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Category Archives: Hacking

The Panama Papers Database Now Downloadable

https://cloudfront-files-1.publicintegrity.org/offshoreleaks/csv.zip

Check it out, folks.

ASUS Memory Management Exploit Dropped

http://rol.im/asux/

 

Arizona Cyber Warfare Range

I just want to take this moment to point out what an awesome site Arizona Cyber Warfare Range is.  They allow aspiring netsec students and hacker jedi alike to register on any of their hacking “live-fire ranges” and learn valuable skills.  With servers for Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced and Real World skill levels, this is an excellent resource for anyone interested in infosec or hacking.  They are a non-profit organization, so please drop them a donation if you can spare.

USB Armory Released

Using crowdfunding and open-sourced hardware design, the USB Armory (which is now for sale here (no affiliate links here) for $130), has been successfully funding and released.  Featuring a smaller form-factor than an Arduino or Raspberry Pi, the Armory is a USB stick-sized computer that can be used for any number of projects. The little stick sports of lot of power, as seen in the specifications (taken from the crowdfunding page):

Hardware

Software

The USB Armory hardware is supported by standard software environments and requires very little customization effort. In fact, vanilla Linux kernels and standard distributions run seamlessly on the tiny USB Armory board:

Connectivity

  • High Speed USB 2.0 On-The-Go (OTG) with full device emulation
  • full TCP/IP connection to/from USB Armory via USB CDC Ethernet emulation
  • flash drive functionality via USB mass storage device emulation
  • serial communication over USB or physical UART

Security

The ability to emulate arbitrary USB devices in combination with the i.MX53 SoC speed and fully customizable operating environment makes the USB Armory an ideal platform for all kinds of personal security applications. Not only is the USB Armory an excellent tool for testing the security of other devices, but it also has great security features itself:

  • ARM® TrustZone®
  • secure boot + storage + RAM
  • user-fused keys for running only trusted firmware
  • optional secure mode detection LED indicator
  • minimal design limits scope of supply chain attacks
  • great auditability due to open hardware and software

The support for ARM® TrustZone®, in contrast to conventional trusted platform modules (TPMs), allows developers to engineer custom TPMs by enforcing domain separation between the “secure” and “normal” worlds that propagates throughout all SoC components, as opposed to limited only to the CPU core.

At such a low price-point and with this many options, this could become a must-have for any cyber security practitioner. I plan to pick one up at some point and will hopefully write a review.

10 Million Passwords Released

Mark Burnett recently released a cache of 10 million real passwords. For those who do a lot of password cracking and hashing, this is very welcome news. The file is a compilation of various data dumps from website compromises over the course of several years, but the value of a cache of actual passwords, rather than generated wordlists, is very encouraging for this who would seek to break hashes. It is statistically a near certainty that, in a large enough group, you are much more likely to find two people who share the same birthday, than you are you find someone with a specific birthday.  If this principle holds true for password usage as well, this dump could be priceless for security researchers.

Magnet Link: Here

Disclaimer: BY DOWNLOADING THIS AUTHENTICATION DATA YOU AGREE NOT TO USE IT IN ANY MANNER WHICH IS UNLAWFUL, ILLEGAL, FRAUDULENT OR HARMFUL, OR IN CONNECTION WITH ANY UNLAWFUL, ILLEGAL, FRAUDULENT OR HARMFUL PURPOSE OR ACTIVITY INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO FRAUD, IDENTITY THEFT, OR UNAUTHORIZED COMPUTER SYSTEM ACCESS. THIS DATA IS ONLY MADE AVAILABLE FOR ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH PURPOSES.

Hardened Anti-Reverse Engineering System (HARES)

Security researcher Jacob Torrey has announced plans to unveil a system that he claims will make the reverse engineering of software (and malware) much more difficult, thanks to his new crypto-based project Hardened Anti-Reverse Engineering System (HARES).  By utilizing a feature of Intel and AMD processors known as Translation Look-aside Buffer Split, HARES will segment the memory of a program into data and instructions, then will encrypt the instructions portion with a key stored in the processor. This makes the use of traditional reversing and debugging tools (OllyDbg, IDA Pro, etc.) much more difficult.

Adding a new hurdle for malware-analysts causes security concerns, as traditional anti-malware solutions depend upon reverse engineering of the malware sample in order to develop countermeasures. HARES could allow black hat-types to operate with impunity, jeopardizing personal information and banking records for millions.

Not all is lost, however. Through the use of JTAG debugging tools for the processor itself, it may be possible to still intercept the code before it executes, although it would likely be in a lower-level language than the x86 or x64 assembly that is the lingua franca of malware analysts everywhere. Another possible attack against HARES is for reversers to intercept the decryption key when it is first passed to the processor, allowing for the encoded instructions in memory to be read freely.

Torrey plans to unveil his project at SyScan in March.

Cyber Weapons Can Be Reused By Adversaries

According the recently-leaked NSA documents, following the 2010 Stuxnet attack against Iranian nuclear facilities and the Wiper attacks against Iranian oil refinaries, Iran was able to reverse engineer and repurpose the malware for its own purposes, which it then used against Saudi Arabian oil company Aramco in 2012 with the Shamoon attack suite.

Just as the U.S. showed its hand at the end of World War 2 by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan (and thus starting the Cold War), America has again been first out of the gate with a new type of weapon, which is subsequently copied. The problem is that today’s “nukes” are nowhere near as difficult to create and the supplies are readily available. Imagine how the Cuban Missile Crisis would have played out if there were drastically more nuclear-armed powers in play. It will be interesting to see how the development of cyber weapons and their subsequent reuse will alter the course of future warfare and provide non-state actors with serious cyber firepower.

Facebook Creates Cyber Threat Feed

Today, Facebook announced its new cyber security threat feed ThreatExchange. By integrating various threat-monitoring feeds and through the use of its Facebook Graph system, it will allow users and companies to trace the connections between cyber incidents and its own records. A number of companies are onboard and will be contributing to and utilizing the data. By embracing the philosophy of data-sharing, the goal is to strengthen the web collectively through efficient dissemination of cyber threat intelligence. The beta now has an open signup both for users and contributors.

The First Line of Defense

The first line of the defense in a network is the people who use it. As someone who secures data, it is easy to blame breaches on user error, but in many cases, it is a matter of ignorance rather than stupidity. It is our responsibility to educate and inform our users of the negative opportunities their actions can create and the potential consequences of a breach. The video in the link is a talk from Defcon 19 by Jayson E. Street entitled Steal Everything, Kill Everyone, Cause Total Financial Ruin and Jayson goes into depth describing many breaches that he has done as part of penetration testing. The one weak link in every incident was the human element; they all fell victim to his social engineering and didn’t think to question him. Teach your users to question everything and report suspicious activity. Breed a security culture and your first line of defense will be strong.