Research

My work day had a bit of an unplanned interruption today. I shut down my computer to head from the home office to a nice quiet coffee shop for a change of scenery and a little time off the Internet to get some research done. When I booted up in the coffee shop I noticed that all my personal settings were gone for some reason. All my data was there, but every single preference in every single application (including registration keys) were missing. I looked in my preferences folder in the Library (a Mac thing, way better than a registry) and everything seemed to be in place, but anytime I opened an app it would overwrite the old preferences with a new preference file. Oops. Repairing disk permissions (a Mac thing, not so cool) and some other routine fixes didn’t work, so I scooted home to my backups. I copied over my 2-day-old preference files from a backup and that seemed to do the trick for most apps and my desktop/startup items. A few things are still hinky, but most of it’s normal. The one bad problem was my blog software (Ecto). Ecto seemed to lose all settings even after the fix, including all my drafts for future posts. Big bummer. A half hour later I was able to dig up some of the other settings files, replace those from 2 days ago, and everything seems fine. Backups are good. Nightly backups are better, and I think I’ll be even more diligent from now on. That said, this incident raised some questions in my mind. Even assuming I had a complete backup from last night, or a current differential, I was still looking at an uncomfortable loss of data from just the morning. I’m realizing that on any average day I produce a fair volume of data throughout the day. From calendar entries to emails to blog posts. Losing that hourly data won’t kill me, but would still be seriously annoying. Also, it was a VERY manual process to restore my preferences. I’d like to see more continuous backup software; and not just backups of documents/photos, but of settings and other system information, all with a granular restore. Time Machine in the next OS X looks like a good step in this direction, and I hope Apple includes settings in the backup schemes. I’ve played with a few Windows system restore settings, and while those do a good job of restoring your system you tend to lose a lot of the hourly data. That might be motivation to keep data on a separate partition from system software and settings to better enable granular restores. All of which is a real pain for us laptop users. As it is I own AT LEAST one external hard drive for every PC/Mac, not counting my small NAS. That’s a lot of drives and a lot of manual backups, and I don’t backup on the road. Eventually I’d like to have all my home systems automagically backup on the network every night, but that has to wait I can move to gig Ethernet and get a bigger, faster NAS. This is well beyond the average home user’s capabilities. As our entire lives and family histories move to fairly unreliable PCs (and Macs; they lose hard drives too) we could be destroying our social records. Despite constant warnings I still can’t get ANY of my family members to reliably backup their digital photos. I look forward to the day where no PC or Mac ships without an extra drive just to backup data. To operating systems that scream and kick their feet until you agree to backup to magnetic or optical media. To the day where all of this is transparent to the average user. Maybe System Restore and Time Machine will solve the problem. But I doubt it. There has to be a better way to preserve our digital lives. (sorry for the less-than-insightful rant, but I’ve been on a backup kick lately. We really don’t pay enough attention to backups in the consumer world- even us hard core geek consumers) Share:

To follow up on metrics, Amrit pointed out in the comments that we can’t use totally imaginary numbers. There’s some myth out there that assumes risk models can track directly to ROI models. I’ll save the full rant for later, but here’s a little math. Back in science days we talk about significant digits. Basically, every number has a certain number of significant digits. 22.1 has 3, while 22.11 has 4 significant digits. When multiplying or whatever, you use the least number of significant digits in the result. Since one number has greater precision than the other, the result can’t be any more precise than the least precise number. (I’m a history major, work with me). We like to multiply in risk assessments a lot, but most of those numbers are guesses. So here are my two formulae for risk management: A number of no significant digits X another number of no significant digits = a number of no significants To put it another way: A guess X a guess = a wild-assed guess Amrit’s right- fake numbers are bad if you treat them as numbers. The math just don’t work. When I suggest you use structured qualitative metrics I don’t mean you should treat them like they are anything other than imaginary numbers. They’re still valuable, but you’d better not drop them into some BS ROI formula. Share:

Guidance Software sells one of the best computer forensics tools on the market. Their largest client base is law enforcement and other types who perform investigations. According to Security Fix, they were hacked and the FTC found them negligent. Something about not taking basic security precautions, and keeping data they shouldn’t have. I don’t know, I get lost in details. Customers should now feel confident, since Guidance has to undergo two years of mandatory security audits. Oops. Too bad, it’s a cool product. At least, once they detected the breach a few weeks after it happened, they had trained investigators and appropriate tools to realize they were screwed. Share:

Oh goodie- another religious security debate! We do love our religious arguments so. This time it’s Amrit taking on Rothman over security metrics. Amrit likes them, Rothman doesn’t. Both of them are funny looking (sorry, it’s not germane to this post, but I figure people should know). I’m with Amrit on this one- metrics are absolutely critical. But I also agree with Mike, the wrong metrics are worse than no metrics, and pretending everything can be measured is silly. Didn’t we get over that in college? Amrit and Mike are both right; and despite my attempt to jump the shark and make this sound controversial they both probably agree more than they disagree. Security metrics are a vital evolution of our industry. We’re not artists, as much as there is an art to our science. We can’t just sit around and tell management to trust us and “no… don’t worry… we’re doing a good job. No viruses this week, right?” By the same token we can’t pretend everything we do can devolve into some simple ROI model to tell the CFO how many people to hire and how many security widgets to buy. Metrics are a valuable tool to baseline activities and track results. Metrics should help us measure both our activities and the results. Results beyond the number of incidents. Metrics also bring maturity to a discipline by, among other things, allowing that profession to communicate to the outside world. As a paramedic I might have claimed that my only metric was dropping off live bodies (preferably at a hospital), but in reality we tracked dozens of metrics- from response times, to procedural successes, to long term patient outcomes (just keeping you alive to the front door doesn’t always mean you go home). We need security metrics to: Baseline activities and investments Track those over time for deviation Correlate activities and investments to results Optimize to maximize results and minimize waste Communicate all of this to external parties CISOs that can measure and demonstrate program efficiency can more easily obtain budget for necessary improvements. It’s a combination of building trust, and being able to justify new efforts. Metrics should also include qualitative measurements. No Virginia, we can’t measure everything with real numbers, that’s why amps go to 10 (or 11). But if we use consistent qualitative models, we can gain quantitative benefits by still tracking results over time. Saying, “give us money and you won’t get hacked” won’t help you get money, ensures you lose it when you get hacked (and you will), and doesn’t help you look like a professional. On the other hand we can’t make up fake ROI models just to keep the CFO happy (one of my biggest pet peeves). You don’t do yourself any favors in the long term if you send off imaginary numbers every time someone asks for the impossible. Use real metrics. Mix quantitative and structured qualitative. Track yourself over time, correlate results, and use them to optimize efficiency (ooh- I sound like one of those professional speaker types!). Give honest answers to honest questions, and when someone asks for the ROI of a firewall ask them for the ROI on their desk.   Share:

Thanks to an independent evaluation we now know that Firefox 2.0 is slightly better than IE 7 at detecting phishing sites. Firefox detected 243 sites missed by IE while IE “only” detected 117 sites missed by Firefox. I’m only a history major, but I think that puts it at 460 sites missed by one browser or the other. Which means neither one is really good enough. So while everyone else is getting their panties in a wad, you can go ahead and download the Netcraft toolbar, or any of the other toolbars with anti-phishing/anti-spyware built into them (as recommended in our Top 6 Tips). Because what it really comes down to is no single tool is perfect, and if you can use multiple tools that don’t cost more or hurt your ability to get things done there’s really no reason not to. Don’t get dragged into the “my browser/OS is better than your browser/OS” debate, which is the Internet equivalent of wearing all black and sitting in some dark coffee house while smoking cloves and debating useless narcissistic shit that no one cares about and won’t ever make you anything other than a selfish twit. Be the dude or chick that just gets the job done, has fun, kicks ass, and looks hot in the process. Nietzsche is dead. (Note: Securosis does not guarantee any level of hotness should you or should you not take our advice. Do not send Securosis photos to prove said hotness as we don’t care, unless you’re really hot, and then you’ll get me in trouble with my wife. Results not guaranteed. Your performance may vary.) Share:

After posting our Top Six Hints for Safe Online Holiday Shopping, Chris Pepper notified me that Firefox 2.0 is not an automatic upgrade, and Firefox 1.5 doesn’t prompt you at all to download the new version. So go here and download it now. As for security there’s one setting you should change right away. Under the security preferences, if you store passwords in Firefox you want to check the box to set a master password. Otherwise anyone on the system can go into the preferences and see all your passwords. Needless to say that’s what we call, “bad”. I do let FF keep my passwords, even though it’s a bit of a risk to store so many in a single place. I DO NOT STORE ANY BANKING PASSWORDS ANYWHERE!!! If someone cracks FF they’ll get my Amazon and other retail passwords, but I never store any financial institution passwords. None of my banks. No PayPal. No E*Trade. Share:

A while back I started to wonder if my phishing providers really cared about my business. They were getting seriously lazy- using generic “Your Online Bank” instead of a real bank name, no longer personalizing my emails, and using links practically entitled, “stealmyinfo.com”. Starting last week someone finally started working for my business. It’s nice to see that entrepreneurial spirit finally returning to the land of spam and opportunity. Here’s what I found in my Inbox (click to enlarge): Since not all of you regularly dissect phishing attacks, let’s have a little fun and pull this puppy apart. The above is a perfectly-formatted Ebay member-to-member email. Other than the whole “I don’t have an Ebay account on this address” thing, but at least it looks pretty. So my obvious first clue was the account bit. And the second was that I wasn’t running an auction. But here’s where it got interesting- by clicking on the item number it linked to a real auction! Not too shabby. Every other link, other than one (which we’ll get to) was real. Since I wondered if this was some hack on Ebay I decided to look at the message headers (View: Message: Long Headers in Apple Mail): Oh well. It’s really from kgonzalez@mail.ampsa.com.pa, not Ebay. Bummer, just when I was feeling special they barely even spoof their email. So much for professional pride. Viewing the raw source of the message reveals that nearly every link except one goes back to Ebay. That link? Somewhere in Japan that looks just like the Ebay login. Now I get it. The scam was to trick me into logging in to Ebay to respond and tell the “sender” that I wasn’t running an auction for ” cabachon sapphires in 14K yel gold,different, NR :O)”. (Which eventually went for $275). The site, which was at (spaces added to prevent accidental clicking, but it’s down now) http:// ns.postup02.net/~tanimua/ .cgi-bin/ws/ISAPIdllUPdate/ISAPIdllSignInpUserId=co_partnerId=siteid=0pageType=-1pa1=UsingSSL=1bshowgif=favoritenav=errmsg=8/index.html had a great looking login page I wish I took a screenshot of. I also wish I’d logged in with fake credentials, but I suspect the second part of the scam might have been to get me to enter my PayPal credentials. Either way, they could own my EBay account, or PayPal account (maybe). I’ve had a couple more similar messages since that one, but haven’t had the time to check them out. I (of course) used a “safe” browser not subject to any Javascript games. If I’d been really curious I would have accessed it from a vulnerable browser in a virtual machine, just to see what happens. Overall this isn’t the kind of thing that would fool anyone with some healthy skepticism, but I know plenty of innocents that would easily fall for it. Most users don’t know how to read an email header, or even where to find it in our nice GUI mail applications. Sometimes it’s fun to see where these phishing emails take you. Just make sure you wear protection and only try it from an isolated system. And it’s nice to know I’m worth a little effort again. I was starting to worry if it was me. Share:

Yes folks, Black Friday is less than two weeks away and the silly season is upon us. As someone born and bred in good old North Jersey (until I could legally escape), land of honey and shopping malls, this is a time so deeply ingrained into my subconscious that I’ve occasionally found myself sleepwalking around the nearest parking lot, looking for our old wood-paneled station wagon. These days, thanks to the wonder of the Internet, anyone can experience the hustle and bustle of the Paramus malls from the comfort of their own home. And to help keep your shopping experience authentic, there’s no shortage of cheats and thieves ready to yank your painstakingly chosen gifts right out of the virtual trunk of your web browser. Of course they might take your house with it, which, even in Jersey (despite the legends) is somewhat rare. In the spirit of safe and happy holidays, Securosis presents our top 6 tips for safe online shopping, simply presented for the technical or non-technical consumer. Some of these tips also apply to the real world for those of you who just can’t restrain the draw to the mall. Spread the fun, and feel free to post your own tips in the comments. Use a dedicated credit card (or PayPal account) for holiday shopping. Our first tip is also useful for the physical world- still the origin of most credit card fraud. Take your card with the lowest limit and use it exclusively for holiday shopping. Use one you can monitor online, and check the activity daily through the holidays (weekly at a minimum). Make sure it isn’t a debit card, and turn off any automatic payments (so you can dispute any charges before making payments). Keep tracking activity at least weekly for 12 months after the holidays are over, or cancel the card. DON”T USE A DEBIT CARD!!! These don’t have the same protections as credit cards, and you’re responsible for fraudulent charges. As for PayPal, read on to our second tip. Only use credit cards at major online retailers; use a PayPal debit account for smaller shops . Sure, you might get a better deal from Billy-Bobs-Bait-Shop-And-Diamond-Wholesaler.com, but many smaller retailers don’t follow appropriate security practices. Those hosted with a major service are often okay, but few consumers really want to check the pedigree for specialty shops. Instead, create a dedicated PayPal account that’s not linked to any of your bank accounts or credit cards. Credit it with as much cash as you think you need and use it for those riskier online payments. Worst case, you only lose what’s in that account, and you can easily cancel it anytime. Never, ever, ever ,ever click on ANYTHING in email. It doesn’t matter if your best friend sent you a really good deal in email. It doesn’t matter if it’s your favorite retailer and you’ve always gotten email offers from them. Repeat after me, “I will never click on anything in email.” No special offers. No Ebay member to member emails. No “fraud alerts” to check your account. No nothing. Ever. Nada. Attackers are getting more and more refined in their attacks, some of which are very hard to distinguish from legitimate emails. Spam waves over the holidays are expected to break records this year. When you see an interesting offer in email, and it’s a business you want to deal with, just open your web browser, type in the address manually, and browse to the item, offer, or account area. Email is the single biggest source of online fraud; never click on anything in email! Update your browser- use Firefox 2.0, IE 7, Safari, or Opera. Turn on the highest security settings. Over the past month or so we’ve seen major updates of Firefox and Internet Explorer, both with significant security enhancements. Safari (installed on every Mac) and Opera are also good options. Firefox 2.0 and IE 7 include features to help detect fraudulent sites- if you see a warning, shut down the browser and don’t go back to that site. All of these browsers will ask you before installing any software when you visit a site; when shopping, never allow the site to install anything. Either it’s a fraud or they don’t deserve your business. Most browsers now install with security enabled by default, so we won’t be providing detailed instructions here. Just download them. Now. Then come back and read the rest of this list. We’ll wait. Download and install the Netcraft toolbar if you’re on Windows. This is a free toolbar for Firefox and IE that helps identify phishing sites. Although both browsers include their own anti-phishing technologies (as do many other toolbars), it never hurts to double up during the holiday season. Think of it as the deadbolt lock to enhance the regular lock on your front door. If you don’t want it bothering you all the time, at least use it during your holiday shopping and turn it off later. Keep your antivirus, firewall, antispam, and anti-spyware up to date. I don’t really care which product you use (and truth be told, we don’t really like most of the commercial ones) but as bad as some of these perform they really are essential on a PC. Before the holidays we plan on putting together a list of free, non-geek security tools, but for you non-technical type any of the shrink wrapped major vendors offers at least a modicum of protection. For Windows users, Windows Defender is a good, free additional tool to limit spyware. Right now there’s no known spyware for Macs. These six simple steps won’t stop all fraud, but will significantly reduce both the chances you’ll be a victim, and the damage if you are. Feel free to email them to your friends and family who won’t normally browse a security site like this one. And stay tuned for our non-geek guide to securing a Windows computer for free… Share:

A new wireless exploit was released today over at the Month of Kernel Bugs affecting the Broadcom wireless chip set (one of the most widely used in the industry). Just because you didn’t purchase anything with “Broadcom” in the name doesn’t mean you aren’t using it, since they provide the chips to a lot of manufacturers including HP, Dell, Gateway, eMachines, and Linksys. There is already a Metasploit module, which means anyone with a modicum of technical skills, a wireless card, and a web browser can take over any vulnerable computer in wireless range. If you use wireless, at all, it’s just a good time to go update your wireless drivers. Although Broadcom released patched drivers, not every PC manufacturer has updated their versions. George Ou has instructions on using the Linksys drivers to update any Windows system, but I suggest most of you just be careful with your wireless in public places and wait for official patches from your hardware provider. Keep an eye out over at SANS, which is the best place to track these sorts of incidents. Oh. Before I forget. We told you so. Share:

It’s hard to believe this little side project has hit 100 posts. We’re averaging 600+ unique visitors a day, which isn’t bad for a blog that’s only been around for three months, and even hit the front page of Digg once. One little secret of the site that most people don’t realize is that I actually have an editor. Chris Pepper reviews all my posts after I put them up and cleans up all my grammatical errors while making sure I actually make sense (no small feat). It’s not every personal blog that has an editor! While I can’t list everyone that links back to me, I’d also like to thank a few sites that have helped Securosis get started. First up are Richard Stiennon and Mike Rothman, who not only link in on a regular basis, but provided me with a ton of initial advice and continue to keep me on my toes (and I read their blogs daily). Martin McKeay, Alan Shimel, Alex at Riskanalys.is, Anton Chuvakin, Pete Lindstrom, Jim at DCS Security, Arthur and Adam at Emergent Chaos, Tom at Matasano, and (of course) Amrit Williams are frequent sources of good information and debate. I’d like to see Mike at Episteme start writing on those issues he accused the rest of us of ignoring. Securosis got started with a bang with the Mac WiFi hack at Black Hat. I’d like to thank John Gruber for proving even two acerbic jerks (that’s John and I) can have a civil debate on a contentious issue. That debate brought Bkwatch to the site, currently our most prolific commenter (and yes, I’ll still respond to your evoting comments). George Ou was the other big defender of Maynor and Ellch, and like myself the only one to see a live demo. That debate also brought Technovia to my attention; another great site that I don’t get to link to since it’s not security oriented. Most of this group doesn’t get along and had some nasty things to say about each other, but I managed to maintain good relations with all of them while sticking to my position. Before blogging myself I never realized the power of independent experts, thinkers, and blow-hards having public debates to educate the community at large. I’ve participated in similar debates in private, but the public nature of blogs and the ability for anyone to weigh in is fascinating. I started blogging just to vent my opinions. I never realized it would improve my research and skills as a security professional. Chris- thanks again for keeping the site, and me, looking good. I’ve programmed a bot to re-post this line if you ever try and delete it. Now back to our regularly scheduled security paranoia… Share: