Security Alert

New Intel Vulnerability Named Foreshadow Found

August 27, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Intel has had a tough time of things so far this year. The most recent trouble stems from yet another newly discovered security flaw in the company’s processors, bearing the inelegant name of “L1 Terminal Fault,” or “Foreshadow” by those who have discovered it.

The attack can take one of three different shapes (so far), and ultimately allows a hacker to access sensitive data stored in the computer’s memory or on third-party cloud-based storage services. This sensitive data includes passwords, pictures, other sorts of data files, and encryption keys.

The three variants of the attack have been grouped into two distinct categories, known as Foreshadow and Foreshadow NG (Next Gen).

The standard Foreshadow variant (Reference CVE-2018-3615) targets Intel’s Software Guard Extensions (SGX), which is new technology designed by intel to help keep user data from falling into the wrong hands, even if the whole system comes under attack.

As the researchers who discovered it describe it:

“Foreshadow enables an attacker to extract SGX sealing keys, previously sealed data can be modified and re-sealed. With the extracted sealing key, an attacker can trivially calculate a valid Message Authentication Code (MAC), thus depriving the data owner from the ability to detect the modification.”

The Foreshadow: Next Generation attack (reference CVE-2018-3620 and CVE-2018-3646) targets virtualization environments like those used by large cloud-based service providers like Microsoft and Amazon.

From the researchers again:

“Using Foreshadow-NG, a malicious program running on the computer might be able to read some parts of the kernel’s data. As the kernel has access to data stored by other programs, a malicious program might be able to exploit Foreshadow-NG to access data belonging to other programs.

Foreshadow is different from Meltdown as it targets virtual machines and SGX, in addition to data stored in the operating system’s kernel (which was targeted by Meltdown).”

According to Intel, none of these attacks have been seen in the wild, but of course, that’s just a matter of time now. No word from Intel yet on a time frame to address these issues, but stay tuned.

Joseph Martin

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Macs Can Be Hacked With Synthetic Dismissal On Warning Boxes

August 25, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Depending on the lens you view him through, Patrick Wardle (former hacker for the NSA and macOS security expert) is either your best friend or your worst nightmare.

Most people (whether fans of Apple or not) will readily concede that the company works hard to make their products as secure as possible. Unfortunately, at this year’s Def Con hacker convention in Las Vegas, Wardle made a presentation that is currently sending shockwaves through the Apple user community. He exposed a major security flaw in the company’s products that impacts many of their secondary defensive measures.

Normally, when an Apple device detects an action that is potentially malicious, Apple’s OS will block it, then display an alert box to let the user know.

Unfortunately, as Wardle demonstrated, it is a trivial task for a hacker to generate a “synthetic click” to dismiss the warning box. This could be done in the blink of an eye, or with only slightly more effort, and be made utterly invisible to the end-user.

As Wardle puts it, “The ability to synthetically interact with a myriad of security prompts allows you to perform a lot of malicious actions. Many of Apple’s privacy and security-in-depth protections can be trivially bypassed.”

This is hardly a new trick. Over the years, several malware strains have used synthetic clicks to dismiss warning boxes, so Apple is certainly no stranger to the strategy. In response, they have given their OS some ability to detect and ignore synthetic clicks, but as Wardle demonstrated, it’s far from perfect and even a fully updated High Sierra system was not completely protected.

Wardle concluded his presentation with the following: “I wasn’t trying to find a bypass, but I uncovered a way to fully break a foundational security mechanism. If a security mechanism falls over so easily, did they not test this? I’m almost embarrassed to talk about it.”

Apple has not yet responded to Wardle’s presentation.

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

Joseph Martin

Fax Machines Might Be Gateway To Next Hacker Attack

August 24, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Nothing bad could possibly happen to your company’s network if the only piece of information the hackers have is your fax number, right?

Unfortunately not, according to recent research by employees at Check Point.

They recently revealed details about not one, but two different REC’s (Remote Code Execution) techniques that exploit flaws in the communications protocols of tens of millions of fax machines spread all over the globe.

If you think the Fax machine has largely gone the way of the dinosaur, think again. Many printers sport “all in one” functionality, which includes both scan and fax functionality, and therein lies the problem. Since these printers are invariably attached to your network, your fax number is a good a way in, since most people don’t even think about it.

Called the “Faxploit,” the new attack type involves a pair of known buffer overflow vulnerabilities, CVE-2018-5925 and CVE-2018-5924, which allows anyone who takes advantage of them to have the ability to execute code remotely.

The researchers who discovered the issue created a proof of concept video demonstrating the attack in action. In their demo, they made use of an HP Officejet Pro 6830 and an OfficeJet Pro 8720, sending an image file with a malicious payload through the phone line. The moment the fax machine receives it, the image is decoded and uploaded into the fax/printer’s memory.

From there, the sky is the limit. Having gained a foothold on the network, what happens next is entirely dependent on the nature of the payload delivered. One thing you can be sure of, however, is that none of the outcomes you can expect will be good.

The researchers point out that there’s nothing special about the two all in one printers they selected, and the vulnerability will work on just about any make or model. Something new to be worried about.

Joseph Martin

Survey Shows People Are Most Concerned About Data Theft

August 21, 2018 by Joseph Martin

How seriously does the average consumer take data theft? It’s an interesting (and fair) question, and one that Radware recently attempted to answer when the company sent out surveys. They contacted more than three thousand people to conduct its recent survey titled “Consumer Sentiments: Cybersecurity, Personal Data and the Impact on Customer Loyalty.”

As it turns out, today’s consumers take the matter even more seriously than many other types of crimes.

Here are some of the highlights from the recent report:

A full 55 percent of those surveyed said that data theft was their top concern

The theft of a personal wallet ranked a distant, with just 23 percent of respondents placing it as their top concern

10 percent of respondents listed auto theft as their primary concern

Just 6 percent listed the theft of their cell phone and house keys as their #1 concern

Anna Convery-Pelletier, Radware’s Chief Marketing Officer, had this to say about the report:

“It’s no surprise that data theft ranks so high in the minds of Americans as a major risk. It’s easy to buy a new car or a new cell phone, but having private data exposed can have permanent consequences for both the consumer and the brand where the breach occurred. When an organization does not properly secure its network, it is putting its brand reputation in jeopardy and risking its customer base.”

While that’s true, some of the results are curious. After all, the theft of a cell phone ranks quite low in terms of top concerns, but cellphones contain a treasure trove of personal data, which points to an odd disconnect in the survey results.

Additionally, while 54 percent of survey respondents said that having their social security number stolen was a major concern, only 18 percent said they were worried about having their banking information stolen, and only 9 percent listed the theft of healthcare information as a big issue.

In the end then, the survey raises at least as many questions as it answers, but it does shine a much needed light on a fascinating topic. Clearly, more study and education is needed.

Joseph Martin

New Scam Targets Apple Users

August 11, 2018 by Joseph Martin

There’s a new, surprisingly elaborate phishing scam targeting iPhone users. The scam starts with an email informing users that their phones have been locked due to “illegal activity” and instructing them to call “Apple Care” to get the problem fixed.

Of course, there is no such company as Apple Care, but it’s an official enough sounding name that it’s luring a surprising percentage of victims into calling. In fact, opening the email will open a call dialog box, making connecting to “help” a very simple, and incredibly tempting option.

Naturally, the person on the other end of the phone isn’t tech support, but a hacker who’s looking to obtain as much information about the caller as possible. It’s a well thought out, well-engineered scam and it’s taking a lot of people in.

Given that smartphones have officially overtaken PCs as the primary means of surfing the web, it should come as no great surprise that phishing attacks targeting smartphone users are on the rise. Since most people keep their whole lives on their phones these days, it’s no wonder that so many people are quick to try and get help at the first sign of trouble with their cherished device.

Hackers are all too aware of that fact and are increasingly using it to prey on unsuspecting victims. Unfortunately, people tend to be more distracted when they’re on their phones versus when they’re using a PC, which explains why phishing attacks directed at smartphone users tend to succeed more often than they do against PC users.

Don’t fall for it.

Train your brain to be more mindful of any email you get that hints at a problem with any account or device you control. The best thing you can do if you get an email like that would be to close it and test the account or device yourself to verify that it’s locked. If it isn’t, delete the email and assume it was a scam. If it is locked, reach out to the company directly, rather than clicking links embedded in an email, or calling numbers obtained from an email.

That’s still not a fool proof solution, but it will help to minimize your risks.

Joseph Martin

E-Mail Is A Big Threat To Your Organization

August 4, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Mimecast’s 2018 “State of Email Security” report is out, and although it’s contents are hardly a surprise, the news it contains is mostly bad.

For starters, it confirms what most IT professionals already know:

Email continues to be a big threat for organizations of all sizes.

Unfortunately, the C-Suite (CEO’s, CIO’s, CFO’s, and the like) are a major part of the problem, representing a significant weak link in Enterprise security. Not only are they a prime target for hackers, but according to the survey, 40 percent of respondents agreed that their organization’s CEO was a painfully “weak link” in their organization’s cyber-security operations.

Just as alarming, 31 percent of respondents said that C-level employees are very likely to have accidentally sent sensitive or proprietary information to the wrong person, a statistic up 9 percent from last year.

In addition to that, email is the primary means by which ransomware winds up getting inside company networks. This comes with a staggering 92 percent of successful ransomware attacks arriving via that channel, resulting in three or more days of downtime for the impacted companies.

Phishing attacks also continue to be a major issue, with 90 percent of respondents reporting an increase in the number of phishing attacks they were subjected to.

In light of these statistics, one would imagine that companies would be devoting significant resources to countering the threat. Unfortunately, that’s just not happening. Sure, money is being spent on infrastructure, but humans are the weakest link in this chain, and not just in the C-Suite. According to the survey, only 11 percent of organizations continuously train their employees on how to spot cyberattacks, and just over half (52 percent) perform training just once a year.

Matthew Gardiner, a cyber-resilience expert at Mimecast, summarizes it this way :

“Security awareness is an important part of any high-functioning security program. But like all security controls, there is no silver bullet solution. The best security programs seek a balance between technical controls, boosting their human firewalls, and having IT enabled business processes that are resilient to failures, whether man-made or caused by technology.”

Indeed.

Joseph Martin

Chrome Now Shows Sites Without SSL as Not Secure

August 2, 2018 by Joseph Martin

There is a small but significant change from Google, with the release of Chrome 68. The updated browser will now prominently notify browsers when they surf their way to non-HTTPS websites, displaying them as “Not Secure.”

This is Google’s latest step in a long campaign to try and make the web a safer and more secure place for internet users around the world.

If you’re not especially tech-savvy, here’s why it matters:

Anything sent over a non-HTTPS connection is in plain text, including sensitive information like credit card payment info and passwords. This makes it a trivial matter for hackers to snoop and/or steal data. The new “Not Secure” message that Chrome displays is a clear indication to browsers that there’s no SSL Certificate to encrypt the connection between your website’s server and the user’s computer.

Non-HTTPS connections have been considered dangerous for a number of years, but as hackers have gained increasing levels of sophistication, the dangers have only grown over time.

Google has intentionally taken a slow, measured approach to making this change in order to give business owners plenty of time to respond. They began the process in January 2017, with the release of Chrome 56, by displaying a subtle “Not Secure” warning in the address bar of any non-secure websites that were collecting passwords and credit card information on their customers.

Then, in October 2017, the company upped the ante with the release of Chrome 62, which saw the browser begin to display the “Not Secure” warning for any HTTP website that had any kind of text input field. This culminated in the release of Chrome 68, which prominently displays the message for all non-secure sites, period.

The bottom line is, the change has been a long time coming, and if your company hasn’t yet enabled HTTPS on your website, the time to do so is now.

Joseph Martin

Bluetooth Vulnerability Allows Hackers To Access Devices

August 1, 2018 by Joseph Martin

There’s a new Bluetooth security vulnerability to be aware of, tracked as CVE-2018-5383, and it’s a nasty one.

It’s a cryptographic vulnerability that affects firmware or operating system software drivers from a number of major vendors, including Qualcomm, Broadcom, Intel and Apple. At this point, the implication of the bug on Linux, Android, and Google are unknown.

The flaw is related to two important Bluetooth features: BR/EDR implementations of Secure Simple Pairing in device firmware and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) of Secure Connections Pairing in OS system software.

It was discovered by researchers operating out of Israel’s Institute of Technology. They discovered that the Bluetooth specification recommends (but critically does not mandate) that devices supporting the two features make any effort to validate the public encryption key received during secure pairing.

Since the specification is optional, it’s hardly a surprise that some vendors producing Bluetooth products do not take sufficient steps to validate the parameters used to generate public keys during the exchange.

This allows a would-be hacker the possibility of executing a man-in-the-middle attack to obtain the cryptographic key used by the device. This would give them the opportunity to not only spy on the device’s owner, but also to inject malware that could allow the hacker to take full control over the device.

SIG (the Bluetooth Special Interest Group which maintains the technology), had this to say about the flaw:

“For an attack to be successful, an attacking device would need to be within wireless range of two vulnerable Bluetooth devices that were going through a pairing procedure.

The attacking device would need to intercept the public key exchange by blocking each transmission, sending an acknowledgement to the sending device, and then injecting the malicious packet to the receiving device within a narrow time window. If only one device had the vulnerability, the attack would not be successful.”

Bluetooth SIG has now updated the specification to require products to validate public keys received as part of the public key-based security procedures. Of the manufacturers mentioned above, Apple and Intel have both released patches. Broadcom has made fixes available to its OEM customers who are responsible for providing them to end-users. There has been no word yet from Qualcomm.

Joseph Martin

Hackers May Set Their Sights On Your GPS Next

July 30, 2018 by Joseph Martin

If you’re like most people, you probably rely heavily on the GPS function of your phone. Type in an address and your phone helpfully guides you, turn by turn, to your destination. It’s one of the most often utilized features of a smartphone, and of course, the hackers are very interested in interfering with it.

Until now though, hackers have been unable to fool humans into driving to the wrong destination by hacking their GPS, because their instructions often make no sense given the prevailing terrain features the humans are seeing on the road. For instance, nobody is going to turn left into a Jiffy Lube parking lot or a corn field just because GPS says to (unless your destination was Jiffy Lube, of course).

That’s changing, thanks to researchers from Virginia Tech and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

The team has devised a way to hack into a GPS system and spoof the results well enough to fool humans, giving bogus driving directions that seem to make sense given local conditions, and as such, don’t raise red flags.

Accomplishing the task was no small feat, involving the creation of an algorithm that works in something close to real time. This along with a portable device for spoofing GPS that can be attached to the car of your target or placed in a trailing car. Its effective range is about fifty meters.

Once the equipment is in place, the algorithm crafts GPS inputs that follow the real world road network, allaying suspicion in 95 percent of the team’s test cases, while still ultimately sending the target to the wrong destination.

There are any number of ways this exotic type of attack could be used, but the two primary use cases would be to intentionally steer the target into hazardous road conditions, or to lure them to an isolated area where a physical attack could be carried out.

Unfortunately, in the months and years ahead, we can probably count on seeing both.

Joseph Martin

New Report Shows 32 Percent Increase In Cyber Attacks

July 28, 2018 by Joseph Martin

Positive Technologies has just released a new report that paints a grim picture for IT professionals. If your sense is that the number of cyberattacks are increasing, you’re not wrong. In fact, it’s probably worse than you realize.

So far this year, we’ve seen a staggering 32 percent increase in the total number of cyberattacks in the first quarter of 2018, compared to the same period last year. Even worse, malware attacks have increased by a mind-bending 75 percent since the first quarter of 2017.

Individuals were far and away the most frequent target (28 percent), but government agencies came in a reasonably close second (16 percent), with business in the healthcare, finance, and IT sectors rounding out the top five (8 percent, 7 percent, and 5 percent, respectively).

Of the malware deployed against targets this year, spyware was by far the most common, with stealth cryptocurrency mining software not far behind.

Leigh-Anne Galloway, the cyber security resilience lead at Positive Technologies explains in more detail:

“Our research shows that 63 percent of attacks included use of malware. Spyware, in particular, is used most often because it allows obtaining not only personal information and corporate secrets, but credentials for the services and systems needed to attack internal corporate infrastructure.”

Long story short, the prevalence of spyware seen in this report is likely to have cast-off effects in the future. Hackers will gain a sufficient level of access and information, courtesy of their successful spyware attacks, to launch even more harmful attacks against both individuals and government/corporate institutions in the future.

Positive Technologies warns that the number of attacks is likely to continue to escalate, and that there’s no clear end in sight.

The report is dark news if you’re in the digital security business. If your business hasn’t been hit yet, it seems that it’s just a matter of time.

Joseph Martin

New Intel Vulnerability Named Foreshadow Found

Macs Can Be Hacked With Synthetic Dismissal On Warning Boxes

Fax Machines Might Be Gateway To Next Hacker Attack

Survey Shows People Are Most Concerned About Data Theft

New Scam Targets Apple Users

E-Mail Is A Big Threat To Your Organization

Chrome Now Shows Sites Without SSL as Not Secure

Bluetooth Vulnerability Allows Hackers To Access Devices

Hackers May Set Their Sights On Your GPS Next

New Report Shows 32 Percent Increase In Cyber Attacks

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