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Facebook Helped Develop a Tails Exploit

Hernandez was able to evade capture for so long because he used Tails, a version of Linux designed for users at high risk of surveillance and which routes all inbound and outbound connections through the open-source Tor network to anonymize it. According to Vice, the FBI had tried to hack into Hernandez’s computer but failed, as the approach they used “was not tailored for Tails.” Hernandez then proceeded to mock the FBI in subsequent messages, two Facebook employees told Vice.

Facebook had tasked a dedicated employee to unmasking Hernandez, developed an automated system to flag recently created accounts that messaged minors, and made catching Hernandez a priority for its security teams, according to Vice. They also paid a third party contractor “six figures” to help develop a zero-day exploit in Tails: a bug in its video player that enabled them to retrieve the real I.P. address of a person viewing a clip. Three sources told Vice that an intermediary passed the tool onto the FBI, who then obtained a search warrant to have one of the victims send a modified video file to Hernandez (a tactic the agency has used before).

[…]

Facebook also never notified the Tails team of the flaw — breaking with a long industry tradition of disclosure in which the relevant developers are notified of vulnerabilities in advance of them becoming public so they have a chance at implementing a fix. Sources told Vice that since an upcoming Tails update was slated to strip the vulnerable code, Facebook didn’t bother to do so, though the social media company had no reason to believe Tails developers had ever discovered the bug.

[…]

“The only acceptable outcome to us was Buster Hernandez facing accountability for his abuse of young girls,” a Facebook spokesperson told Vice.. “This was a unique case, because he was using such sophisticated methods to hide his identity, that we took the extraordinary steps of working with security experts to help the FBI bring him to justice.”

I agree with that last paragraph. I’m fine with the FBI using vulnerabilities: lawful hacking, it’s called. I’m less okay with Facebook paying for a Tails exploit, giving it to the FBI, and then keeping its existence secret.

Another article.

infossl June 12, 2020 children, exploits, facebook, fbi, pornography, Security technology, vulnerabilities, zeroday Read more >

Another Intel Speculative Execution Vulnerability

Remember Spectre and Meltdown? Back in early 2018, I wrote:

Spectre and Meltdown are pretty catastrophic vulnerabilities, but they only affect the confidentiality of data. Now that they — and the research into the Intel ME vulnerability — have shown researchers where to look, more is coming — and what they’ll find will be worse than either Spectre or Meltdown. There will be vulnerabilities that will allow attackers to manipulate or delete data across processes, potentially fatal in the computers controlling our cars or implanted medical devices. These will be similarly impossible to fix, and the only strategy will be to throw our devices away and buy new ones.

That has turned out to be true. Here’s a new vulnerability:

On Tuesday, two separate academic teams disclosed two new and distinctive exploits that pierce Intel’s Software Guard eXtension, by far the most sensitive region of the company’s processors.

[…]

The new SGX attacks are known as SGAxe and CrossTalk. Both break into the fortified CPU region using separate side-channel attacks, a class of hack that infers sensitive data by measuring timing differences, power consumption, electromagnetic radiation, sound, or other information from the systems that store it. The assumptions for both attacks are roughly the same. An attacker has already broken the security of the target machine through a software exploit or a malicious virtual machine that compromises the integrity of the system. While that’s a tall bar, it’s precisely the scenario that SGX is supposed to defend against.

Another news article.

infossl June 11, 2020 exploits, hacking, hardware, intel, keys, Security technology, sidechannelattacks, vulnerabilities Read more >

New iPhone Zero-Day Discovered

Last year, ZecOps discovered two iPhone zero-day exploits. They will be patched in the next iOS release:

Avraham declined to disclose many details about who the targets were, and did not say whether they lost any data as a result of the attacks, but said “we were a bit surprised about who was targeted.” He said some of the targets were an executive from a telephone carrier in Japan, a “VIP” from Germany, managed security service providers from Saudi Arabia and Israel, people who work for a Fortune 500 company in North America, and an executive from a Swiss company.

[…]

On the other hand, this is not as polished a hack as others, as it relies on sending an oversized email, which may get blocked by certain email providers. Moreover, Avraham said it only works on the default Apple Mail app, and not on Gmail or Outlook, for example.

infossl April 22, 2020 email, exploits, iphone, patching, Security technology, zeroday Read more >

Critical Windows Vulnerability Discovered by NSA

Yesterday’s Microsoft Windows patches included a fix for a critical vulnerability in the system’s crypto library.

A spoofing vulnerability exists in the way Windows CryptoAPI (Crypt32.dll) validates Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) certificates.

An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by using a spoofed code-signing certificate to sign a malicious executable, making it appear the file was from a trusted, legitimate source. The user would have no way of knowing the file was malicious, because the digital signature would appear to be from a trusted provider.

A successful exploit could also allow the attacker to conduct man-in-the-middle attacks and decrypt confidential information on user connections to the affected software.

That’s really bad, and you should all patch your system right now, before you finish reading this blog post.

This is a zero-day vulnerability, meaning that it was not detected in the wild before the patch was released. It was discovered by security researchers. Interestingly, it was discovered by NSA security researchers, and the NSA security advisory gives a lot more information about it than the Microsoft advisory does.

Exploitation of the vulnerability allows attackers to defeat trusted network connections and deliver executable code while appearing as legitimately trusted entities. Examples where validation of trust may be impacted include:

HTTPS connections

Signed files and emails

Signed executable code launched as user-mode processes

The vulnerability places Windows endpoints at risk to a broad range of exploitation vectors. NSA assesses the vulnerability to be severe and that sophisticated cyber actors will understand the underlying flaw very quickly and, if exploited, would render the previously mentioned platforms as fundamentally vulnerable.The consequences of not patching the vulnerability are severe and widespread. Remote exploitation tools will likely be made quickly and widely available.Rapid adoption of the patch is the only known mitigation at this time and should be the primary focus for all network owners.

Early yesterday morning, NSA’s Cybersecurity Directorate head Anne Neuberger hosted a media call where she talked about the vulnerability and — to my shock — took questions from the attendees. According to her, the NSA discovered this vulnerability as part of its security research. (If it found it in some other nation’s cyberweapons stash — my personal favorite theory — she declined to say.) She did not answer when asked how long ago the NSA discovered the vulnerability. She said that this is not the first time the NSA sent Microsoft a vulnerability to fix, but it was the first time it has publicly taken credit for the discovery. The reason is that the NSA is trying to rebuild trust with the security community, and this disclosure is a result of its new initiative to share findings more quickly and more often.

Barring any other information, I would take the NSA at its word here. So, good for it.

And — seriously — patch your systems now: Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016/2019. Assume that this vulnerability has already been weaponized, probably by criminals and certainly by major governments. Even assume that the NSA is using this vulnerability — why wouldn’t it?

Ars Technica article. Wired article. CERT advisory.

EDITED TO ADD: Washington Post article.

infossl January 15, 2020 certificates, cryptography, encryption, exploits, maninthemiddleattacks, microsoft, nsa, Security technology, vulnerabilities, windows, zeroday Read more >

New Unpatchable iPhone Exploit Allows Jailbreaking

A new iOS exploit allows jailbreaking of pretty much all version of the iPhone. This is a huge deal for Apple, but at least it doesn’t allow someone to remotely hack people’s phones.

Some details:

I wanted to learn how Checkm8 will shape the iPhone experience — particularly as it relates to security — so I spoke at length with axi0mX on Friday. Thomas Reed, director of Mac offerings at security firm Malwarebytes, joined me. The takeaways from the long-ranging interview are:

Checkm8 requires physical access to the phone. It can’t be remotely executed, even if combined with other exploits.

The exploit allows only tethered jailbreaks, meaning it lacks persistence. The exploit must be run each time an iDevice boots.

Checkm8 doesn’t bypass the protections offered by the Secure Enclave and Touch ID.

All of the above means people will be able to use Checkm8 to install malware only under very limited circumstances. The above also means that Checkm8 is unlikely to make it easier for people who find, steal or confiscate a vulnerable iPhone, but don’t have the unlock PIN, to access the data stored on it.

Checkm8 is going to benefit researchers, hobbyists, and hackers by providing a way not seen in almost a decade to access the lowest levels of iDevices.

Also:

“The main people who are likely to benefit from this are security researchers, who are using their own phone in controlled conditions. This process allows them to gain more control over the phone and so improves visibility into research on iOS or other apps on the phone,” Wood says. “For normal users, this is unlikely to have any effect, there are too many extra hurdles currently in place that they would have to get over to do anything significant.”

If a regular person with no prior knowledge of jailbreaking wanted to use this exploit to jailbreak their iPhone, they would find it extremely difficult, simply because Checkm8 just gives you access to the exploit, but not a jailbreak in itself. It’s also a ‘tethered exploit’, meaning that the jailbreak can only be triggered when connected to a computer via USB and will become untethered once the device restarts.

infossl October 8, 2019 exploits, ios, iphone, malware, Security technology Read more >

Zoom Vulnerability

The Zoom conferencing app has a vulnerability that allows someone to remotely take over the computer’s camera.

It’s a bad vulnerability, made worse by the fact that it remains even if you uninstall the Zoom app:

This vulnerability allows any website to forcibly join a user to a Zoom call, with their video camera activated, without the user’s permission.

On top of this, this vulnerability would have allowed any webpage to DOS (Denial of Service) a Mac by repeatedly joining a user to an invalid call.

Additionally, if you’ve ever installed the Zoom client and then uninstalled it, you still have a localhost web server on your machine that will happily re-install the Zoom client for you, without requiring any user interaction on your behalf besides visiting a webpage. This re-install ‘feature’ continues to work to this day.

Zoom didn’t take the vulnerability seriously:

This vulnerability was originally responsibly disclosed on March 26, 2019. This initial report included a proposed description of a ‘quick fix’ Zoom could have implemented by simply changing their server logic. It took Zoom 10 days to confirm the vulnerability. The first actual meeting about how the vulnerability would be patched occurred on June 11th, 2019, only 18 days before the end of the 90-day public disclosure deadline. During this meeting, the details of the vulnerability were confirmed and Zoom’s planned solution was discussed. However, I was very easily able to spot and describe bypasses in their planned fix. At this point, Zoom was left with 18 days to resolve the vulnerability. On June 24th after 90 days of waiting, the last day before the public disclosure deadline, I discovered that Zoom had only implemented the ‘quick fix’ solution originally suggested.

This is why we disclose vulnerabilities. Now, finally, Zoom is taking this seriously and fixing it for real.

infossl July 16, 2019 cameras, disclosure, exploits, patching, Security technology, vulnerabilities Read more >

WhatsApp Vulnerability Fixed

WhatsApp fixed a devastating vulnerability that allowed someone to remotely hack a phone by initiating a WhatsApp voice call. The recipient didn’t even have to answer the call.

The Israeli cyber-arms manufacturer NSO Group is believed to be behind the exploit, but of course there is no definitive proof.

If you use WhatsApp, update your app immediately.

infossl May 15, 2019 attribution, exploits, patching, Security technology, vulnerabilities, whatsapp Read more >

Japanese Government Will Hack Citizens’ IoT Devices

The Japanese government is going to run penetration tests against all the IoT devices in their country, in an effort to (1) figure out what’s insecure, and (2) help consumers secure them:

The survey is scheduled to kick off next month, when authorities plan to test the password security of over 200 million IoT devices, beginning with routers and web cameras. Devices in people’s homes and on enterprise networks will be tested alike.

[…]

The Japanese government’s decision to log into users’ IoT devices has sparked outrage in Japan. Many have argued that this is an unnecessary step, as the same results could be achieved by just sending a security alert to all users, as there’s no guarantee that the users found to be using default or easy-to-guess passwords would change their passwords after being notified in private.

However, the government’s plan has its technical merits. Many of today’s IoT and router botnets are being built by hackers who take over devices with default or easy-to-guess passwords.

Hackers can also build botnets with the help of exploits and vulnerabilities in router firmware, but the easiest way to assemble a botnet is by collecting the ones that users have failed to secure with custom passwords.

Securing these devices is often a pain, as some expose Telnet or SSH ports online without the users’ knowledge, and for which very few users know how to change passwords. Further, other devices also come with secret backdoor accounts that in some cases can’t be removed without a firmware update.

I am interested in the results of this survey. Japan isn’t very different from other industrialized nations in this regard, so their findings will be general. I am less optimistic about the country’s ability to secure all of this stuff — especially before the 2020 Summer Olympics.

infossl January 28, 2019 backdoors, botnets, exploits, firmware, hacking, internetofthings, japan, passwords, Security technology, vulnerabilities Read more >

Prices for Zero-Day Exploits Are Rising

Companies are willing to pay ever-increasing amounts for good zero-day exploits against hard-to-break computers and applications:

On Monday, market-leading exploit broker Zerodium said it would pay up to $2 million for zero-click jailbreaks of Apple’s iOS, $1.5 million for one-click iOS jailbreaks, and $1 million for exploits that take over secure messaging apps WhatsApp and iMessage. Previously, Zerodium was offering $1.5 million, $1 million, and $500,000 for the same types of exploits respectively. The steeper prices indicate not only that the demand for these exploits continues to grow, but also that reliably compromising these targets is becoming increasingly hard.

Note that these prices are for offensive uses of the exploit. Zerodium — and others — sell exploits to companies who make surveillance tools and cyber-weapons for governments. Many companies have bug bounty programs for those who want the exploit used for defensive purposes — i.e., fixed — but they pay orders of magnitude less. This is a problem.

Back in 2014, Dan Geer said that that the US should corner the market on software vulnerabilities:

“There is no doubt that the U.S. Government could openly corner the world vulnerability market,” said Geer, “that is, we buy them all and we make them all public. Simply announce ‘Show us a competing bid, and we’ll give you [10 times more].’ Sure, there are some who will say ‘I hate Americans; I sell only to Ukrainians,’ but because vulnerability finding is increasingly automation-assisted, the seller who won’t sell to the Americans knows that his vulns can be rediscovered in due course by someone who will sell to the Americans who will tell everybody, thus his need to sell his product before it outdates is irresistible.”

I don’t know about the 10x, but in theory he’s right. There’s no other way to solve this.

infossl January 17, 2019 businessofsecurity, economicsofsecurity, exploits, Security technology, vulnerabilities, zeroday Read more >

Israeli Security Attacks AMD by Publishing Zero-Day Exploits

Last week, the Israeli security company CTS Labs published a series of exploits against AMD chips. The publication came with the flashy website, detailed whitepaper, cool vulnerability names — RYZENFALL, MASTERKEY, FALLOUT, and CHIMERA — and logos we’ve come to expect from these sorts of things. What’s new is that the company only gave AMD a day’s notice, which breaks with every norm about responsible disclosure. CTS Labs didn’t release details of the exploits, only high-level descriptions of the vulnerabilities, but it is probably still enough for others to reproduce their results. This is incredibly irresponsible of the company.

Moreover, the vulnerabilities are kind of meh. Nicholas Weaver explains:

In order to use any of the four vulnerabilities, an attacker must already have almost complete control over the machine. For most purposes, if the attacker already has this access, we would generally say they’ve already won. But these days, modern computers at least attempt to protect against a rogue operating system by having separate secure subprocessors. CTS Labs discovered the vulnerabilities when they looked at AMD’s implementation of the secure subprocessor to see if an attacker, having already taken control of the host operating system, could bypass these last lines of defense.

In a “Clarification,” CTS Labs kind of agrees:

The vulnerabilities described in amdflaws.com could give an attacker that has already gained initial foothold into one or more computers in the enterprise a significant advantage against IT and security teams.

The only thing the attacker would need after the initial local compromise is local admin privileges and an affected machine. To clarify misunderstandings — there is no need for physical access, no digital signatures, no additional vulnerability to reflash an unsigned BIOS. Buy a computer from the store, run the exploits as admin — and they will work (on the affected models as described on the site).

The weirdest thing about this story is that CTS Labs describes one of the vulnerabilities, Chimera, as a backdoor. Although it doesn’t t come out and say that this was deliberately planted by someone, it does make the point that the chips were designed in Taiwan. This is an incredible accusation, and honestly needs more evidence before we can evaluate it.

The upshot of all of this is that CTS Labs played this for maximum publicity: over-hyping its results and minimizing AMD’s ability to respond. And it may have an ulterior motive:

But CTS’s website touting AMD’s flaws also contained a disclaimer that threw some shadows on the company’s motives: “Although we have a good faith belief in our analysis and believe it to be objective and unbiased, you are advised that we may have, either directly or indirectly, an economic interest in the performance of the securities of the companies whose products are the subject of our reports,” reads one line. WIRED asked in a follow-up email to CTS whether the company holds any financial positions designed to profit from the release of its AMD research specifically. CTS didn’t respond.

We all need to demand better behavior from security researchers. I know that any publicity is good publicity, but I am pleased to see the stories critical of CTS Labs outnumbering the stories praising it.

infossl March 19, 2018 disclosure, exploits, israel, Security technology, vulnerabilities, zeroday Read more >