What I Know It’s About Experience

6Sep/100

The Internet’s Secret Back Door

Web users in the United Arab Emirates have more to worry about than having just their BlackBerries cracked. The United Arab Emirates continues to wrestle with Research in Motion over government access to BlackBerry messages, threatening to ban the company's services if it doesn't severely weaken the anti-snooping protections on its smartphones. But years before the RIM battle boiled over, other Western companies handed the country a far greater power: the capability to infiltrate the secure system used by most banking, mail, and financing sites, making the most protected data on the Web available to the prying eyes of the emirates' government-connected telecommunications giant.

More.. click here

29Mar/10Off

Pwn2Own 2010 News

Pwn2Own is the brain child of Dragos Ruiu, the founder and director of the CanSecWest security conference.  This is an annual conference held every year in Vancouver, Canada (usually late March).  If you have never been to it I highly recommend the event. This is probably the most technically advanced conference world wide, even more so then events like Blackhat or Hack In The Box.  It tends to be smaller, about 200 people.  The Pwn2Own is an event where conference attendees are challenged to hack a fully patched device.  The first contest began in 2007 with just a Macbook laptop, but has grown to include items such as a Windows laptop and iPhone.  What makes this contest different then other hacking events is the caliber of contestants.  You literally have some of the best exploit developers in the world. They are motivated with a total of $100,000, but in addition gain tremendous bragging rights.  Many of the contestants said it took them 1-2 weeks to develop the exploits, in some cases two people worked together.  That averages 80-160 man hours to create an exploit. This year at the contest the following fully patched systems were successfully hacked.  
 
Firefox on 64-bit Windows 7
  Internet Explorer 8 on 64-bit Windows 7
  Safari on Mac OS X
  iPhone
So, what does that mean to us?  In general three things.
  1. Developing a new exploit takes a lot of work, however with enough time and talent anything can be hacked, even something fully patched.
  2. In general, most criminals are simply too lazy or do not have the skills to develop such advanced exploits.  But then again, they don't have to.  The simple, well known exploits and vulnerabilities are working just fine.
  3. The only organizations that would have to worry about such attacks are high-value targets. If you believe you are such a target, and that threats may target specifically you, contests like this demonstrate that no matter how much prevention you implement it can be bypassed. Detection and incident response are just as important as prevention. 
via HoneyTech Security Update
9Mar/10Off

INFECTED HARDWARE !!

I received this interesting news today from my friend Lance. he said that he have read of several instances where hardware was infected but this is the first time he seen it officially reported in a CERT alert. The Energizer DUO, a USB-powered battery recharger was distributing malicious code that infected windows systems.

The hardware device itself does not infect the computer.  Instead the infection happens from the software that comes with the device.  Energizer is currently working with CERT to learn how their software was infected.  In addition, only 9 out of 42 anti-virus products were able to detect the virus.

Lesson learned, it does not matter where you get the software from, scan it before installing it.  Be sure your policies are enforcing this.

Technical details about this trojan can be found here

via: HoneyTech Security Update

27Jun/09Off

Software Protects You From ‘Shoulder Surfers’

Some guy has developed software that allows only an authorized person to see what is on the screen, everyone else just sees gibberish. Sounds interesting, I’d like to see it in action though.

Chameleon uses gaze-tracking software and camera equipment to track an authorized reader's eyes to show only that one person the correct text. After a 15-second calibration period where the software essentially "learns" the viewer's gaze patterns, anyone looking over that user's shoulder just sees dummy text that randomly and constantly changes.

source:hardocp

16Oct/08Off

Walmart – You Have Been Selected!! Oh Really :)

قبل شوي وانا اتصفح الانترنت وفاتح الماسنجر وصلني ايميل من وال مارت قمت فتحت الايميل واقراه فا كان يقولي انه قد تم اختياري لاستفتاء مسويته شركه Walmart الامريكيه وراح افوز ب 150 دولار كا هديه (ايه هين) وطالع الايميل وكانه جاي بشكل تلقائي :)

 طبعا الايميل نصب بس قلت خلني امشي وراه اشوف وش يبي يسوي :) قمت نسخت اللنك وفتحت المتصفح اوبرا وحطيته فيه واللنك هو http://www.ibpartners.org/app.html قام وسوا لي اعاده توجيه مباشرة لموقع ثاني اللنك حقه هو http://www.az-prime.com/www.walmart.com/survey.html  طبعا الموقع شكله مخترق ورافع عليه عده النصب لان الموقع az-prime شيكت عليه حصلته حق شركه تسوي رخام وش دخلها في Walmart المهم فتح اللي الصفحه التاليه

يتضح من الصوره السابقه كان الموقع تابع لـ Walmart طبعا شيكت على السورس حق الصفحه مافيه لا اكسبلويت ولا شي فا ستغربت قلت وش هالنصب اللي لا فيه اكسبلويت ولا يطلب مني معلومه بطاقه فيزا ولا شي ؟؟ فا قلت خلني اكتب المعلومات واكمل معه اشوف وين بيوديني :) وكما توقعت اخذني للصفحه التاليه :)

طبعا الله يجزاه خير يقول بحكم انك عطيتنا من وقتك شوي نبي نعطيك 150 دولار حلال عليك ومانبي منك شي ابد الا اللهم رقم بطاقه الفيزا حقتك وتاريخها ورقمها السري بس :) طبعا كاتب تحت كا ملاحظه ان المعلومات حقت البطاقه فقط محتاجينها للتحقق من شخصيتي :) طبعا الايميل كله نصب في نصب ومحاوله لخداع المستخدم الغير واعي عن اساليب النصب والاحتيال بالانترنت انا كتبت هالموضوع عشان اوضح لكم احد اساليب الخداع اللي ممكن تواجهها كا مستخدم في حال استخدامك للانترنت :) ويسمى هذا النوع من العمليات بـ Phishing Attack :) يجيك ايميل او يتصل فيك احد ويدعي انه شخص من بنكك الخاص او جهه تعرفها ويحاول ياخذ منك معلومات بشكل مباشر او غير مباشر .. مثلا مباشر معلومات بطاقتك وبشكل غير مباشر مثلا معلوماتك الخاصه كا اسمك كاملا ورقم بطاقتك المدنيه صندوق بريدك الخ الخ .. بحيث انه يقدر يتصل على بنكك الخاص ويدعى انه انت :) فا نتبهوا من هالحركات وخذوووها قاعده البنك مستحيل يتصل فيك ويطلب منك رقمك السري او معلومات بطاقتك الخاصه او ياخذ تفاصيل منك كا تحديث بيانات ولا راح يجيك ايميل يطالبك بهالشي اطلاقا وفي حاله احد اتصل عليك يسوي معك هالحركات بلغ عنه واذا هو ايميل احذفه وسو للمرسل Block.

مع تمنياتي للجميع بتصفح آمن :)

10Oct/08Off

Fake Microsoft Patch

تنبيه هام جداا لمستخدمي انظمه مايكروسوفت ويندوز انتشر في الاونه الاخيره ايميل يدعي بانه من مايكروسوفت ومرفق معه ملف تنفيذي ويطلب منك تركيبه كا تحديث لنظامك :) فا رجاء اذا وصلكم هالايميل احذفووه :) لانه خذوها كا قاعده مايكروسوفت مستحيل ترسلكم ايميل تطلب منكم تحديث انظمتكم بهالشكل :) للاهميه جرى التنبيه وهذا نص الايميل

Dear Microsoft Customer,
 
Please notice that Microsoft company has recently issued a Security Update for OS Microsoft Windows. The update applies to the following OS versions: Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows Millenium, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista.
 
Please notice, that present update applies to high-priority updates category. In order to help protect your computer against security threats and performance problems, we strongly recommend you to install this update.
 
Since public distribution of this Update through the official website http://www.microsoft.com would have result in efficient creation of a malicious software, we made a decision to issue an experimental private version of an update for all Microsoft Windows OS users.
 
As your computer is set to receive notifications when new updates are available, you have received this notice.
 
In order to start the update, please follow the step-by-step instruction:
1. Run the file, that you have received along with this message.
2. Carefully follow all the instructions you see on the screen.
 
If nothing changes after you have run the file, probably in the settings of your OS you have an indication to run all the updates at a background routine. In that case, at this point the upgrade of your OS will be finished.

We apologize for any inconvenience this back order may be causing you.

Thank you,
Steve Lipner
Director of Security Assurance
Microsoft Corp.

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8Oct/08Off

HoneyTech Security Awareness – Are You Hacked?

بالتعاون مع موقع HoneyTech احب ان اقدم لكم الرساله التوعويه لشهر اكتوبر والهدف منها لهذا الشهر هو توعيه المستخدم في حاله الشك او التاكد بان الجهاز قد تم اختراقه ماذا يفعل؟ وماهي الدلائل اللتي قد تدل بان الجهاز قد تم اختراقه :)

اتمنى ان تحوز على استحسانكم :)

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