Simple RFID Access System Clone

February 7, 2011 by Mike Nathan 7 Comments

rfidbboards

A few months back, [John] was reading an article about a simple RFID security system kit, and decided he would like to build one himself. While many of the system’s details, including full schematics were provided, he was dismayed to find that the source code for the project was not published as it was held under copyright by the manufacturer. Believing that open source is better, he modified the original design, replacing their PIC controller with an ATmega328 armed with an Arduino bootloader.

His system replicates all of the original kit’s functionality, while offering plenty of opportunity for modification beyond the initial design. The article contains a complete parts list, wiring schematic, and the Arduino code required to get things up and running. He even has a video of his clone at work, demonstrating the acceptance and rejection of RFID tags as well as the system’s learning mode.

The Future Of Cyberattacks

February 4, 2011 by Mike Szczys 3 Comments

[Dino A. Dai Zovi] gave a talk in the earlier part of 2010 where he shares his thoughts on the future of malicious exploits. You can watch it on Ustream and he’s also posted a set of slides (PDF) that goes along with it. We find the 48 minute video to be quite interested. Instead of going into mundane detail, he covers the broader picture; what has been done in the past, what will happen in the future, and how are we currently ill-equipped to respond to future threats? That last question is covered throughout the video, but seems to come back to the concept that we are stuck in a rut of terminology and past practice that is impeding our ability to innovate security strategies at the same rate that the bad guys are coming up with the next nasty thing to come down the pipeline.

Building Infra Red Light Sources With Regular Lights

February 2, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 23 Comments

[Oneironaut] sent us another IR hack. This time it is a writeup on the best ways to create IR light sources from regular lights. Since normal flashlight bulbs emit a broad enough spectrum to include visible light and IR light, this basically comes down to filtering. [Oneironaut] explores different light sources and different materials in depth, along with great pictures to show his results. This is a great resource if you’re needing to do some night vision for cheap.

Rotary Dial Authenticates Sudo Commands

February 1, 2011 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

[W1ndman] won’t win any security awards for this build, but it’s an interesting idea. On many Linux-based systems commands can be run with administrator privileges by prefacing them with the keyword ‘sudo’. Normally you’d be asked for a password but [W1ndman] used the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) to authenticate via his own shell script. That script checks a code from this rotary dial for authentication. An Arduino takes care of listening for each digit that is entered and then sends the code via USB for comparison with a stored file. We’re not sure if that stored code is in a plain file or is otherwise protected, but at the very least this prevents you from using ‘sudo’ willy-nilly.

Insane Covert IR Illumination

January 31, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 37 Comments

[Onironaut] over at lucidscience sent us a link to his latest project, some IR illumination panels. At first, we were mildly enticed by his usual high standard of photography and description. It was just an array of LEDs though. Still, we kept hitting the “next page” button because he goes into such great detail. Then we saw version two. Instead of simply being an array of IR LEDs mounted outside for his security camera, he has mounted 1536 IR LEDs inside an old flat panel monitor. That’s a fake monitor producing 180 watts of IR light, and we think that’s even at half power! He replaced the screen of the display with one way mirror, so you would have no idea that it isn’t just a normal screen sitting on his desk. Great job as usual [Onironaut].

Network Packet Sniffing With Linux

January 29, 2011 by Mike Szczys 22 Comments

Here’s a chance to learn a little bit about network security. This article walks us through some of the core concepts of network manipulation and packet sniffing using Linux tools. [Joey Bernard] discusses the uses for packages like tcpdump, p0f, and dsniff. They are capable of recording all network traffic coming through your computer’s connection, seeking out machines installed on the network, and listening to traffic for a specific machine. This isn’t going to give you a step-by-step for cracking modern networks. It will provide some insight on what is going on with your network and you should be able to purpose these tools to check that you’ve got adequate security measures in place.

Plug And Prey: Malicious USB Devices

January 27, 2011 by Caleb Kraft 21 Comments

This very informative talk given at Shmoocon 2011 has been posted over at IronGeek. Covering all kinds of angles that a person could attack someones computer through the USB port, this should be read by anyone who is security minded at all. No matter which side of the port you tend to be on, this article has great information. They cover some common attack methods such as keyloggers and fake keyboards as well as some common methods of securing your system against them. We’ve actually seen this in the news a bit lately as people have been using the keyboard emulation method in conjunction with android phones to hack into systems.

[thanks Adrian]