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

1311, 2013

DeepSec 2013 Talk: Malware Datamining And Attribution

René Pfeiffer/ November 13, 2013/ Conference, Security

The production of code leaves traces in the final binary. There can be debugging symbols present, which give you a lot of information. Maybe the binary has some commonly used libraries or functions. A lot of fingerprinting can be done with software. Why is this of interest? Well, there is the attribution problem of attacks and malicious software. Identifying where malware comes from can be crucial for the assessment of risks and the impact of compromised systems. Michael Boman has researched this topic and will present his findings in his talk titled Malware Datamining And Attribution at DeepSec 2013. Stuxnet and related malware is a prime example where the source of the code is of fundamental interest. Even for more „mundane“ code malware authors use leaves traces in their work which can be used

1211, 2013

DeepSec 2013 Talk: My Name Is Hunter, Ponmocup Hunter

René Pfeiffer/ November 12, 2013/ Conference, Security

Defending one’s own resources against malicious software is daily business for information security professionals. Usually you deploy a range of measures and try to minimise the risk. It may or may not work, depending if you have to fear the mysterious Advanced Persistent Threat (APT). APTs are highly targeted, very stealthy and can greatly impact your security in terms of damage and level of compromise. Their stealth aspect makes them hard to detect and hard to counter. Tom Ueltschi from the Swiss Post has gained experience with these kind of attacks. This is why he will share his insights at DeepSec 2013. His talk is titled My Name Is Hunter, Ponmocup Hunter. Ponmocup is a strain of malicious software which forms its own botnet. It is known by a couple of names, depending on

0911, 2013

DeepSec 2013 Talk: CSRFT – A Cross Site Request Forgeries Toolkit

René Pfeiffer/ November 9, 2013/ Conference, Security

Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) is a real threat to web users and their sessions. To quote from the OWASP web site: „CSRF is an attack which forces an end user to execute unwanted actions on a web application in which he/she is currently authenticated.“ Combined with social engineering this is a very effective attack tool. Believe it or not, web sites prone to CSRF are very common. If your web developers do not know what „unique web form“ means, you will have to deal with CSRFs eventually. Paul Amar is a student of computer science, and at DeepSec 2013 he will present a framework to study and prototype CSRF interaction with web servers. The tool presented is the Cross Site Request Forgeries Toolkit (CSRFT). It has been developed in Python and Node.JS. The

0811, 2013

DeepSec 2013 Talk: Mobile Fail: Cracking Open “Secure” Android Containers

René Pfeiffer/ November 8, 2013/ Conference, Security

Over the last few years the desire to have information at our fingertips whenever and wherever we want has driven us more and more towards mobile devices. The convenience of having our email, files and access codes available to us on our smartphones or tablets has given rise to a new problem… that of securing our sensitive data on an inherently insecure device. The same form factor that makes smart phones the easy choice for remote access to email and services also makes them easy to lose. In response, we’ve begun to move security closer to the data, relying on “secure” container applications to keep our private and company data secure. Mobile apps such as LastPass, Dropbox, Evernote, GOOD for Enterprise, and may others all offer differing degrees of security. In this presentation Chris

0711, 2013

DeepSec 2013 Talk: Future Banking And Financial Attacks

René Pfeiffer/ November 7, 2013/ Conference, Security

Hey, you! Want to know a secret? Your adversaries are after money. Taken the „cyber shoot-outs“ of governments aside, no sophisticated attack happens without economical benefits. Attackers don’t care where the money comes from. However they care for efficiency. They do not compromise web server after web server to hope for some loot which can be turned into profit. Instead they go after the places where people store and move their money. Financial institutions have been battling attacks against their customers and their infrastructure since their services entered the Internet. It’s an arms race, and if you are involved you need to keep up. We are proud to have Konstantinos Karagiannis at DeepSec 2013 talking about the future of banking and financial attacks. Advanced User Enumeration and DDoS Every attack needs a proper target.

0611, 2013

DeepSec 2013 Talk: Risk Assessment For External Vendors

René Pfeiffer/ November 6, 2013/ Conference, Security, Stories

No man is an island. If this is true for every single one of us, then it is also true for companies. Modern enterprises have business to business (B2B) relations. They are at the centre of a network of suppliers and other vendors. Information flows between the players since they need to exchange data. What do you do if you deal with confidential or regulated data which mustn’t flow freely? How do you assess the risks? How do you determine what security measures work best? How do you deal with the situation of not enforcing security because every player runs its own policies? Luciano Ferrari has prepared a presentation for you and talks about his experience. The first issue is physical proximity. Once you are linked with business entities several thousands of miles away

0411, 2013

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

René Pfeiffer/ November 4, 2013/ Conference, Security

System administrators and information security researcher often have to deal with appliances. Almost every organisation and company has a couple of magical black boxes sitting around. Usually they are connected to the network, and they do important stuff (such as filtering things, checking content, and the like). In the old days testing these appliances for their security record was hard. You had to open it, do a lot of tedious reverse engineering in order to understand how it works, and then conduct your tests to do your analysis. Fortunately the future is here, and so is a new form factor: virtual appliances! At DeepSec 2013 Stefan Viehböck of SEC Consult will talk about the advantages of having a virtual appliance to deconstruct. Virtual appliances aren’t very different from their embedded cousins, judged from the

3110, 2013

DeepSec 2013 Talk: Easy Ways To Bypass Anti-Virus Systems

René Pfeiffer/ October 31, 2013/ Conference, Security, Stories

The Joys of Detecting Malicious Software Malicious software is all around us. It permeates the Internet by riding on data transmissions. Once you communicate, you risk getting in touch with malware (another name for malicious software). This is why every single one of us, be it individual, company or organisation, runs anti-virus software. The idea is to have specialised software detect malware, so all the bad things are kept out of your network and away from your end-points. So much for the theory. In practice any self-respecting attacker can evade anti-virus filters by a variety of means, depending on their skills and resources. Security researchers know about this fact. Stuxnet and Flame were a proof for sceptics (and a failure of the whole anti-virus industry). How can this be? Well, Attila Marosi (GovCERT Hungary)

3010, 2013

DeepSec 2013 Talk: Uncovering your Trails – Privacy issues of Bluetooth Devices

René Pfeiffer/ October 30, 2013/ Conference, Security

Bluetooth has been around for a while. Hackers and security researchers (such as trifinite.org and others) immediately investigated the weaknesses of protocol and implementations – The specifications have evolved, but so has the proliferation of Bluetooth-capable devices. Smartphones, dumb phones, computers, bulletin boards, media players, tablets, game consoles, headsets, and many more support Bluetooth wireless communication. Even though bugs of the past were fixed, the widespread capabilities of devices allow for a lot of creative use by adversaries. At DeepSec 2013 Verónica Valeros and Garcia Sebastian will give you an update about Bluetooth hacking and your exposure to attackers. When we think about our own privacy, we usually think of our private data, passwords, personal stuff, web pages we have accessed or phone calls we have made. Information about our behaviour in real life (where

2610, 2013

DeepSec 2013 Workshop: Effective IDS/IPS Auditing And Testing With Finux

René Pfeiffer/ October 26, 2013/ Conference, Security, Training

A major part of information security is to deal with intrusions. It doesn’t matter if you have to anticipate them, detect them, or desperately wish to avoid them. They are a part of your infosec life. This is why gentle software developers, security researchers, and vendors have created intrusion detection/preventi0n systems. It’s all there for your benefit. The trouble is that once you buy and deploy and IDS/IPS system, its dashboard looks a lot like the one from the space shuttle or a fighter jet. You can do a lot, you can combine a lot more, and you see all kinds of blinking lights when you turn everything on. That’s probably not what you want. But there is help. Arron ‘Finux’ Finnon of Alba13 Research Labs will conduct a training on effective IDS/IPS auditing

2510, 2013

DeepSec 2013 Talk: Hacking Medical Devices

René Pfeiffer/ October 25, 2013/ Conference, Security

Modern information technology has already entered the field of medical technology. Few hospitals can operate without power and network connectivity. This is why information security has followed the deployment of hardware and software. Next to the infrastructure present there exists a multitude of communication protocols that increase the attack surface. Hospitals and other medical facilities have to address this issue. News of compromised systems are bad for the administration and the patients. Securing systems enters a new dimension once you consider equipment such as medical pumps, diagnostic systems and anaesthesia machines which directly interact with the patient. Tampering with the dosage of the medication can result in very serious consequences, regardless if on purpose or by accident. Dick Cheney had the wireless capabilities of his pacemaker disabled in 2007 for fears of attacks against his

1910, 2013

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

René Pfeiffer/ October 19, 2013/ Conference, Security, Stories

The SANS Institute offers the article The History and Evolution of Intrusion Detection in its Reading Room. The article was published in 2001. It starts with the phrase „during the past five years…“. We now have 2013. Why is it important to examine the history of a technology which certainly is well established and widely deployed in information security? Well, first of all even to this day many people have a problem with what intrusion detection really is. Detecting an intrusion is not the same as intrusion detection. Secondly not everything marketed as intrusion detection system really detects intrusions. How can this be? The answer can be found by attending Arron „Finux“ Finnon‘s Historical Tour Of IDS Evasion, Insertions, and Other Oddities at DeepSec 2013. He will address the history of intrusion detection along the lines

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