Security Hacks

1523 Articles

Essential Bluetooth Hacking Tools

August 1, 2008 by 9 Comments

Security-Hacks has a great roundup of essential Bluetooth hacking tools. As they point out, Bluetooth technology is very useful for communication with mobile devices. However, it is also vulnerable to privacy and security invasions. Learning the ins and outs of these tools will allow you to familiarize yourself with Bluetooth vulnerabilities and strengths, and enable you to protect yourself from attackers. The list is separated into two parts – tools to detect Bluetooth devices, and tools to hack into Bluetooth devices. Check out BlueScanner, which will detect Bluetooth-enabled devices, and will extract as much information as possible from those devices. Other great tools to explore include BTCrawler, which scans for Windows Mobile devices, or Bluediving, which is a Bluetooth penetration suite, and offers some unique features like the ability to spoof Bluetooth addresses, and an L2CAP packet generator. Most of the tools are available for use with Linux platforms, but there are a few you can also use with Windows.

[via Digg]

Securing DNS On OSX

July 31, 2008 by 5 Comments


It’s been a few weeks since [Dan Kaminsky] announced the nature of the DNS vulnerability and allowed 30 days of non-disclosure for patches to be applied before details of the exploit went public. Unfortunately, the details were leaked early and it didn’t take long for a functional exploit to be released into the wild. Since then, many ISPs have taken steps to prevent their users from falling victim to the attack, and BIND, the widely-used DNS protocol implementation, was updated to minimize the threat. Even then, there were reports of a version of the attack being actively used on AT&T’s DNS servers.

Mac OSX uses a BIND implementation but as of yet, Apple has not released a patch updating the system (Microsoft, on the other hand, patched this up on July 8). As a result, machines running OSX are at risk of being exploited. Individual users are less likely to be targeted, since the attacks are directed towards servers, but it’s not a smart idea to leave this vulnerability open. [Glenn Fleishman] has published a way to update BIND on OSX manually, rather than waiting on Apple to patch it themselves. It requires Xcode and a bit of terminal work, but it’s a relatively painless update. When we tried it, the “make test” step skipped a few tests and told us to run “bin/tests/system/ifconfig.sh up”. That allowed us to re-run the tests and continue the update without further interruption. [Fleischman] warns that people who manually update BIND may break the official update, but he will update his instructions when it happens with any possible workarounds. Unfortunately, this fix only works for 10.5 but alternative, yet less effective methods may work for 10.4 and earlier.

If you’d like to know if your preferred DNS servers are vulnerable or not, you can use the DNS checker tool from Doxpara. As an alternative to your ISP’s DNS servers, you can use OpenDNS, which many prefer for its security features and configuration options.

Medeco High Security Lock Picking

July 29, 2008 by 11 Comments


Despite, Hack a Day seeming to be fairly lock heavy lately, we’ve yet to cover a major story from The Last HOPE. At the conference, [Jon King] talked about vulnerabilities in Medeco locks and presented his Medecoder tool. Medeco is really what makes this story interesting; unlike the EU, the US has very few high security lock manufacturers. You pretty much have to use Medeco and it’s found in many government agencies.

The Medeco locks have a vertical row of six pins arranged like most pin tumbler locks. Unlike your average lock, the rotation of the pins is important. When the key is placed in the lock, it not only moves the pins to the correct height, it also rotates them to the correct orientation. A sidebar blocks the cylinder unless the pins are rotated properly. Each pin has three possible orientations. They’re biaxial as well, which means the pin’s offset point allows for three more possible positions.

Continue reading “Medeco High Security Lock Picking” →

Lock Picking And Security Disclosure

July 28, 2008 by 5 Comments


Slate is running an interesting article about taking new security approaches to lock vulnerabilities. In the past, lock makers such as Medeco have been able to quietly update their product lines to strengthen their security, but as movements such as Locksport International gain popularity and lock picking videos on YouTube become dime a dozen, lock makers can no longer rely on security through obscurity. It’s no question that an increased interest in this field helps lock manufacturers to create more secure products, but because patching these flaws often means changing critical features of the lock, it becomes a very expensive game of cat-and-mouse.

Traditional lock picking has employed the use of picksets, like the credit card sized set given out sold at The Last HOPE, but more recent methods of lock hacking have used bump keys or even magnets. However, as manufacturers make their locks less susceptible to picking and bumping, not even high-security locks will ward off someone determined enough to create a copy of the key, either by observing the original or using impressioning, as [Barry Wels] covered in a recent talk at HOPE 2008.

Adeona: An Open Source Laptop Tracking System

July 26, 2008 by 24 Comments


Adeona is an open source internet-based laptop tracking system that is free to use. It’s available for Linux, OSX, and Windows XP/Vista. After installation, Adeona will submit at random intervals, anonymously encrypted updates on the computer’s location to servers on the Internet, specifically to OpenDHT, a free storage service. The information is kept on the servers for one week. If your laptop becomes lost or stolen, you can use the retrieval tool to access information about where your laptop was last used: the external IP address, internal IP address, and nearby routers. If your laptop is a Mac, you can also download isightcapture to grab a picture of the thief. Adeona is designed to protect against common criminals who may not have much technological knowledge, and does not have any protections against events such as disk wipes. The open source nature of Adeona’s system means that there’s ample opportunity to improve upon the release or add extensions. Here’s one user who really likes what he sees.

[via Schneier]

Five Plugins And Tips To Secure Your WordPress Blog

July 26, 2008 by 3 Comments


How do you protect your own blog from getting hacked? There’s never a foolproof answer, but with some added tools and caution, you can make your website a little safer from getting into harm’s way. Cats Who Code has five plug-ins and tips you can use to protect your WordPress install. Some of the tips are common sense advice that can apply to anything related to technology – such as making backups often and using strong passwords. Others include suggested plugins that can help you verify whether your WordPress install has any security holes, or small tricks to hide the version of WordPress you’re using. Do you have any useful plugins or tricks to share to keep your blog safe from hackers?

[via Digg]

Surveillance As Art

July 25, 2008 by 8 Comments


The Target Project is a graduate project from the Royal College of Arts in London. It is designed to make us question our relationship with surveillance technology and CCTV. This is a particularly meaningful demonstration for a country like Britain which is said to contain up to 4.2 million CCTV cameras or roughly 1 for every 14 people.

This project has two demonstrations on their site. The first is dubbed the RTS-2 (Racial Targeting System). This system is essentially a camera which follows faces and is able to analyze and interpret the person’s race. The second is SOLA. This system is able to quickly scan someone and calculate their body mass index then publish this information to the web. Both systems achieve their goal by blatantly pointing out a line in which more surveillance does not equate to more security. They also show the wealth of personal data that can be obtained about a person by a simple camera.

[via we make money not art]