Research

Over on BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow is doing his best to raise awareness of data breaches in a post entitled, “Database leaks are as immortal and toxic as nuclear spills – let’s start acting like it”. If we are going to contain every heap of data plutonium for 200 years, that means that every single person who will ever be in a position to see, copy, handle, store, or manipulate that data will have to be vetted and trained every bit as carefully as the folks in the rubber suits down at the local fast-breeder reactor. Every gram – sorry, byte – of personal information these feckless data-packrats collect on us should be as carefully accounted for as our weapons-grade radioisotopes, because once the seals have cracked, there is no going back. Once the local sandwich shop’s CCTV has been violated, once the HMRC has dumped another 25 million records, once London Underground has hiccoughed up a month’s worth of travelcard data, there will be no containing it. And what’s worse is that we, as a society, are asked to shoulder the cost of the long-term care of business and government’s personal data stockpiles. When a database melts down, we absorb the crime, the personal misery, the chaos and terror. On the off chance Cory makes it over to this humble site, I’d like to propose some more creative thinking to solve the problem. The truth is we can never completely protect the data for many of the same reasons consumer DRM fails- it only has to leak once for it to appear everywhere. Assets in physical crime are self limiting; there are only so many ways for a horse thief to chop up a horse. Digital assets are nearly infinitely renewable and reusable. We need to keep defending our data, but accept the bad guys will get it. Thus we need to limit the impact of those leaks. I see two options (one focused on a specific issue in the US, the other more generalized), and I’m sure there are more: Release all Social Security Numbers. Then they can no longer be used as a “secret” identifier for financial transactions. This will stop most forms of identity theft in the US, forcing bad guys to shift to more focused account-level fraud. This post explains the difference. Create systems for multi-factor transaction security. Fraud monitoring on credit card accounts is a basic example of this, but there’s a lot more we can do. Placing a fraud alert on your credit report so the monitoring company has to call you before creating a new account is another example. Having your bank verify major account transfers through back channels is another. I call this “Dynamic Authorization” (part of Dynamic Trust) and it leverages the power of real-time technology to change how we perform transactions and authenticate individuals. There are so many creative and effective layers we can add here I get pretty excited just thinking about it. We accept that data will leak, then build security controls to minimize the damage. We’ve barely scratched the surface. Consider this anti-exploitation for financial transactions: we can’t eliminate the vulnerability, but we can reduce the exploitability. There are exceptions. Health care data is one example where the private market won’t solve the problem; we’ll probably need government regulation to reduce the financial value of that data (e.g., forcing insurance companies to provide coverage despite prior conditions). Protecting consumer privacy, such as limiting data collection on buying habits, is another tough area. But right now the biggest problems are financial in nature, and that’s one area where we can make a big dent with some creative approaches. There will always be criminals, but we can sure make their lives harder. Simply storing data in nuclear bunkers and hoping it doesn’t leak isn’t the answer. < p style=”text-align:right;font-size:10px;”>Technorati Tags: Cory Doctorow, Cybercrime, Data Breach, Dynamic Authorization, Vulnerabilities Share:

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems are the technology connection between control systems and the switches, pumps, and motors that run our automated physical world. SCADA is the basis of everything from power plants to train systems. It’s also one heck of a security risk. I’ve talked about SCADA before in a few posts, including this, this, and this. In general, it seems obvious that running these things on standard IT technology, then connecting them to the Internet (no matter how many firewalls you have) isn’t the smartest idea in the world. This is highly contested by SCADA traditionalists who constantly assure us that the odds of a successful attack resulting in physical impacts are extremely low. Methinks those traditionalists might need to pull their heads out of either the sand or a rather unattractive orifice, since there are more than enough examples these days to prove them wrong. The latest, courtesy of Hoff and Stiennon, is that the CIA released a report that hackers have caused unspecified power outages on multiple occasions (overseas is my guess): CIA: Hackers to Blame for Power Outages By TED BRIDIS — 3 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) – Hackers literally turned out the lights in multiple cities after breaking into electrical utilities and demanding extortion payments before disrupting the power, a senior CIA analyst told utility engineers at a trade conference. All the break-ins occurred outside the United States, said senior CIA analyst Tom Donahue. The U.S. government believes some of the hackers had inside knowledge to cause the outages. Donahue did not specify what countries were affected, when the outages occurred or how long the outages lasted. He said they happened in “several regions outside the United States.” “In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities,” Donahue said in a statement. “We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet.” Both Hoff and Stiennon predicted SCADA attacks this year (and I made fun of them for it, but that’s another story). Now before you SCADA defenders get your panties in a bunch, over my career as an analyst and consultant I was privy to more than one successful and physically dangerous SCADA attack communicated to me by clients. I’ll never talk details, but they really happened, putting lives at stake. I’ll still talk SCADA, but there’s enough evidence now of real problems that I don’t see the need to waste time trying to prove how important it is. If you don’t get it by now, you never will, and I hope you don’t have anything to do with my corner of the power grid. Okay, just a quick primer on the major risks of connecting a process control network with the business network: Loss of communications due to a non-SCADA failure or attack disrupting network communications. Inability to monitor and control remotely. Exploitable vulnerabilities on SCADA systems running on standard platforms, e.g. Windows. You often can’t patch a running SCADA system or install antivirus, HIPS, or other defenses. Vulnerable to mass exploits that have nothing to do with SCADA. Direct attack on SCADA software/systems. Exploitation of a control workstation which is then used to access/control the SCADA system. Has the added advantage that the attacker can remotely monitor normal activity to determine how to commit malicious actions on a proprietary system they don’t have prior knowledge of. < p style=”text-align:right;font-size:10px;”>Technorati Tags: Cybercrime, puppy Share:

Just a quick note- Yesterday, Apple released a QuickTime patch to cover a couple of vulnerabilities, but this does not patch the new RTSP flaw revealed last week. Mac and Windows are both vulnerable, and you should still be very careful using QuickTime streaming over the Internet. Share:

Remember the good old days when vulnerabilities would just affect one platform? Back when there was NO WAY my Commodore 64 could be infected by your TRS-80? It looks like there is a targeted attack going on (where a virus is created and only sent to specific targets so the antivirus companies don’t notice it). It takes advantage of a flaw in older versions of Microsoft Excel. Microsoft’s advisory is here. It’s not the kind of thing most of you will have to worry about unless you become the target, but I’m always interested in 0day attacks and cross-platform vulnerabilities. More from Brian Krebs and the Microsoft Advisory: According to Microsoft’s security advisory, this vulnerability affects Microsoft Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2002, Microsoft Office Excel 2000, and Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac. People who are using Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Excel 2008 for Mac or have installed Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 3 are not affected. < p style=”text-align:right;font-size:10px;”>Technorati Tags: 0day, Apple, Excel, Microsoft, Vulnerability, Targeted attack Share:

Security professionals seem to have a strained relationship with Apple these days. Any trip to a security conference shows that more and more security professionals are using Macs on a regular basis. A not-insignificant percentage of the high-end industry types I know shows they all use Macs and iPhones; at home if not at work, often against corporate policy. Yet Apple’s view on security is very… 2001. They do not follow a security development lifecycle. Marketing seems to play too strong a role in security decisions, especially when dealing with researchers. They never finished most of the security features of Leopard, and some products (especially QuickTime) are running at very high vulnerability rates. The first thing we need to get out of the way is that Macs are currently safer to use than Windows XP, even if they aren’t as secure. There just aren’t as many exploits out there in the wild. Vista is more secure, but I find it unusable. This can, and will, change over time as Macs continue to rise in popularity and become a bigger target. Thus, as a security professional I have mixed feelings about Apple. I feel somewhat hypocritical about supporting a company that doesn’t prioritize my bread and butter, but I’m not overly pleased with Window’s UI failings or Linux’s peculiarities. I’ve made the decision to pick the OS that best fits my work and productivity needs, then do what I can to improve the security of the platform. Which gives me three options: Work for Apple. They haven’t called and I’m not waiting. Discover and report vulnerabilities, hoping they’ll get patched. I suck at this, so not the best option. Criticize and constantly pressure them in public, hoping to embarrass them into change. They’ll call me a raving loon, then ignore and marginalize me. Actively engage with the Apple community, give Apple credit for what they get right, and point out where they get things wrong while educating Mac users. This hopefully gains me enough credibility that they can’t simply dismiss me as anti-Apple and I can help the Mac community pressure Apple for needed change. Apple is far from perfect and their security needs a ton of work, but I’m taking a reasoned approach and hoping that by engaging and educating their customers (and thus Apple, indirectly), we can spur change. On that note, I’m off to the Macworld Expo show floor to meet with various vendors (including security vendors) and to play with my new iPhone (yes, I’m weak). < p style=”text-align:right;font-size:10px;”>Technorati Tags: Apple Share:

Just finished up attending the Steve Jobs keynote for the first time. From a security perspective, as expected there wasn’t anything worth noting. Being a product-launch event we really weren’t planning on seeing any discussion of security, and the other updates don’t seem to have many obvious security ramifications. One potential area of interest is the new location based service, which appears to be a combination of Google’s location (which I use on my BlackBerry), and a WiFi based service by Skyhook Wireless that’s been around for a few years. Google’s location based on cell towers is only accurate to about 800 meters so it will be interesting to see what Skyhook provides in urban areas. Being WiFi based I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it and doing a little WiFi sniffing. It will be interesting to see if it leaks too much information about you. The other iPhone updates are interesting enough that I might make the leap. I was waiting for the 3G version but that’s probably still 6 months away. I’d really like a better web browser for mobile blogging, and even the Opera browser on the BlackBerry isn’t cutting it. We’ll see what I end up flying home with after I take some time outside the Reality Distortion Field of Jobs. As for the other product announcements my impression is they’re solid, but overall a little disappointing. The MacBook Air looks absolutely amazing with excellent performance for the size. Hopefully some of the power-friendly technologies like LED backlit display and SSD drive will make their way into the rest of the product line. iTunes movie and TV rentals were surprising only for the studio support- every single major studio. Pricing is in-line with Unbox and other services, but you get better quality. A lot better if you pay $1 more for the HD version, which might be worth it since you don’t have to buy a Blu-ray or HD DVD player to watch them. I was mostly looking forward to attending the keynote to watch Jobs present, and that’s one area where I wasn’t disappointed. I love his use of simple slides, basic animations, and smooth style. it’s not something that will necessarily translate into the more information-laden presentations we industry pundits tend to have to give, but his overall quality is far better than anyone else in the industry I’ve seen. Most of my Macworld coverage will be over at TidBITS, but I’ll post my less formal impressions here as the week goes on. Share:

This morning, database security company Sentrigo released some results from in informal survey they performed at a series of Oracle User Group meetings. Results highlight that most organizations are not taking advantage of Oracle CPUs in a timely manner, if at all. Findings include: – When asked: “Have you installed the latest Oracle CPU?” — Just 31 people, or ten percent of the 305 respondents, reported that they applied the most recently issued Oracle CPU. – When asked: “Have you ever installed an Oracle CPU?” — 206 out of 305 OUG attendees surveyed, or 67.5 percent of the respondents said they had never applied any Oracle CPU. These findings support my experiences in talking with database administrators and performing informal surveys (hand raising) during conference presentations. Most people seem to patch once a year. I honestly believe we’ve been dodging database-security bullets for too long. I fully understand how hard it is to test and install a patch to a critical database, but these are also (often) the most important digital assets we own. Oracle will be releasing their quarterly Critical Patch Update, and your security and database teams should be preparing to evaluate the patches, perform a risk assessment, prioritize, and install. While I’ve been critical of how much information they release on updates, I’m a big fan of the quarterly update cycle. It gives enterprises time to prepare for the release and install it in a timely manner, and a quarterly cycle is much more reasonable for databases. When I ask clients why they don’t patch in a timely fashion, it usually goes like this: Me: So why haven’t you patched yet? Them: Our databases are behind a firewall. There’s no Internet access so we only worry about it once a year. Me: Is the database server firewalled from internal users? Them: Yes. Security Guy In Back Of The Room: No, not really. Me: What would happen if someone wrote a virus that infected a sales guy’s laptop at Starbucks, then scanned and attacked database servers when he came back to work? Them: Oh. Um. Well, we have antivirus. Me: Oh. Well, you’ve got that going for you. Which is nice. You using any database security tools? Maybe an activity monitor, inline protection, or an agent? [insert crickets here] Share:

From the Breach Blog: Victims: “wealthy investors” Number Affected: 200 Types of Data: Financial details Breach Description: A box containing sensitive paperwork related to 200 wealthy investors was found on the side of the road near Reading in Berkshire (UK). The box was in transit from a Prudential building in Reading to a secure storage facility in Essex when it apparently fell out of the DHL courier van. Among the 200 wealthy investors that were affected were three UK national lottery winners. I used to joke about sensitive data falling off the backs of trucks during my data security presentations. Guess I have to re-write the joke. < p style=”text-align:right;font-size:10px;”>Technorati Tags: Data Breach, UK Share:

Okay, it was only a half-marathon, but considering I hurt my knee and wasn’t able to train for a month I feel pretty darn good about finishing. In my head that is; legs aren’t quite as pleased. I’m heading off to Macworld Expo tomorrow and will be in San Francisco all week. I’m helping cover the event for TidBITS. While most of my non-security writing will be over there, since TidBITS is an edited publication I’ll probably be pushing out some random Apple posts over here. I’m hoping for two announcements this week, although honestly don’t expect them. First is for the 3G iPhone, preferably with GPS and a functioning 2-way calendar/to-do list. I’ve been disappointed in my Blackberry Pearl for two reasons- the craptastic browser, and since I don’t have an Exchange server I don’t get truly real-time email. (Yes, I can do hosted Exchange, but that doesn’t make sense for me). Second, I’m hoping for a refresh on the MacBook Pros with SSD drives and LED screens for better battery life. The rumors seem to trend more towards a compact MBP or tablet which would be okay if the specs are high enough. Either way, I’m looking forward to the first non-security, non-Gartner conference I’ve been to in years. Share:

SunSec last night was a roaring success- although my liver crawled under a small table and refuses to come out. We had 15+ people show up from all over the area. The Phoenix OWASP decided to crash the party and everyone had a heck of a good time (most people drank a tad more moderately than myself). I was finally dragged away from hanging out even longer with the ts/sci guys who just posted a full after action report. Devious little fellows, they shoved drinks in my hand until I invited them onto the Network Security Podcast (sorry Martin). We’ll definitely be doing this on a monthly basis. I’m also looking at starting an informal email list to keep people in the area connected (unless there’s another one floating around already). If you’re interested, drop me an email at rmogull@securosis.com. Thanks everyone for making it a successful event. Dammit! The liver is under the couch now, I’ll never get it out of there…. < p style=”text-align:right;font-size:10px;”>Technorati Tags: SunSec Share: