1910, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Talk: TLS 1.3 – Lessons Learned from Implementing and Deploying the Latest Protocol – Nick Sullivan

Sanna/ October 19, 2016/ Conference, Development, Internet, Security

Version 1.3 is the latest Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, which allows client/server applications to communicate over the Internet in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, and message forgery. TLS is the S in HTTPS. TLS was last changed in 2008, and a lot of progress has been made since then. CloudFlare will be the first company to deploy this on a wide scale. In his talk Nick Sullivan will be able to discuss the insights his team gained while implementing and deploying this protocol. Nick will explore differences between TLS 1.3 and previous versions in detail, focusing on the security improvements of the new protocol as well as some of the challenges his team faces around securely implementing new features such as 0-RTT resumption. He’ll also demonstrate an attack on the way some

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1009, 2016

Firmware Threats – House of Keys

René Pfeiffer/ September 10, 2016/ Discussion, Security

SEC Consult, our long-term supporter, has updated a report on the use of encryption keys in firmware. These hardcoded cryptographic secrets pose a serious threat to information security. The report features 50 different vendors and has some interesting statistics. The results were coordinated with CERT/CC in order to inform the vendors about the problem. The highlights of the research includes: 40% increase in devices on the web using known private keys for HTTPS server certificates 331 certificates and 553 individual private keys (accessible via Github) some crypto material is used by 500,000 and 280,000 devices on the web as of now The recommendations are crystal clear: Make sure that each device uses random and unique cryptographic material. If operating systems can change account passphrases after initialisation, so can your device. Take care of management

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0909, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Workshop: Deploying Secure Applications with TLS – Juraj Somorovsky

Sanna/ September 9, 2016/ Security, Training

Cryptography is all around us. It has become something like the background radiation of the networked world. We use it on a daily basis. Since nothing usually comes into existence by mistake, there must be someone responsible for deploying this crypto stuff. You are right. Software developers, mathematicians, engineers, system administrators, and many more people are involved to make encryption happen. The hard part is to get it right. The mathematics involved is hard. A lot can go wrong. This is why we have a workshop for you at DeepSec 2016! Have you (or your manager) ever wondered why your server is getting bad grades from SSL labs? Or are you interested in improving the performance of your TLS server? If you answer one of these question with “yes”, you should consider to take part in the

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0509, 2016

Deep Sec2016 Talk: DROWN – Breaking TLS using SSLv2 – Nimrod Aviram

Sanna/ September 5, 2016/ Conference, Internet

In the past years encrypted communication has been subject to intense scrutiny by researchers. With the advent of Transport Layer Security (TLS) Internet communication via HTTP became a lot more secure. Its predecessor Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) must not be used any more. The real world has its own ideas. SSLv2 and SSLv3 is still present. Attackers can try to downgrade the TLS session by switching to insecure ciphers. When using the correct configuration, these downgrade attacks cannot happen. The question is: Are all of your devices, applications, and systems correctly configure? If you are not sure, better check again. In order to illustrate how these attacks work, we have invited Nimrod Aviram for DeepSec 2016. He will explain the inner workings of the DROWN attack. We present a novel cross-protocol attack on TLS

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3007, 2016

OpenPGP.conf is calling for Content

René Pfeiffer/ July 30, 2016/ Call for Papers, Conference, Security

If you don’t know what PGP means (or GPG), you should consult your favourite search engine. While it has a bad reputation for its usability, it is a lot more useful than the rumours might suggest (please attend your local CryptoParty chapter for more details). This is why the German Unix Users Group organises an OpenPGP.conf event. It takes place on 8/9 September 2016 in Cologne, Germany. The Call for Papers is still running, so  be quick and submit. The international conference, initiated by Werner Koch, maintainer of the free OpenPGP implementation Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG), and organized by the German Unix Users Group Association introduces the subject of confidential and untampered with communication including, but not limited to security aware users, IT managers and architects responsible for security objectives, software developers who plan to

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1502, 2016

DeepSec Video: illusoryTLS – Nobody But Us. Impersonate,Tamper and Exploit

René Pfeiffer/ February 15, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security

Cryptographic backdoors are a timely topic often debated as a government matter to legislate on. At the same time, they define a space that some entities might have practically explored for intelligence purposes, regardless of the policy framework. The Web Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) we daily rely on provides an appealing target for attack. The entire X.509 PKI security architecture falls apart if a single CA certificate with a secretly embedded backdoor enters the certificate store of trusting parties. Do we have sufficient assurance that this has not happened already? Alfonso De Gregorio presented at DeepSec 2015 his findings and introduced illusoryTLS. Aptly named illusoryTLS, the entry is an instance of the Young and Yung elliptic curve asymmetric backdoor in the RSA key generation. The backdoor targets a Certification Authority public-key certificate, imported in

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1302, 2016

DeepSec Video: Measuring the TOR Network

René Pfeiffer/ February 13, 2016/ Conference, Internet, Security

A lot of people use TOR for protecting themselves and others. Fortunately the TOR network is almost all around us. But what does it do? How can you get access to metrics? TOR is an anonymisation network and by design doesn’t know anything about its users. However, the question about the structure of the user base often arises. Some people are just interested in the size of the network while others want details about the diversity of its users and relays. Furthermore, TOR is used as a circumvention tool. It is interesting to automatically detect censorship events and to see how the number of users changes in those countries. TOR’s measurement team tries to give answer to those (and more) questions. At DeepSec 2015 Jens Kubieziel explained the collection of different data and how

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1202, 2016

DeepSec Video: Cryptographic Enforcement of Segregation of Duty within Work-Flows

René Pfeiffer/ February 12, 2016/ Conference, Security

Calling for encryption and implementing it may be easy at a first glance. The problem starts  when you have to grant access to data including a segregation of duty. Workflows with Segregation-of-Duty requirements or involving multiple parties with non-aligned interests (typically mutually distrustful) pose interesting challenges in often neglected security dimensions. Cryptographic approaches are presented to technically enforce strict auditability, traceability and multi-party-authorized access control and thus, also enable exoneration from allegations. At DeepSec 2015 Thomas Maus held a presentation explaining the problems and possible solutions.

1002, 2016

DeepSec Video: How to Break XML Encryption – Automatically

René Pfeiffer/ February 10, 2016/ Conference, Security

XML is often the way to go when exchanging information between (business) entities. Since it is older than the widespread adoption of SSL/TLS, there is a special standard called XML Encryption Syntax and Processing. You can use XML encryption to encrypt any kind of data. So far, so good. But In recent years, XML Encryption became a target of several new attacks. These attacks belong to the family of adaptive chosen-ciphertext attacks, and allow an adversary to decrypt symmetric and asymmetric XML ciphertexts, without knowing the secret keys. In order to protect XML Encryption implementations, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published an updated version of the standard. Juraj Somorovsky (Ruhr University Bochum) held a presentation at DeepSec 2015 explaining what these attacks look like. .

0502, 2016

DeepSec Video: Cryptography Tools, Identity Vectors for “Djihadists”

René Pfeiffer/ February 5, 2016/ Conference, Discussion, High Entropy, Internet

Wherever and whenever terrorism, „cyber“, and cryptography (i.e. mathematics) meet, then there is a lot of confusion. The Crypto Wars 2.0 are raging as you read this article. Cryptography is usually the perfect scapegoat for a failure in intelligence. What about the facts? At DeepSec 2015 Julie Gommes talked about results of the studies done by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). The Internet is the method of choice for communication: the number of sites calling for a “jihad” rose from 28 in 1997 to over 5,000 in 2005. The basic use of these sites for the purpose of basic classical communication began in the 2000s. It was replaced by that of social networks, allowing almost instant mass communication. Julie’s talk give you an overview about the tools used according to the study.

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0312, 2015

National-Security-in-the-Middle Attack – the Crypto Wars continue

René Pfeiffer/ December 3, 2015/ High Entropy, Internet, Odd

National security has officially reached the SSL/TLS infrastructure – at least in Kazakhstan. The Google cache features an article published by the Kazakhtelecom JSC where the introduction of a so-called national security certificate for Internet users was proudly announced. We show you some parts of the original text for educational purposes, because we have never seen the announcement of a backdoor to communication channels in this glorious manner. From 1 January 2016 pursuant to the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan «On communication» Committee on Communication, Informatization and Information, Ministry for investments and development of the Republic of Kazakhstan introduces the national security certificate for Internet users. According to the Law telecom operators are obliged to perform traffic pass with using protocols, that support coding using security certificate, except traffic, coded by means of cryptographic information protection

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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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0510, 2015

DeepSec 2015 Workshop: Crypto Attacks – Juraj Somorovsky & Tibor Jager

Sanna/ October 5, 2015/ Conference, Training

Fvcelsiuetwq lcv xlt hsyhv xd kexh yw pdp, tlkli? Well, yes and no. ITEzISqbI1ABITAhITAhLZzQFsQ6JnkhMTMhpNK5F5rF9dctkiExMyEv9Fh1ITMzIaX2VCJpEQc= , and that’s where it often goes wrong. Your cryptographic defence can be attacked just as any other barrier you can come up with. Attackers never sleep, you know. Crypto attacks are often facilitated by a simple psychological bias: Since cryptographic algorithms are so complicated (for me), no one can easily figure out how to break them. But this may be true for ASN.1 or Chinese (with apologies to all native speakers, it is meant as a metaphor). The fertile growth of CrypoParties all around the globe documents the interest in using cryptography as a means of protecting data, be it in transit or stored locally. Since you use encryption algorithms every day, regardless if you know about them or

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3009, 2015

DeepSec 2015 Talk: Cryptography Tools, Identity Vectors for „Djihadists“ – Julie Gommes

René Pfeiffer/ September 30, 2015/ Conference, Security, Security Intelligence

Some speak of Crypto Wars 2.0. For others the Crypto Wars have never ended. FBI Directory James Comey does not get tired of demanding back doors to IT infrastructure and devices (there is no difference between back door and front door, mind you). Let’s take a step back and look at the threats. We did this in 2011 with a talk by Duncan Campbell titled How Terrorists Encrypt. The audience at DeepSec 2011 was informed that encryption does not play a major role in major terror plots. What about today? Have terrorists adopted new means of communication? Since the authorities demanding access to protected information do not have statistics readily available, we turned to researchers who might answer this question. Julie Gommes will present the results of studies analysing the communication culture of criminal

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2009, 2015

DeepSec Talk 2015: Cryptographic Enforcement of Segregation of Duty within Work-Flows – Thomas Maus

Sanna/ September 20, 2015/ Conference

Encryption is great. Once you have a secret key and an algorithm, you can safeguard your information. The trouble starts when you communicate. You have to share something. And you need to invest trust. This is easy if you  have a common agenda. If things diverge, you need something else. Thomas Maus will explain in his talk cryptographic methods that can help you dealing with this problem. Meet Alice and Bob, who might not be friends at all. Workflows with segregation-of-duty requirements or involving multiple parties with non-aligned interests (typically mutually distrustful) pose interesting challenges in often neglected security dimensions. Cryptographic approaches are presented to technically enforce strict auditability, traceability and multi-party-authorized access control and thus, also enable exoneration from allegations. These ideas are illustrated by challenging examples – constructing various checks and balances for telecommunications data retention, a vividly discussed

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