[Milosch] wrote in to tell us that he has recently released a bootable RFID live hacking system – something he has been diligently working on for quite some time. The live distro can be used for breaking and analyzing MIFARE RFID cards, as well as a reasonable selection of other well-known card formats. The release is based off the Fedora 15 live desktop system, and includes a long list of RFID hacking tools, as well as some applications that allow for NFC tag emulation.

His toolkit also contains a baudline-based LF RFID sniffer package, allowing for a real-time waveform display of low frequency RFID tags. The LF sniffer makes use of a cheap USB sound card, as well as a relatively simple reader constructed from a handful of easy to find components.

We have seen some of [Milosch’s] handiwork before, so we are fairly confident that his toolkit contains just about everything you need to start sniffing and hacking RFID tags. If you’re interested in grabbing a copy of the ISO, just be aware that the live CD is only compatible with 64-bit systems, so older laptops need not apply.

[Corrosion] sent in a tip about the Weaponised Auditing Response System he built inside a suitcase that, “has all the tools (and then some) for a wireless assault”.

The WARS is equipped with two WiFi adapters and two bluetooth adapters for all the wardriving and bluejacking anyone could ever want. [Corrosion] also included a 4 channel, 2.4GHz video scanner for warviewing. Everything runs off of a 12 inch netbook that will eventually run linux, and we’re really liking the 1970s suitcase aesthetic the WARS has – it looks like [Corrosion] is about to step into the set of a Beastie Boys video.

We were wondering about including a long range RFID sniffing antenna (PDF warning) behind the monitor of the suitcase’s monitor and asked [Corrosion] about it. He said it sounded doable, but is out of funds at the moment, so if you know how to build a cheap RFID antenna with a 50 foot range, drop [Corrosion] a line.

There’s a video demo with some stills of the build included after the break.

shackspace member [@dop3j0e] found himself in a real bind when trying to recover some data after his ThinkPad’s fingerprint scanner died. You see, he stored his hard drive password in the scanner, and over time completely forgot what it was. Once the scanner stopped working, he had no way to get at his data.

He brainstormed, trying to figure out the best way to recover his data. He considered reverse engineering the BIOS, which was an interesting exercise, but it did not yield any password data. He also thought about swapping the hard drive’s logic board with that of a similar drive, but it turns out that the password is stored on the platters, not the PCB.

With his options quickly running out, he turned to a piece of open-source hardware we’ve covered here in the past, the OpenBench Logic Sniffer. The IDE bus contains 16 data pins, and lucky for [@dop3j0e] the OpenBench has 16 5v pins as well – a perfect match. He wired the sniffer up to the laptop and booted the computer, watching SUMP for the unlock command to be issued. Sure enough he captured the password with ease, after which he unlocked and permanently removed it using hdparm.

Be sure to check out [@dop3j0e's] presentation on the subject if you are interested in learning more about how the recovery was done.

[Igor] drives a 4th generation Volkswagen Golf, and decided he wanted to play around with the CAN bus for a bit. Knowing that the comfort bus is the most accessible and the safest to toy with, he started poking around to see what he could see (Google translation).

He pulled the trim off one of the rear doors and hooked into the comfort bus with an Arudino and a CAN interface module. He sniffed the bus’ traffic for a bit, then decided he would add some functionality to the car that it was sorely lacking. The car’s windows can all be rolled down by turning the key in any lock for more than a few seconds, however this cannot be done remotely. The functionality can be added via 3rd party modules or through manipulating the car’s programming with some prepackaged software, but [Igor] wanted to give it a go himself.

He programmed the Arduino to listen for longer than normal button presses coming from the remote. Once it detects that he is trying to roll the windows up or down, the Arduino issues the proper window control commands to the bus, and his wish is the car’s command.

It’s a pretty simple process, but then again he has just gotten started. We look forward to seeing what else [Igor] is able to pull off in the future.  In the meantime, continue reading to see a quick video of his handiwork.

If you are interested in seeing what you might be able to do with your own car, check out this CAN  bus sniffer we featured a while back.

The ubiquitous presence of wireless devices combined with easy access to powerful RF development platforms makes the everyday world around us a wireless hacker’s playground. Yesterday [Travis Goodspeed] posted an article showing how goodfet.cc can be used to sniff wireless traffic and also to jam a given frequency. We’ve previously covered the work of [Travis] in pulling raw data from the IM-ME spectrum analyzer, which also uses goodfet.cc.

The Texas Instruments Chronos watch dev platform contains a C1110 chip, which among other things can provide accelerometer data from the watch to an interested sniffer. The i>clicker classroom response device (which houses a XE1203F chip) is also wide open to this, yielding juicy info about your classmates’ voting behaviour. There is still some work to be done to improve goodfet.cc, and [Travis] pays in beer–not in advance, mind you.

With products like the Chronos representing a move towards personal-area wireless networks, this sort of security hole might eventually have implications to individual privacy of, for example, biometric data–although how that might be exploited is another topic. Related to this idea is that of sniffable RFID card data. How does the increasing adoption of short-range wireless technologies affects us, both for good and bad? We invite you to share your ideas in the comments.

It’s fun to pick apart code, but it gets more difficult when you’re talking about binaries. [Joby Taffey] opened up the secrets to one of [Travis Goodspeed's] hacks by disassembling and sniffing the data from a Zombie Gotcha game binary.

We looked in on [Travis'] work yesterday at creating a game using sprites on the IM-ME. He challenged readers to extract the 1-bit sprites from an iHex binary and that’s what got [Joby] started. He first tried to sniff the LCD data traces using a Bus Pirate but soon found the clock signal was much too fast for the device to reliably capture the signals. After looking into available source code from other IM-ME hacks [Joby] found how the SPI baud rate is set, then went to work searching for that in a disassembly of [Travis'] binary. Once found, he worked through the math necessary to slow down communication from 2.7 Mbit/s to 2400 bps and altered the binary data to match that change. This slower speed is more amenable to the Bus Pirate’s capabilities and allowed him to dump the sprite data as it was sent to the LCD screen.

[Thanks Travis]

[.ronin] built an all-in-one WiFi and Bluetooth sniffer. He used a Nerf rifle as a base and added two Pringles cantennas, a tablet PC, and other various bits to tie it all together. Now he wanders the streets, explaining the device to bewildered passersby. After showing the device at CarolinaCon 2010 (here’s a PDF of his presentation) he stopped by the mall nibbled about 250 Bluetooth devices using SpoofTooph. The software is running on a Fujitsu u810 tablet and he’s making good use of Backtrack 4 during his wireless adventures.

Remote-Exploit.org is releasing Keykeriki, a wireless keyboard sniffer. The project is both open source hardware and software. you can download the files on their site. Right now you can’t get a pre made board, but they plan on releasing one soon. The system can be upgraded with “backpacks” or add on modules. One of these is going to be an LCD that displays the keystrokes of the keyboard you are sniffing. Another is supposed to serve as an interface to your iPhone.  Right now it has the ability to decode Microsoft wireless keyboards, but the Logitech pieces should be added soon.

Researchers from Inverse Path showed a couple interesting techniques for sniffing keystrokes at CanSecWest. For their first experiments they used a laser pointed at the shiny back of a laptop. The keystrokes would cause the laptop to vibrate which they could detect just like they would with any laser listening device. They’ve done it successfully from anywhere between 50 to 100 feet away. They used techniques similar to those in speech recognition to determine what sentences were being typed.

In a different attack, they sniffed characters from a PS/2 keyboard by monitoring the ground line in an outlet 50 feet away. They haven’t yet been able to collect more than just single strokes, but expect to get full words and sentences soon. This leakage via power line is discussed in the 1972 Tempest document we posted about earlier. The team said it wasn’t possible with USB or laptop keyboards.

[Thanks Jeramy]

[Robert] sent in this tutorial on how to set up USB sniffing in linux. Useful for seeing exactly what is being communicated to and from your USB devices, this ability is built into linux. [Bert], the author, shows us the steps involved and how to filter it to get the data we desire. You can specify exactly which device to capture data from. His example, shown above, is a session with an Arduino.

[Travis Goodspeed] posted a preview of what he’s working on for this Summer’s conferences. Last weekend he gave a quick demo of sniffing AES128 keys on Zigbee hardware at SOURCE Boston. The CC2420 radio module is used in many Zigbee/802.15.4 sensor networks and the keys have to be transferred over an SPI bus to the module. [Travis] used two syringe probes to monitor the clock line and the data on a TelosB mote, which uses the CC2420. Now that he has the capture, he’s planning on creating a script to automate finding the key.

[Martin Beck] and [Erik Tews] have just released a paper covering an improved attack against WEP and a brand new attack against WPA(PDF). For the WEP half, they offer a nice overview of attacks up to this point and the optimizations they made to reduce the number of packets needed to approximately 25K. The only serious threat to WPA so far has been the coWPAtty dictionary attack. This new attack lets you decrypt the last 12 bytes of a WPA packet’s plaintext and then generate arbitrary packets to send to the client. While it doesn’t recover the WPA key, the attacker is still able to send packets directly to the machine they’re attacking and could potentially read back the response via an outbound connection to the internet.

[photo: niallkennedy]

[via SANS]

Every time you press a key on your keyboard, a small burst of electromagnetic radiation is let out. This radiation can be captured and decoded. Though it only affects some models, this is pretty serious. They tested 11 different keyboards and they were all vulnerable to at least one of the four methods of attack. Tests have shown that the data can be read through walls and up to 65 feet away. That is pretty scary stuff. Someone could be setting up in the apartment or office right next to yours to listen to every keystroke you type.  Check out the second video after the break.

They don’t give a list of what keyboards were affected. Their paper is currently being finished, and should be published soon. The possibility of this attack was suggested to us a couple years ago when we covered old school Van Eck phreaking.

[via Engadget]

[rocketman] has posted about a new event at Defcon dubbed WarBallooning. They are using a Kismet drone (a modified WRT54G), a webcam, and a few high gain antennas. The balloon will be launched at about 15 stories and will be remotely fed targets chosen directly by the Defcon participants. The the directional antenna will be mounted to the camera so pan and tilt can be controlled. The Kismet CSV files will be available for everyone after the event.

If you are interested in WarDriving or building you own high-gain antennas, we suggest you check out this WiFi biquad dish antenna mounted on a car. If cars are too boring, or you do not have one, you could always go WarSailing or WarFlying. Yes, the permutations are endless.

[photo: JoergHL]