Research

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:

These numbers are totally fascinating- check it out here. Keep in mind that some database systems (like SQL Server) only run on a single platform, while the others (you know who) run all over the place. Still, not a single bug in a year. Now that’s impressive! This really shows the value of a secure development cycle and building security into the product, instead of on top of it. (Thanks to DCS for finding this) Share:

Back in August I finally broke down and encrypted my computer using the built in FileVault feature in Mac OS X. After 3 months I figure it’s time for an update. I was originally concerned about FileVault based on reports of corrupted images during system crashes and other unexpected events. I have yet to experience any problems. At all. I’ve crashed my Mac and experienced sudden shutdowns during everything from normal usage, to that dangerous moment with the encrypted image is reclaiming unused space. My encrypted image always comes back, no problems. It’s also pretty big- with multiple virtual machines, all my Outlook files, and all my work documents in my home directory. Plus the occasional movie file. One big 30-40 GB image. I still backup regularly, but I have yet to experience any problems. No noticeable performance impact. No corrupted images. No problems booting. No disasters after crashes. All in all I feel totally comfortable recommending FileVault. Keep your backups current, and have fun. Share:

As a security professional I admit that I normally assume someone I’m dealing with isn’t necessarily honest; especially if they’ve done something to draw my attention. I learned early on that most humans have an unbelievable capacity for deceit, and they use it on a daily basis. In many cases the individual is so believable because they’ve convinced themselves that what they’re doing/saying is either the truth (when it’s clearly not), or they’re justified for some bullshit reason (like “the man” has been keeping them down). No- you really don’t deserve to steal my bike out of the garage because I make more money than you (despite coming from a bankrupt family as a kid) or because I was dumb enough to leave the door open. (Yep, even us pros screw up sometimes and pay the price). I’ve also discussed, usually in the context of security screening, how, in certain cases, it’s better to assume everyone is a threat and apply strict controls across the board. It’s not the right approach in every case, but there are times when it’s definitely appropriate. Now Microsoft and Universal are taking the same approach and assuming we’re all a bunch of pirating criminals. In a simply astounding move, MS will pay Universal for every Zune sold. Anyone stupid enough to buy a Zune will pay a $1 tax because, and I quote: Universal said it was only fair to receive payment on devices that may be repositories for stolen music. … “It’s a major change for the industry,” said David Geffen, the entertainment mogul who more than a decade ago sold the record label that bears his name to Universal. “Each of these devices is used to store unpaid-for material. This way, on top of the material people do pay for, the record companies are getting paid on the devices storing the copied music.” But wait, are we, the lowly consumers, the real criminals? This next statement sounds like the old Mafia bosses roaming the streets of Jersey City where I was a medic: When the companies initially licensed Apple”s fledgling iTunes service, “they didn”t figure he”d make tens of billions of dollars from the iPod,” said Mr. Gordon, author of the book “The Future of the Music Business.” “This time they”re saying, “Well, we want a piece.” “ Ah. Now I understand. It’s a protection racket. That’s like the auto manufacturers paying the gas companies a few extra bucks for every car sold on the off chance you’ll steal some gas from the pump someday. Or computer manufacturers paying every single software company in the world a tax on the off chance we’ll copy their software. How does it feel to be a criminal? Never mind- we all know who the real crooks are. (Truth is this might just be MS screwing with Apple since the music companies now want a piece of the iPod- which hurts Apple a lot more than a $1 on something no one will buy anyway). Share:

From BoingBoing: If you experience any irregularities in voting today, call 1-866-OUR-VOTE, the hotline for the National Campaign for Fair Elections. EFF lawyers and many others are standing by across the country to take legal action to remove malfunctioning voting machines, keep polls open, etc. I voted this morning using an optical reader and didn’t experience any problems, but did notice a few. A couple people were turned away due to Arizona’s ridiculous photo ID law and precinct changes. Some voters had problems reading the tight print on the optical ballot, but I won’t really blame the machine for that. There was a single DRE at the polling station that seemed unused- I think it was for specific disabilities. Share:

As the silly season comes to a close with today’s election (at least for, like, a week or so) there’s a change to the political process I’ve been thinking about a lot. And it’s not e-voting, election fraud, or other issues we’ve occasionally discussed. On this site (and others) we’ve discussed the ongoing erosion of personal privacy. More of our personal information is publicly available, or stored in private databases unlocked with a $ shaped key, than society has ever experienced before. This combines with a phenomena I call “The Long Archive”- where every piece of data, of value or not, is essentially stored for eternity (unless, of course, you’re in a disaster recovery situation). Archived web pages, blog posts, emails, newsgroup posts, MySpace profiles, FaceBook pages, school papers, phone calls, calendar entries, credit card purchases, Amazon orders, Google searches, and … Think about it. If only 2% of our online lives actually survives indefinitely, the mass of data is astounding. What does this have to do with politics? The current election climate could be described as mass media shit-slinging. Our current crop of elected officials, of either party, survives mostly on their ability to find crap on their opponent while hiding their own stinkers. Historically, positive electioneering is a relative rarity in the American political system. We, as a voting public, seem to desire pristine Ken dolls we can relate to over issues-focused candidates. No, not all the time, but often enough that negative campaigning shows real returns. But the next generation of politicians are growing up online, with their entire lives stored on hard drives. From school papers, to medical records, to personal communications, to web activity, chat logs (kept by a “trusted” friend) and personal blogs filled with previously private musings. It’s all there. And no one knows for how long; not really. No one knows what will survive, what will fade, but all of it has the potential to be available for future opponent research. I’m a bit older, but there’s still an incredible archive of information out there on me, including some old newsgroup posts I’m not all that proud of (nothing crazy, but I am a bit of a geek). Maybe even remnants of ugly breakups with ex-girlfriends or rants never meant for public daylight. Never mind my financial records (missed taxes one year, but did make up for it) and such. In short, there’s no way I could run for any significant office without an incredibly thick skin. Anyone who started high school after, say, 1997 is probably in an even more compromising position. Anyone in the MySpace/FaceBook groups are even worse off. With so much information, on so many people, there’s no way it won’t change politics. I see three main options: We continue to look for “clean” candidates- thus those with limited to no online records. Only those who have disengaged from modern society, and are thus probably not fit for public leadership, will run for public office. The “Barbie and Ken” option. We, as society, accept that everyone has skeletons, everyone makes mistakes, and begin to judge candidates on their progression through those mistakes or ability to spin them in the media of the day. We still judge on personality over issues. The “Oprah/Dr. Phil” option. We focus on candidate’s articulations of the issues, and place less of an emphasis on a perfect past or personality. The “Issues-oriented” option. We weigh all the crap on two big scales. Whoever comes out slightly lighter, perhaps with a sprinkling of issues, wins. The “Scales of Shit” option. Realistically we’ll see a combination of all the above, but my biggest concern is how will this affect the quality of candidates? We, as a society, already complain over a lack of good options. We’re limited to those with either a drive for power, or a desire for public good, so strong that they’re willing to peel open their lives in a public vivisection every election cycle. When every purchase you’re ever made, email, IM or SMS, blog post, blog comment, social bookmark, WhateverSpace page, public record, and medical record becomes open season, who will be willing to undergo such embarrassing scrutiny? Will anyone run for office for anything other than raw greed? Or will we, as a society, change the standards by which we judge our elected officials. I don’t know. But I do know society, and politics, will experience a painful transition as we truly enter the information society. Share: