2908, 2010

It’s tiem*) again: NAT66

Mika/ August 29, 2010/ Internet, Security

ITT *) : NAT66 (picture unrelated) In this thread we discuss NAT Maybe the picture is related. We all want to have our communications as safe as possible and we choose appropriate security mechanisms to achieve this goal. We follow “Best Current Practices”, recommendations from security experts and we follow traditions in our own organization. And there is an old tradition, maybe too old to get it out of our heads: NAT will add to security. It will not. Full stop. No Discussion. The topic has been closed long ago and there is no need to microwave it and serve it as a quick midnight-snack just because you feel a little bit hungry, just because you have the feeling there is something missing. We are living on a new diet in the IPv6 world.

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0208, 2010

Sneak Preview – your cellphone can be tapped

René Pfeiffer/ August 2, 2010/ Schedule, Security

You probably have a cellphone. Your company might even provide an additional one. Your boss most certainly uses a cellphone. What do you use it for? Do you share details about your private life via phone conversations? Did you ever talk to a business partner about confidential offers? Do you rely on cellphone when it comes to important messages? If so you might be interested in hearing some news about the state of security of mobile networks. Most of them are broken, outdated or both when it comes to security. Details of the security issues have been presented at DeepSec 2009 by Karsten Nohl. During Defcon18 in Las Vegas a security researcher successfully faked several attendees’ cell phones into connecting to his phony GSM base station during a live demonstration that had initially raised

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0108, 2010

Hole196 debunked?

Mika/ August 1, 2010/ Security

(Warning: some technical details, not suited for the TL;DR type of audience) “WPA2 vulnerability discovered” was a headline that caught my attention for several reasons: Someone detected a security flaw in 802.11 RSNA (vulgo “WPA2”) that slipped Chuck Norris’ attention for 3 years (replace the name with any respected security researcher). It’s from a Best-of-breed, Award-winning, World-market-leader etc… company. Reminds me of the CfP submission we received from Ligatt Security. But maybe (hopefully) I’m wrong. Virtually all results of the search engine you prefer point to a copy&paste of the press release without any details (as of Jul 28th). Is this just a result of our copy&paste journalism? I have the impression, that nobody verified the possibility in detail. For example JJ from “Security Uncorked” writes (although expressing clear doubt about the impact): “Without

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2807, 2010

How to secure Wireless Networks

René Pfeiffer/ July 28, 2010/ Security

You have probably followed the news and heard about AirTight Networks’ demonstration of the WPA2 design flaw. What does this mean for operators of wireless networks? Do you have to care? Do you feel threatened? Is there a way to feel better again? First take a look what the design flaw means and what the attack looks like. Hole 196 means that „an insider can bypass WPA2 private key encryption and authentication to sniff and decrypt data from other authorized users as well as scan their Wi-Fi devices for vulnerabilities, install malware and possibly compromise those Wi-Fi devices”. So an attacker has to be authenticated before she can use the exploit. This does not mean that „WPA2” is compromised entirely (yet). It just means that we (maybe) deal with a design flaw. Attacking „WPA2”

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