Tag Archives: Exploit

Security

[ISN] Severe weaknesses in Android handsets could leak user fingerprints

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/08/severe-weaknesses-in-android-handsets-could-leak-user-fingerprints/ By Dan Goodin Ars Technica Aug 10, 2015 HTC and Samsung have patched serious vulnerabilities in some of their Android phones that made it possible for malicious hackers to steal user fingerprints. The researchers who discovered the flaws said that many more phones from all manufacturers may be susceptible to other types of fingerprint-theft attacks. The most serious of the flaws was found on HTC’s One Max handset. According to researchers at security firm FireEye, the device saved user fingerprints as an unencrypted file. Almost as bad, the BMP image was readable by any other running application or process. As a result, any unprivileged process or app could obtain a user’s fingerprints by reading the file. Attackers could capitalize on the weakness by exploiting one of the many serious vulnerabilities that regularly crop up in Android or by tricking a target into installing a malicious app. HTC fixed the issue after FireEye privately reported it, according to this summary, which didn’t provide a date or other details of the update. […]


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Security

[ISN] Researcher says he can hack GM’s OnStar app, open vehicle, start engine

http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/30/researcher-says-can-hack-gms-onstar-app-open-vehicle-start-engine/ By Bernie Woodall in Detroit and Jim Finkle in Boston Reuters July 30, 2015 BOSTON/DETROIT (Reuters) – A researcher is advising drivers not to use a mobile app for the General Motors OnStar vehicle communications system, saying hackers can exploit a security flaw in the product to unlock cars and start engines remotely. “White-hat” hacker Samy Kamkar posted a video on Thursday saying he had figured out a way to “locate, unlock and remote-start” vehicles by intercepting communications between the OnStar RemoteLink mobile app and the OnStar service. Kamkar said he plans to provide technical details on the hack next week in Las Vegas at the Def Con conference, where tens of thousands of hacking aficionados will gather to learn about new cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Kamkar released the video a week after Fiat Chrysler Automobiles recalled some 1.4 million vehicles after hacking experts demonstrated a more serious vulnerability in the Jeep Cherokee. That bug allowed them to gain remote control of a Jeep traveling at 70 miles per hour on a public highway. […]


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Security

[ISN] Hacking Critical Infrastructure: A How-To Guide

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/07/hack-critical-infrastructure/118756/ By Patrick Tucker Defense One July 31, 2015 Cyber-aided physical attacks on power plants and the like are a growing concern. A pair of experts is set to reveal how to pull them off — and how to defend against them. How easy would it be to pull off a catastrophic cyber attack on, say, a nuclear power plant? At next week’s Black Hat and Def Con cybersecurity conferences, two security consultants will describe how bits might be used to disrupt physical infrastructure. U.S. Cyber Command officials say this is the threat that most deeply concerns them, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. “This is because a cyber-physical incident could result in a loss of utility service or the catastrophic destruction of utility infrastructure, such as an explosion,” the report said. The most famous such attack is the 2010 Stuxnet worm, which damaged centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment plant. (It’s never been positively attributed to anyone, but common suspicion holds that it was the United States, possibly with Israel.) Scheduled to speak at the Las Vegas conferences are Jason Larsen, a principal security consultant with the firm IOActive, and Marina Krotofil, a security consultant at the European Network for Cyber Security. Larsen and Krotofil didn’t necessarily hack power plants to prove the exploits work; instead Krotofil has developed a model that can be used to simulate power plant attacks. It’s so credible that NIST uses it to find weakness in systems. […]


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Security

[ISN] Critical BIND denial-of-service flaw could disrupt large portions of the Internet

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2955005/security/critical-bind-denialofservice-flaw-could-disrupt-large-portions-of-the-internet.html By Lucian Constantin IDG News Service July 30, 2015 Attackers could exploit a new vulnerability in BIND, the most popular Domain Name System (DNS) server software, to disrupt the Internet for many users. The vulnerability affects all versions of BIND 9, from BIND 9.1.0 to BIND 9.10.2-P2, and can be exploited to crash DNS servers that are powered by the software. The Domain Name System is the Internet’s phone book. It’s used to convert domain and host names into numerical Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that computers need to communicate with each other. The DNS is made up of a global network of servers and a very large number of them run BIND, a software package developed and maintained by a nonprofit corporation called the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC). The vulnerability, announced and patched by ISC Tuesday, is critical because it can be used to crash both authoritative and recursive DNS servers with a single packet. […]


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Security

[ISN] Hackers Can Disable a Sniper Rifle — Or Change Its Target

http://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-can-disable-sniper-rifleor-change-target/ By Andy Greenberg Security Wired.com 07.29.15 PUT A COMPUTER on a sniper rifle, and it can turn the most amateur shooter into a world-class marksman. But add a wireless connection to that computer-aided weapon, and you may find that your smart gun suddenly seems to have a mind of its own—and a very different idea of the target. At the Black Hat hacker conference in two weeks, security researchers Runa Sandvik and Michael Auger plan to present the results of a year of work hacking a pair of $13,000 TrackingPoint self-aiming rifles. The married hacker couple have developed a set of techniques that could allow an attacker to compromise the rifle via its Wi-Fi connection and exploit vulnerabilities in its software. Their tricks can change variables in the scope’s calculations that make the rifle inexplicably miss its target, permanently disable the scope’s computer, or even prevent the gun from firing. In a demonstration for WIRED (shown in the video above), the researchers were able to dial in their changes to the scope’s targeting system so precisely that they could cause a bullet to hit a bullseye of the hacker’s choosing rather than the one chosen by the shooter. “You can make it lie constantly to the user so they’ll always miss their shot,” says Sandvik, a former developer for the anonymity software Tor. Or the attacker can just as easily lock out the user or erase the gun’s entire file system. “If the scope is bricked, you have a six to seven thousand dollar computer you can’t use on top of a rifle that you still have to aim yourself.” […]


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Security

[ISN] Adobe to patch second Hacking Team Flash zero-day bug

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2947273/malware-vulnerabilities/adobe-to-patch-second-hacking-team-flash-zero-day-bug.html By Gregg Keizer Computerworld July 11, 2015 Adobe next week will patch a second zero-day vulnerability found in the leaked documents from the Hacking Team, a controversial Italian company that sells surveillance software and exploits to governments, Adobe said late Friday. Computerworld’s Best Places to Work in IT 2015: Company Listings The complete listings: Computerworld’s 100 Best Places to Work in IT for 2015 A compact list of the 56 large, 18 midsize and 26 small organizations that ranked as Computerworld’s READ NOW The flaw will be patched this coming week; Adobe did not set a release date for the fix. “Successful exploitation could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system,” Adobe noted in an advisory. The vulnerability was the second uncovered in the gigabytes of documents leaked after attackers compromised the Hacking Team’s network and pilfered emails, financial information and contracts from the firm’s systems. […]


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Security

[ISN] Meet the hackers who break into Microsoft and Apple to steal insider info

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/07/meet-the-hackers-who-break-into-microsoft-and-apple-to-steal-insider-info/ By Dan Goodin Ars Technica July 8, 2015 In February 2013, Twitter detected a hack attack in progress on its corporate network. “This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident,” a Twitter official wrote when disclosing the intrusion. Sure enough, similar attacks were visited on Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft in the coming weeks. In all four cases, company employees were exposed to a zero-day Java exploit as they viewed a website for iOS developers. Now, security researchers have uncovered dozens of other companies hit by the same attackers. Alternately known as Morpho and Wild Neutron, the group has been active since at least 2011, penetrating companies in the technology, pharmaceutical, investment, and healthcare industries, as well as law firms and firms involved in corporate mergers and acquisitions. The developers of the underlying surveillance malware have thoroughly documented their code with fluent English, and command and control servers are operated with almost flawless operational security. The take-away: the threat actors are likely an espionage group in a position to profit on insider information. “Morpho is a skilled, persistent, and effective attack group which has been active since at least March 2012,” researchers from security firm Symantec wrote in a report published Wednesday. “They are well resourced, using at least one or possibly two zero-day exploits. Their motivation is very likely to be financial gain and given that they have been active for at least three years, they must be successful at monetizing their operation.” […]


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Security

[ISN] Overcoming paralysis – why financial services organisations have to race to update their Windows Server strategy

http://www.bobsguide.com/guide/news/2015/Jul/6/overcoming-paralysis-why-financial-services-organisations-have-to-race-to-update-their-windows-server-strategy.html By Dave Foreman, ECS, Practice Director Bob’s Guide July 6, 2015 Most of the technical support teams we work with know their Microsoft Server operating system inside out and have hardly lifted their phone to call Microsoft support in years. But this well-oiled machine is about to become IT departments’ biggest headache. With the end of Microsoft’s support for Server 2003 on July 14th 2015, migration from this rather old operating system has escalated from being a niggling worry to a high-risk agenda item. Only a handful of businesses have started their migration and even they will have to rely on Microsoft extended support. But this is not a cost-effective or risk-free option in the long term. At some point a new vulnerability in the operating system will be discovered and exploited; businesses will be exposed and the regulators will have a stronger case for non-compliance. According to the credit card industry’s PCI Security Council standards, if an unsupported operating system is Internet-facing, it will be logged as an automatic compliance failure. CIOs are caught between a rock and a hard place. Nobody wants to be caught in a position where they have to answer tough questions about plans to meet compliance and mitigate risk. […]


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