This Week in Security

283 Articles

This Week In Security: Fuzzing Fixes, Foul Fonts, TPM Timing Attacks, And More!

November 15, 2019 by 11 Comments

An issue was discovered in libarchive through Google’s ClusterFuzz project. Libarchive is a compression and decompression library, widely used in utilities. The issue here is how the library recovers from a malformed archive. Hitting an invalid header causes the memory in use to be freed. The problem is that it’s possible for file processing to continue even after that working memory has been freed, leading to all kinds of problems. So far an actual exploit hasn’t been revealed, but it’s likely that one is possible. The problem was fixed back in May, but the issue was just announced to give time for that update to percolate down to users.

Of note is the fact that this issue was found through Google’s fuzzing efforts. Google runs the oss-fuzz project, which automatically ingests nightly builds from around 200 open source projects and runs ClusterFuzz against them. This process of throwing random data at programs and functions has revealed over 14,000 bugs.
Continue reading “This Week In Security: Fuzzing Fixes, Foul Fonts, TPM Timing Attacks, And More!” →

This Week In Security: BGP Bogons, Chrome Zero Day, And Save Game Attacks

November 8, 2019 by 24 Comments

Our own [Pat Whetman] wrote about a clever technique published by the University of Michigan, where lasers can be used to trigger a home assistant device. It’s an interesting hack, and you should go read it.

Borrowing IP Addresses

We’ve lived through several IPv4 exhaustion milestones, and the lack of available addresses is really beginning to show, even for trolls and scammers. A new approach takes advantage of the weak security of the Border Gateway Protocol, and allows bad actors to temporarily take over reserved address blocks. These particular providers operate out of Russia, operating network services they advertise as “bulletproof”, or immune to takedown requests. What better way to sidestep takedowns than to use IP addresses that aren’t really yours to begin with?

BGP spoofing has been at the center of other types of attacks and incidents, like in 2018 when a misconfiguration in a Nigerian ISP’s BGP tables routed traffic intended for Google’s servers through Chinese and Russian infrastructure. In that case it appeared to be a genuine mistake, but little prevents malicious BGP table poisoning.

Chrome Zero-day

Google released an update to Chrome on the 31st that addresses two CVEs, one of which is being actively exploited. That vulnerability, CVE-2019-13720, is a race condition resulting in a potential use-after-free. Kaspersky Labs found this one being actively used on a Korean news site. The attack runs entirely from Javascript, and simply visiting a malicious site is enough for compromise, so update Chrome if it’s installed.

Anti-anti-doping

What do you do when you feel you’ve been unfairly targeted by an anti-doping investigation? Apparently hacking the investigating agency and releasing stolen information is an option. It seems like this approach is more effective when there are shenanigans revealed in the data dump. In this case, the data being released seems rather mundane.

Firefox Blocking Sideload Extensions

Mozilla made a controversial announcement on the 31st. They intend to block “sideload” browser extensions. Until this change, it was possible to install browser extensions by copying them to a particular folder on the computer. Some legitimate extensions used this installation method, but so did malware, adware, and other unwanted software. While this change will block some malicious add-ons, it does present a bit of a challenge to a user installing an extension that isn’t on the official Mozilla store or signed by Mozilla.

As you might imagine, the response has been… less than positive. While making malware harder to install is certainly welcome, this makes some use cases very difficult. An example that comes to mind is a Linux package that includes a browser extension. It remains to be seen exactly how this change will shake out.

Save Games as Attack Vector

An oddball vulnerability caught my eye, published by [Denis Andzakovic] over at Pulse Security. He discovered that a recent indy game, Untitled Goose Game, can be manipulated into running arbitrary code as a result of loading a maliciously modified save file. The vulnerability is rooted in a naive deserialization routine.

If you’re interested in a deeper dive into .net deserialization bugs, a great paper was submitted to Blackhat 2012 discussing the topic. The short version is that if a programmer isn’t careful, the deserialization routine can overwrite variables in unexpected ways, potentially leading to code execution.

At first glance, a vulnerability triggered by a malicious save file seems relatively harmless. The level of access needed to modify a save file on a hard drive is enough to compromise that computer in a multitude of better ways. Enter cloud save synchronization. Steam, for instance, will automatically sync save games across a user’s install locations. This is a very useful feature for those of us that might play the same game on a laptop and a desktop. Having the save game automatically synced to all your devices is quite useful, but if an attacker compromised your Steam account, your save games could be manipulated. This leads to the very real possibility that an attacker could use a save game vulnerability to turn a Steam account compromise into an attack on all your machines with Steam installs.

This Week In Security: The Robots Are Watching, Insecure VPNs, Graboids, And Biometric Fails

October 25, 2019 by 10 Comments

A Japanese hotel chain uses robots for nearly everything. Check in, room access, and most importantly, bedside service. What could possibly go wrong with putting embedded Android devices, complete with mics and cameras, right in every hotel room? While I could imagine bedside robots ending badly in many ways, today we’re looking at the possibility that a previous guest installed an app that can spy on the room. The kiosk mode used on these devices left much to be desired. Each bot has an NFC reader, and all it takes is an URL read by that reader to break out of the kiosk jail. From there, a user has full access to the Android system underneath, and can install whatever software they wish.

[Lance Vick] discovered this potential problem way back in July, and after 90 days of inaction has released the vulnerability. More of these hotels are being rolled out for the 2020 Olympics, and this sort of vulnerability is sure to be present in other similar kiosk devices.

VPN Compromise

In March 2018, a server in a Finnish data center was compromised through a remote management system. This was probably a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC), which is as dangerous as it is useful. Most BMCs have their own Ethernet adapter, not controlled by the host computer, and allows a remote user to access the machine just as if they had a monitor and keyboard connected to it. This particularly server was one rented by NordVPN, who was apparently not notified of the data center breach.

So what was captured from this server? Apparently the OpenVPN credentials stored on that server, as well as a valid TLS key. (Document mirror via TechCrunch) It’s been noted that this key is now expired, which does mean that it’s not being actively exploited. There were, however, about 7 months between the server break-in and the certificate expiration, during which time it could have been used for man-in-the-middle attacks.

NordVPN has confirmed the breach, and tried to downplay the potential impact. This report doesn’t seem to entirely match the leaked credentials. An attacker with this data and root access to the server would have likely been able to decrypt VPN traffic on the fly.

Graboid

Named in honor of a certain sci-fi worm, Graboid is an unusual piece of malware aimed at Docker instances. It is a true worm, in that compromised hosts are used to launch attacks against other vulnerable machines. Graboid isn’t targeting a Docker vulnerability, but simply looking for an unsecured Docker daemon exposed to the internet. The malware downloads malicious docker images, one of which is used for crypto-currency mining, while another attempts to compromise other servers.

Graboid has an unusual quirk — the quirk that earned it the name: It doesn’t constantly mine or attempt to spread, but waits over a minute between bursts of activity. This was likely an attempt to mask the presence of mining malware. It’s notable that until discovered, the malicious Docker images were hosted on the Docker Hub. Be careful what images you trust, and look for the “Docker Official Image” tag.

Iran and Misdirection

Remember a couple weeks ago, when we discussed the difficulty of attack attribution? It seems a healthy dose of such paranoia might be warranted. The American NSA and British NCSC revealed that they now suspect Russian actors compromised Iranian infrastructure and deployed malware developed by Iranian coders. The purpose of this seems to have been redirection — to compromise targets and put the blame on Iran. To date it’s not certain that this particular gambit fooled any onlookers, but this is likely not the only such effort.

Android Biometrics

New Android handsets have had a rough week. First, the Samsung Galaxy S10 had an issue with screen protectors interfering with the under-the-screen fingerprint reader. This particular problem seems to only affect fingerprints that are enrolled after a screen protector has been applied. With the protector still in place, anyone’s fingerprint is able to unlock the device. What’s happening here seems obvious. The ultrasonic fingerprint scanner isn’t able to penetrate the screen protector, so it’s recording an essentially blank fingerprint. A patch to recognize these blank prints has been rolled out to devices in Samsung’s home country of South Korea, with the rest of the world soon to follow.

The second new handset is the Google Pixel 4, which includes a new Face Unlock feature. While many have praised the feature, there is trouble in paradise. The Pixel’s Face Unlock works even when the user is asleep or otherwise unmoving. To their credit, Apple’s Face ID also checks for user alertness, trying to avoid unlocking unless the user is intentionally doing so.

The humorous scenario is a child or spouse unlocking your phone while you’re asleep, but a more sobering possibility is your face being used against you unwillingly, or even while unconscious or dead. Based on leaks, it’s likely that there was an “eyes open” mode planned but cut before launch. Hopefully the bugs can be worked out of that feature, and it can be re-added in a future update. Until then, it’s probably best not to use Google’s Face Unlock on Pixel 4 devices.

This Week In Security: A Digital Café Américain, The Linux Bugs That Weren’t, The Great Nation, And More

October 18, 2019 by 16 Comments

A government is going after a human rights activists in Morocco. It sounds familiar, but I don’t think Humphrey Bogart is running the gin joint this time around.

Questionable Casablanca references aside, Amnesty International has reported another attack against human rights workers. In this case, a pair of Moroccan activists were targeted with what appears to be NSO’s Pegasus malware suite. Researchers identified text message phishing that led to malicious web pages, as well as HTTP man in the middle attacks against their mobile devices. Once the target was successfully directed to the malicious site, A collection of zero-day vulnerabilities were used to compromise the phone with the NSO malware.

NSO is an Israeli company that specializes in building malware and other cybersecurity tools for governments. As you can imagine, this specialization has earned NSO the scorn of quite a few organizations. NSO claims to have a policy framework in place that allows them to evaluate and terminate the use of their software when it is deemed illegal or abusive, but due to the nature of their contracts, that process is anything but transparent. Continue reading “This Week In Security: A Digital Café Américain, The Linux Bugs That Weren’t, The Great Nation, And More” →

This Week In Security: Signal, WhatsApp, Oauth Fishing, And More State-Sponsored Attacks

October 11, 2019 by 10 Comments

A bug was recently fix in Signal that allowed a caller to force a call connection without any user interaction on the receiving side. We’ve seen this sort of problem in other chat applications, most recently the Zoom debacle.

The Signal client uses the same function to connect an outgoing call as an incoming call. This bit of code re-use allows a malicious client to initiate a call, and then send the “Accept Call” message. Because of the code re-use, this message triggers the same code as the accept call button on the receiving side. It’s as if the attacker uses reverse psychology to trick the other client into connecting.

It seems this bug only affected the Android client, and didn’t trigger a video call. It’s unclear whether the bug was discovered and exploited before it was fixed, but now that it has been announced, be sure to get Signal up to date. Continue reading “This Week In Security: Signal, WhatsApp, Oauth Fishing, And More State-Sponsored Attacks” →

This Week In Security: Patch Monday Mysteries, CentOS 8 And CentOS Stream, Russian Surveillance, And CSRF

September 27, 2019 by 5 Comments

So first off this week is something of a mystery. Microsoft released an out-of-cycle patch for Internet Explorer. The exploitability assessment from Microsoft indicates that this bug is under active exploitation, but not many details are available. Let’s take a look at what information has been released, and see what we can learn.

A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way that the scripting engine handles objects in memory in Internet Explorer.

It’s a remote code execution vulnerability, it affects Internet Explorer, it’s in the scripting engine, and it happens due to objects in memory being mishandled. We could take some guesses, but later in this document we’re given a few other clues. The workaround is to disable jscript.dll, and the impact is limited, as jscript9.dll is the default JavaScript engine. jscript.dll is apparently a legacy JavaScript engine that a website can request.

“Jscript” is what Microsoft called their shameless copy implementation of JavaScript. The older jscript.dll seems to be present in newer versions of Internet Explorer for compatibility reasons. So it’s a problem in how the older JavaScript library handles objects. Any website can request this legacy engine, so the attack vector is basically unlimited.

The urgency implied by the out-of-cycle patch, combined with the otherwise eery silence surrounding this patch, suggests this 0-day was possibly being used in a targeted attack. We hope the details will eventually be revealed.

CentOS 8 and CentOS Stream

CentOS 8 was released this week, the community repackage of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8. In 2014, Red Hat announced that CentOS was officially becoming a Red Hat sponsored project. This week, CentOS Stream was also announced.

The Fedora distribution has long served as a test-bed for upcoming RHEL releases, with RHEL 8 being based on Fedora 28. CentOS Stream will serve as a “midstream” distribution, a rolling release that pulls updates from Fedora, and will eventually become future RHEL/CentOS releases. It remains to be seen exactly how far ahead of the main CentOS distribution Stream will stay. A long-standing problem with CentOS is that by the time a release hits end-of-life, some of the software versions are very old. Even though security fixes are quickly backported to these older versions, there are security issues that arise as a result. For example, CentOS 7 contains PHP 5.4 with no official path to installing a newer version of PHP. WordPress now requires PHP 5.6.20 as the oldest supported PHP version. Red Hat may backport fixes to PHP 5.4, but that doesn’t help the out-of-date installs of WordPress, running on otherwise up-to-date CentOS machines.

Hopefully CentOS Stream will provide the much needed middle-ground between the bleeding-edge pace of Fedora, and the frustratingly slow march of CentOS/RHEL.

Russian Surveillance

A Nokia employee accidentally backed up a company drive to his home storage device, which was unintentionally Internet accessible. The data contained on this drive was detailed information on Russia’s SORM (System for Operative Investigative Activities), the government’s wiretapping program. The amount of data revealed is staggering, 1.7 terabytes. Passwords, administrative URLs, and even precise physical locations were included. The breadth of information makes one wonder if it was actually an accident, or if this was intended to be another Snowden style data leak. Just an aside, it’s not clear that the revealed wiretapping effort is as broad or onerous as the one Snowden revealed.

PHPMyAdmin CSRF

Running PHPMyAdmin on one of your servers? You should probably go update it. Version 4.9.1 was released on Saturday the 21st, and contains a fix for CVE-2019-12922. This vulnerability is a Cross Site Request Forgery, or CSRF. A CSRF attack can be as simple as an image link on one site, that links to another site, and triggers an action on that second site. Let’s look at the PHPMyAdmin example:

img src="
http://server/phpmyadmin/setup/index.php?page=servers&mode=remove&id=1";
style="display:none;"

A hidden image will actually trigger an HTTP GET request, which asks for the server’s page, and tries to remove the first entry. If a user is logged in to the PHPMyAdmin server that the link is targeting, the command will silently complete. This is one of the reasons that HTTP GET requests should never make state changes, and only ever retrieve information. An HTTP POST message is much harder to generate in this way, though not impossible.

This Week In Security: Zeroconf Strikes Again, Lastpass Leaks Your Last Password, And All Your Data Is Belong To Us

September 20, 2019 by 18 Comments

VoIP cameras, DVRs, and other devices running the Web Services Dynamic Discovery (WSDD) protocol are being used in a new type of DDoS attack. This isn’t the first time a zeroconf service has been hijacked as part of a DDoS, as UPnP has also been abused in similar ways.

Feel like alphabet soup yet? A Denial of Service attack is one where the target is simply made unavailable, rather than actually compromised. The classic example of this is the SYN flood, where an attacker would open hundreds of connections to a web server at once, exhausting the server’s resources and interrupting legitimate use of that server. As mitigations for these attacks were developed (SYN Cookies, for example), DoS attacks were replaced by Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks. Rather than attack a weakness on the target machine, like available RAM or CPU cycles, a DDoS generally targets available network bandwidth by hitting the target website from many, many locations at once. No clever software tricks can help when your Internet connection is fully saturated with junk traffic. Continue reading “This Week In Security: Zeroconf Strikes Again, Lastpass Leaks Your Last Password, And All Your Data Is Belong To Us” →