Monday, October 7, 2013

Sudo Make me a sandwich

Android 4.0 + Security in the face of Custom ROMs




Max will give an overview of Android’s device protection mechanisms in 4.0+ and how they can be circumvented or unintentionally undermined by device manufacturers, 'cause each device manufacturer or carrier can add or modify code from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). This can include access to device memory, exploitable processes which run as the root user, initialization scripts which perform privileged actions without proper validation, or APKs which leak access to otherwise-protected information sources. The talk will also detail /boot and /recovery differences between OEMs, how signature checks are performed, and demonstrate some of our tools to examine new devices and find potential security flaws.

Adobe breached, compromised source code

In a blog post on Thursday, Adobe said that during a security audit sometime around September 17, the company discovered that attackers had accessed Adobe customer IDs, as well as encrypted passwords. In addition to IDs and passwords, Adobe Chief Security Officer, Brad Arkin, said that the attackers also accessed customer names, encrypted credit and debit card numbers, expiration dates and "other information."

"At this time, we do not believe the attackers removed decrypted credit or debit card numbers from our systems". Question, why is that information not encrypted in the first place. What is the need to store them unencrypted.

In all, Adobe says that the breach impacts some 2.9 million customers worldwide, and that they're in the process of sending out notifications to those who had credit or debit card details compromised. Further, Adobe has alerted the banks processing customer payments, in order for them to help protect accounts upstream.

Adobe admitted that source code was breached during the incident. It wouldn't comment which product lines were breached. Adobe is the most commonly used product in almost every system out there. In theory this could mean, that their software could have more 0-days than what we are aware of. It could also mean that the current versions may have been altered, and backdoored already.

The earliest known date of discovery is September 17, but Adobe hasn't said how long the attackers have had possession of the stolen source code, nor can they comment on how far it's spread online. Last week, reporter Brian Krebs, found 40 GB worth of Adobe's proprietary data on a server used by criminals, but by the time he found it, Adobe was already investigating its theft.

In an advisory to customers, Adobe confirmed that the source code theft impacted Adobe Acrobat, ColdFusion, ColdFusion Builder and "other Adobe products." As to what those other products are, Adobe didn't say. And why would they !!!!

Adobe recommends that customers update to the latest supported software versions, and that they download the newest releases when they're made available on October 8.

WHMCS - 0day


Hong Kong-based PureVPN faced problems this weekend, after someone used a Zero-Day vulnerability in WHMCS to send the networking firm's customers an alarming message. The rogue email stated that the VPN service was going to shutdown due to legal issues, and that customer information was handed over to the authorities.

Addressed simply as "Dear Customer" the letter said that due to an incident, PureVPN would be closing accounts and were no longer able to run an anonymization service. In addition, it said the company "had to handover all [customer] information to the authorities."

The letter was signed by Uzair Gadit, the co-Founder of PureVPN, who took to his company's blog and Twitter on Saturday to dispute the claims it made. According to a second email delivered to customers, the cause for the letter was a vulnerability in WHMCS — a platform used by many service providers like PureVPN, to manage user registrations and accounts, as well as billing and support.

"Preliminary reports suggest that we are hit with a zero day exploit, found in [WHMCS]...We are able to confirm that the breach is limited to a subset of registered users Email IDs and names," a blog post by PureVPN explained.

The WHMCS vulnerability was disclosed last week in versions 5.2.7 and 5.1.9. Moreover, proof-of-concept code for launching an SQL Injection attack spread to a few different exploitation-based forums and places like Pastebin. The flaw itself resides in dbfunctions.php (update_query), and requires that the attacker have an account on the system; something that is easily done considering the nature of WHMCS.

At issue is the fact that the script trusts any SQL update that has a value starting with AES_ENCRYPT. As it was explained to CSO, this was a case of missing input validation checks, a common (yet risky) coding error.

It's unclear if there are any other websites targeted by those responsible for the PureVPN compromise. CSO asked PureVPN, since given the nature of the vulnerability itself, if it can be disproved that the entire email database was accessed, but the company didn't respond to questions.

XP not dead yet

A recent series of customer studies by mobile management firm Fiberlink shows a pattern of risky behavior, and widespread usage of a soon to be dead operating system

Examining data from one million devices, Fiberlink, a mobile management firm, examined the often forgotten part of mobility in the workforce — laptops. While IT and security vendors focus on Google's Android, Apple's iOS, tablets, and smartphones, Lenovo's ThinkPad and Dell's Latitude chug along, remaining a stable fixture in the workplace. According to Fiberlink, almost 50 percent of the laptops observed in their study are running Windows XP.
Not counting extended support contracts, in April 2014, IT and security managers will be forced to face the fact that Windows XP has reached end of life. As is the case with other operating systems, XP will remain as a legacy installation and cause its own share of risk in some cases. However, the explosion of mobile in the work force, which includes laptops procured years ago that now live their life in a constant state of rotation between staff, means that organizations will have some choices to make.
"Looking at the laptops we manage, we see close to 50 percent of customer devices that need to upgrade or be replaced by that time. When speaking with our customers, they are typically not enthused with migrating to Windows 8, which leaves them in a situation where many are going to upgrade to Windows 7 instead or are waiting to see what Windows 8.1 is going to bring to the table," Fiberlink explained in an email to CSO.
Organizations have had some time to prepare for the change from XP, but that doesn't mean that such deployments are finished. However, CSO was curious about the mindset of many IT managers when it came to OS changes and security, particularly management. When considering the two, IT has been looking at platforms that enable them to manage employee-owned and corporate-assigned devices from one instance, and lucky for them — there are plenty of vendors that claim to do this in the MDM market. (No, seriouslythere's plenty of options.
"We were surprised to see that almost half of our laptop customers are still running XP. That number continues to shrink every day, but it's still unclear what many CIO's and IT executives will choose as their next move," Chuck Brown, director of product management at Fiberlink, told CSO.
"We're seeing businesses consider many different options as Windows XP gets closer to the end of its support in April 2014. Potentials options include upgrading employees to Windows 7, waiting to see what Windows 8.1 feels like, and even moving straight to the Windows Surface Pro 2."
Employee-owned laptops (much like employee-owned tables and phones) are a growing trend and a source of risk. IT doesn't want full control over these devices, but if they're being used to access sensitive data or communications, there needs to be some sort of visibility and management, such as pushing patches or enforcing VPN usage.
Speaking to CSO, Brown, said that the enterprise is certainly not abandoning the laptop. In fact, it's quite the opposite as CIO's and IT executives are just as concerned about managing laptops as they are about phones and tablets. All of these devices have the same concerns related to compliance, protecting corporate data and applications. But laptops are just one part of the BYOD profile.

Prior to examining laptop usage, Fiberlink looked at other security metrics, including the use of passcodes on mobile devices. According to a random sampling of 1,000 customers, a majority of the passcodes allowed by IT are simple PINs (93 percent). Of those devices with PINs, 73 percent require a length of 4-5 characters, while 27 percent require greater than five characters.
Further, in July, Fiberlink looked at data risk, and discovered that of those employees who use either a personally owned mobile device, or one issued by their employer, 25 percent of them saved work-related documents into a third-party application (e.g., Dropbox, Quick Office, or Evernote); 20 percent said they've copied work-related documents into personal email; and 18 percent noted that they've used mobile devices to bypass IT's Web filtering policies.
Again, laptops with a soon to be expired OS are just one part of the problem, as this data clearly shows. Long after employees are migrated away from XP, the little things such as weak PINs and risky data handling will still pose the most risk to the business. This is why mobile device usage is such a hot topic, and just like laptops were mid-90s, something that will require planning and time before IT can get a solid handle on it.
Today's workforce is a mash-up of personal and professional gadgets, platforms, services, and applications. IT can no longer sacrifice personal usage over professional, so they're looking for ways to make them work together securely, but making that solution look as good in reality as it does on paper, is easier said than done.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Enterprises warned against first true Google phone, Moto X - CSO Online - Security and Risk

 
The security nightmare corporations face with the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend just got worse with the release of Google's new Moto X. With the Android smartphone unveiled Thursday, Google is hoping to lure customers with a personal digital assistant that's easy to use and can guess what information or services people want by reading emails and schedules and tracking search queries. While all this data collection may make the device invaluable, it also should make corporations very nervous. "It's engineers gone wild," said Roger Entner, principal analyst for Recon Analytics. "The engineers are [saying], 'Oh, wouldn't this be a really cool idea,' but don't think through the repercussions." The ease-of-use features in the Moto X, designed and built by Google-owned Motorola, are likely to tickle consumers while haunting IT security pros. First is the always-on microphone, which a person can use to activate the device using trigger words, such as "OK Google Now," to make phone calls or access services and features. The feature is possible through a special, low-power chip developed by Motorola that keeps the microphone on without draining the battery. The always-ready microphone, coupled with the massive amount of data collection, makes the Moto X a valuable target for cybercriminals and cyberspies, who are already heavily focused on developing malware to take control of Android devices. Security researchers say tools for building and distributing Android malware are getting progressively better in the criminal underground. In 2012, the number of Android malware rose more than 2,500% and accounted for 95% of mobile threats on the Internet, according to Cisco's 2013 Annual Security Report. Malware exists today that can take control of an Android device, if a user can be tricked into installing in infected app from an online store or clicking a malicious link on a text message. "Once that happens, all bets are off, and all these lovely sensors become a continuous sound and video information-gathering tool on your designated target," said Kurt Stammberger, vice president of market development for mobile security vendor Mocana. [Also see: Next iPhone's possible fingerprint reader unlikely to excite buyers | Pentagon nod shows Android can be as secure as Blackberry] Motorola will also provide hands-free authentication with the Moto X, through a plastic token that can be clipped onto clothing that will communicate via near-field communication (NFC). As long as the token is a few feet away, a password won't be necessary to unlock the device. The token will be sold separately, reports said. "I'm sure someone at Black Hat or Defcon will figure out a workaround," William Stofega, analyst for IDC, said, referrring to the two security conferences now under way in Las Vegas. The Moto X is not the first Android phone to have these security-troubling features. The Motorola Droid that debuted last week also has them, industry observers say. However, Google has already proclaimed the Moto X its flagship smartphone and Motorola Mobility is reported to be set to spend as much as $500 million in marketing. Such a push gives the phone a better chance of becoming a success. Google's strategy of making its smartphones as useful as possible is what's needed to drive sales in the consumer market. A phone that can automatically notify the user about traffic conditions before heading to a meeting is certain to please many people. But the data collection necessary to provide such services, as well as the microphone, camera and NFC needed for ease of use, are making it increasingly difficult for companies to have a liberal BYOD policy. "Bring-your-own-device is a security nightmare in general," Entner said. Whether an employee can use their own device to access the corporate network should depend on their job, Stofega said. A chief research officer may not want his location known or to communicate with staff and bosses without strict security controls. "At some point [companies] have to have control at some level of the person and also the intellectual capital that's invested in that person," Stofega said. In the meantime, companies are better offer steering away from the Moto X for now, experts say. "I would not recommend the Moto X to corporate clients until we have a really good understanding and assurances from Google and Motorola on how to combat potential mischief being done with these capabilities," Entner said.

OSPF LSA table vulnerability...most cisco routers vulnerable

Alert Details - Security Center - Cisco Systems

Multiple Cisco products are affected by a vulnerability involving the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Routing Protocol Link State Advertisement (LSA) database. This vulnerability could allow an unauthenticated attacker to take full control of the OSPF Autonomous System (AS) domain routing table, blackhole traffic, and intercept traffic. The attacker could trigger this vulnerability by injecting crafted OSPF packets. Successful exploitation could cause flushing of the routing table on a targeted router, as well as propagation of the crafted OSPF LSA type 1 update throughout the OSPF AS domain. To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must accurately determine certain parameters within the LSA database on the target router. This vulnerability can only be triggered by sending crafted unicast or multicast LSA type 1 packets. No other LSA type packets can trigger this vulnerability. OSPFv3 is not affected by this vulnerability. Fabric Shortest Path First (FSPF) protocol is not affected by this vulnerability. Cisco has confirmed the vulnerability in a security advisory and has released software updates.

Investigating iOS Phone Images, File Dumps & Backups | Magnet Forensics

As of January 2013, Apple announced it had sold over 500 million iOS devices. While iOS seems to be the leading operating system for tablets worldwide, Android continues to be the leading operating system for mobile phones worldwide. Regardless of the statistics, if you are an active forensic examiner, chances are very high you will need to conduct an examination of an iOS mobile device (if you haven’t several times already). This article will discuss some of the steps involved and areas of interest when conducting an analysis of an iOS device for Internet related activity. Handset Passcodes Depending on the version of iOS, different passcode lengths and complexities are supported. A simple four digit passcode A complex numeric passcode A complex alphanumeric passcode or passphrase In many cases, you will need the passcode in order to obtain a physical image or a file system dump. Depending on the iOS version, device hardware version and passcode complexity, the passcode can sometimes be obtained by the forensic tool (such as Cellebrite) using a bruteforce attack. Physical memory dump vs. file dump vs AFC file backup Depending on the type of investigation, the tools you have available and the version of the iOS phone you need to examine, you may have a choice whether to conduct a physical memory extraction, a file system dump or an Apple File Connection (AFC) backup. When possible, it would be recommended to obtain a full physical memory extraction since that will likely contain data that the file system dump & AFC backup does not (deleted file system data, etc.). Physical memory image This would typically be accomplished using a tool such as Cellebrite, XRY, Lantern, Elcomsoft, MPE or the Zdziarski method1. The result of using one of these tools would either be a bit stream (dd) or a DMG image file that could then be analyzed manually or using a forensic analysis tool. File system dump A file system dump, which is a subset of a physical image, could be performed by several well-known tools such as Cellebrite, Blacklight, Oxygen or XRY. AFC backup Apple file connection (AFC) is used with iTunes to conduct a device backup and can be used to perform a backup of data from the device. For example, EnCase v7 can acquire an iOS device using this technology (requires iTunes to be installed, but not running). An examiner can also look for backups on a computer the device has previously been connected to as another step to analyze data from the device without having access to the device itself. Windows XP: c:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup Windows Vista/7/8: c:\users\\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup OSX: ~/Library/Application Support/MobilSync/Backup Depending on the version of iOS & iTunes, the backup can be protected with a password, which is used to encrypt the backed up data. This password is independent from the device passcode. File System Encryption Figure 1: http://images.apple.com/iphone/business/docs/iOS_Security_Oct12.pdf Starting with iOS 4 Apple began providing data protection for user data by encrypting the user partition. With the introduction of the iPhone 3GS (and continuing to the current iPhone 5 hardware device), Apple began including a hardware key that is used as part of the encryption process. This means that the physical device is needed in order to get all the components (keys) to successfully decrypt files that are protected with this level of encryption. iOS 5 introduced an additional layer of protection by encrypting files with individual keys. Apple has defined four levels (classes) of protection for user data: NSFileProtectionNone The file has no special protections associated with it. It can be read from or written to at any time. Available in iOS 4.0 and later. Declared in NSFileManager.h. NSFileProtectionComplete The file is stored in an encrypted format on disk and cannot be read from or written to while the device is locked or booting. Available in iOS 4.0 and later. Declared in NSFileManager.h. NSFileProtectionCompleteUnlessOpen The file is stored in an encrypted format on disk and must be opened while the device is unlocked. Once open, your file may continue to access the file normally, even if the user locks the device. Available in iOS 5.0 and later. Declared in NSFileManager.h. NSFileProtectionCompleteUntilFirstUserAuthentication The file is stored in an encrypted format on disk and cannot be accessed until after the device has booted. After the user unlocks the device for the first time, your app can access the file and continue to access it even if the user subsequently locks the device. Available in iOS 5.0 and later. Declared in NSFileManager.h. The default class for all files that are not otherwise assigned to a different data protection class is NSFileProtectionNone. This level uses individual keys for each file, but the keys are protected with a single system key so all the user data can be easily ‘erased’ during a reset (not really erased, it just deletes the system key and therefore the individual keys and data can never be recovered), but the key is easily viewed forensically since the system key can easily be obtained, without the need of the hardware key on the device itself. This level is not really meant to protect data, but rather provide a quick way to render data unreadable/unrecoverable. Each installed user application can dictate what class level to store the data generated by that application, but many use the default. The other levels of data protection incorporate the use of the hardware key that is unique for each particular device. This means that while you may be able to collect a physical image of an iPhone 4 or 5 and read the image file system, you cannot view unencrypted versions of the files themselves. If you have the device passcode and can obtain a file dump, you can however analyze the logical files, but will not be able to search unallocated. iOS Decryption with IEF 6.1.1 Internet Evidence Finder 6.1.1 introduced the ability to search an iOS image and files that may be protected with data encryption by providing the keys that are obtained by Cellebrite during the physical extraction process. IEF now looks for the associated .UFD file that the UFED creates during a physical extraction. The necessary keys are recorded in the .UFD file and IEF can now use those keys to decrypt data that is protected by only the system key. Loading an iOS image into Internet Evidence Finder Mobile phone support was added in IEF v6.1 and loading an image of an iOS device is very similar to loading an image of a hard drive. From the main splash screen, simple choose the “Mobile” option, iOS, then “Images”. You can point IEF directly to a bin, dmg or dd file. Loading a file dump into Internet Evidence Finder If you have obtained a logical file dump, you can follow the same steps as above, but instead choose the “File Dump” option and select the root folder that contains all the files you want to analyze. From this point you can continue to add more smartphone images, hard drive images or files you want to search before proceeding to the artifact selection page. Once completed, IEF will display all the found artifacts placed in their respective categories: Loading iOS backup files into Internet Evidence Finder iOS backup files are normally found on a computer hard drive. Therefore, to include iOS backup files in the artifact search, select the computer hard drive from the main “Images” option, then be sure and select the “iOS backups” option from the artifact selection screen: Summary Depending on how you have acquired data from the iOS device, you have three distinct options to analyze it with IEF. Physical Image (bin file from Cellebrite, DMG from Lantern or other ‘dd’ type image) Use IEF Advanced and choose the ‘iOS’->’Images’ option. If you used a Cellebrite UFED to extract the physical image and have the associated .UFD file, make sure it is in the same directory as the cellebrite physical image file (.bin) and IEF will automatically look for the .UFD file and use any keys that are present to decrypt user data. File Dump Use IEF Advanced and choose the ‘iOS’->’File Dump’ option, point IEF to the root of the file dump folder. iOS Backup Files Use IEF Standard or IEF Advanced and choose the ‘iOS Backup’ from the Mobile Backups artifact category.   As always, I appreciate the feedback, comments or questions. You can reach me anytime at lance(at) magnetforensics(dot)com. Special thanks to Ryan Kubasiak from Blackbag Technologies for some of the detailed iOS encryption information and document references.