1907, 2017

Malicious Software explores new Business Models – Politics

René Pfeiffer/ July 19, 2017/ Discussion, Internet, Security

Malicious software has become a major component of criminal business and geopolitics. In addition it is a convenient explanation for anything one does not want to investigate. Since code always come from somewhere you have to ask yourself many more questions when it comes to infected networks and compromised hosts. What is the agenda of the day? Journalist Erich Moechel has written an article about the arms race regarding malicious software. We have translated the original text from German to English. Expect the state of cyber in your network to rise in the course of the next years. Arms race with Malicious Software enters a dangerous Phase The enormous damage done by “Petya” and “WannaCry” can be traced back to a single, reworked tool from the leaked NSA pool of the “Shadow Brokers”. Experts

2606, 2017

ROOTS 2017, DeepSec, and DeepINTEL Call for Papers are still open

René Pfeiffer/ June 26, 2017/ Call for Papers, Internet, Security, Security Intelligence

Our wonderful world of technology is full of surprises, bugs, intentional weaknesses, adversaries, defenders, vendors, and users. Some software just got more lines of code instead of a decent audit or refactoring. Everything is turning smart, but no one knows what smart really means. Big Data is all the fashion, Big Knowledge still isn’t. So there is ample opportunity for security research. And we haven’t mentioned recent weaknesses such as Stack Clash or broken hyperthreading yet. Strategy hasn’t evolved much either. Most high profile attacks seem to contain a lot of cyber, originating from Russia, USA, Israel, North Korea, or China. The context matters, as do the agendas of all parties involved. A thorough and careful analysis can shape the digital defence of your future. This is why we like to discuss methods, incidents,

2505, 2017

The Future of Entangled Security States – Quantum Computing Conference in Berlin

René Pfeiffer/ May 25, 2017/ Conference, Security

Quantum computing is a fashionable term these days. Some IT news articles are talking about post-quantum cryptography, qbits, and more quantum stuff. If you don’t know how the terms relate to each other, what entangled states in quantum physics are, and what everything has to do with computing, then you will have a hard time figuring out what it means for you and your infrastructure. The relationship to cryptography is yet another matter best explored after you know the basics. Using quantum effects in computing and cryptography is already done. The best example are some hardware random generators which use properties of, well, the hardware to harvest entropy. And then there is quantum key distribution (QKD). It is a method to ensure secure communication between two or more nodes. Vienna even had a working

2305, 2017

Biometrics and Failures in understanding Security – Copy & Paste Iris Scans

René Pfeiffer/ May 23, 2017/ High Entropy, Security

Biometrics has an irresistible attraction. Simply by mentioning the fact that you can measure parts (or surfaces) of the body and convert them to numbers a lot of people are impressed out of their mind. Literally. In theory biometric information serves as a second set of data to be used for any purposes. A common purpose is to use it for authentication. Most physical sources of biometric data are easily accessible. Fingers (for fingerprints), eyes (for your iris), limbs (for your veins), voice (for the Cloud), and other examples show this well. Where does the security come into play? Well, it doesn’t. For starters, passwords can be changed. Biometrics can’t unless you have a transplant. In contrast to passwords biometrics can be faked. The biometric source can be copied. In most cases this is

1405, 2017

Wannacry, Code Red, and „Cyber“ Warfare

René Pfeiffer/ May 14, 2017/ High Entropy, Security

Society and businesses increasingly rely on networked infrastructure. This is not news. Worms that used networks to spread to new hosts in order to infect them is also not news. Code Red did this back in 2001. There is a new worm going around. Its name is Wannacry, and it is allegedly based on published attack code developed by the NSA. The malicious software is delivered by email. After successful installation it infects the host and propagates to other systems by using probes to port 139/TCP, 445/TCP and 3389/TCP. It belongs to the class of ransomware, encrypting files and demanding ransom. Thousands of infected systems are still active. The attack is still ongoing. If you are in doubt if you have compromised systems within your network, we recommend taking a look at how to

1205, 2017

DeepSec welcomes SEC Consult as Sponsor for 2017!

René Pfeiffer/ May 12, 2017/ Conference, Security

Testing products, production code, security measures, or the overall security of infrastructure is hard work. The typical needs in term of information technology for a company or an organisation has become a variety of components that need to be maintained and hardened against attacks. The devil is in the details. In order to find critical weaknesses you need decades of experience, a thorough understanding of the technologies in use, in-depth knowledge of processes that touch information technology, and a decent portion of creativity to come up with ways around obstacles. SEC Consult, our long-time sponsor, has all of this – and more. They publish their findings and offer consulting for anyone needing extra security. Take a look at the House of Keys project, the IoT Inspector, or gaping holes in digital forensics software that

2701, 2017

Putting the Science into Security – Infosec with Style

René Pfeiffer/ January 27, 2017/ Discussion, Security

The world of information security is full of publications. It’s like being in a maze of twisted little documents, all of them alike. Sometimes these works of art lack structure, deep analysis, or simply reproducibility. Others are perfectly researched, contain (a defence of) arguments, proofs of concept, and solid code or documentation to make a point. Information security is a mixture of different disciplines such as mathematics, physics, computer science, psychology, sociology, linguistics, or history. It’s not about computers and networks alone. There is interaction between components. Protocols are involved. Even the simple act of logging in and staying in an active session requires in some parts to talk to each other. And then there are rituals. Scepticism is widespread in information security. Questioning your environment is the way to go, but you need to

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

0811, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Keynote: Security in my Rear-View Mirror – Marcus J. Ranum

Sanna/ November 8, 2016/ Conference, Discussion, Security, Stories

Everything that’s old is new again, and if you work in security long enough, you’ll see the same ideas re-invented and marketed as the new new thing. Or, you see solutions in search of a problem, dusted off and re-marketed in a new niche. At this year’s DeepSec conference the keynote will be given by Marcus Ranum, who set up the first email server for whitehouse.gov. He will reflect upon over 30 years of IT security and make a few wild guesses for where this all may wind up. Spoiler alert: Security will not be a “solved” problem. Marcus answered a few questions beforehand: Please tell us the Top 5 facts about your talk. I’ll be talking about how the security market evolves from here. I’ll be talking about the relationship between security and management It’s going to be depressing. I have

0811, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Talk: Systematic Fuzzing and Testing of TLS Libraries – Juraj Somorovsky

Sanna/ November 8, 2016/ Conference, Development, Security

In his talk Juraj Somorovsky presents TLS-Attacker, a novel framework for evaluating the security of TLS libraries. Using a simple interface, TLS-Attacker allows security engineers to create custom TLS message flows and arbitrarily modify TLS message contents in order to test the behavior of their TLS libraries. Based on TLS-Attacker, he and his team first developed a two-stage TLS fuzzing approach. This approach automatically searches for cryptographic failures and boundary violation vulnerabilities. It allowed him to find unusual padding oracle vulnerabilities and overflows/overreads in widely used TLS libraries, including OpenSSL, Botan, and MatrixSSL. Juraj’s findings encouraged the use of comprehensive test suites for the evaluation of TLS libraries, including positive as well as negative tests. He and his team used TLS-Attacker to create such a test suite framework, which finds further problems in TLS libraries. TLS-Attacker is an open source tool, and is currently being deployed for internal

0411, 2016

DeepSec2016 Talk: Smart Sheriff, Dumb Idea: The Wild West of Government Assisted Parenting – Abraham Aranguren & Fabian Fäßler

Sanna/ November 4, 2016/ Conference, Legal, Security, Stories

Would you want to let your kids discover the darker corners of the Internet without protection? Wouldn’t it be handy to know what they do online, to be alerted when they search for dangerous keywords and to be able to control what websites they can visit and even when they play games? Worry no longer, the South Korean government got you covered. Simply install the “Smart Sheriff” app on your and your kids’ phones. Smart Sheriff is the first parental-control mobile app that has been made a legally required, obligatory install in an entire country! Yay, monitoring! Well, something shady yet mandatory like this cannot come about without an external pentest. And even better, one that wasn’t solicited by the maintainer but initiated by the OTF and CitizenLab and executed by the Cure53 team!

0311, 2016

DeepSec2016 Talk: Of Mice and Keyboards: On the Security of Modern Wireless Desktop Sets – Gerhard Klostermeier

Sanna/ November 3, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security

Wireless desktop sets have become more popular and more widespread in the last couple of years. From an attacker’s perspective, these radio-based devices represent an attractive target both allowing to take control of a computer system and to gain knowledge of sensitive data like passwords. Wireless transmissions offer attackers a big advantage: you don’t have to be around to attack something or someone. Plus the victims often don’t know what it happening. At DeepSec 2016 Gerhard Klostermeier will present the results of research on the matter of wireless mouse/keyboard attacks. Furthermore you he will demonstrate ways in which modern wireless desktop sets of several manufacturers can be attacked by practically exploiting different security vulnerabilities. We recommend this talk to anyone still using old-fashioned input devices for creating content. Gerhard is interested in all things

0311, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Talk: Assessing the Hacking Capabilities of Institutional and Non-institutional Players – Stefan Schumacher

Sanna/ November 3, 2016/ Conference, Security, Security Intelligence

Cyberwar, Cyberterror and Cybercrime have been buzzwords for several years now. Given the correct context, using cyber has merits. However Cyber-Headlines are full with Cyber-Reports about Cyber-Incidents, Cyber-Hacking and Cyber-Cyber in general. However, that whole discussion does not only suffer from sensationalism of journalists and bloggers, there are also some fundamental problems, says Stefan Schumacher. We are still lacking useful definitions for modern IT security threats and we still have to think about the assessment of capabilities in the IT field.Besides institutional actors like states and their military and intelligence community we also have to assess the capabilities of non-institutional actors like terrorist groups or organised crime. Unlike the assessment of classic military strength (eg. fighting power or Kriegsstärkenachweise), assessing the capabilities and powers of actors in the IT field is much more complicated

0311, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Talk: Why Companies Must Control Their Data in the Era of IoT – and How To – Kurt Kammerer

Sanna/ November 3, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Interview, Security

In his talk Kurt Kammerer addresses any company’s dilemma: The need for data sharing in the era of IoT while at the same time controlling access and ownership. In order to succeed in business, it is imperative to make data available to customers, suppliers and business partners. However, the explosion and the proclaimed free flow of data can turn against an organisation and threaten its very existence, if not professionally controlled. We asked Mr. Kammerer a few questions beforehand. Please tell us the top 5 facts about your talk. The relevance of “data” increases by the day and “data” is imperative to compete. Therefore, it is an asset companies must control. Data ownership is increasingly being challenged in the era of cloud/IoT (who created the data and who actually owns it?) Not exercising enough control

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