performance computing, cryptography, social media, and flooding the Internet with packets. The latter has been the method of choice for activists, „cyber“ warriors and criminals alike. Network interdiction (as military minds may call it) or Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks can be hard to counter due to the many sources of the attacking devices. Full pipes are full, no matter what you do. While you can deploy reverse proxies or rely on content distribution networks, the attack still persists. Packets keep coming until the sources are shut down. Flooding someone’s network is not a sophisticated attack. It’s gets the job done, it may be complex by nature, but it is not a stealth exploit sitting in your local network without being

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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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