Author Archives: eric

The power plug is watching you

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Power PwnIf you watch this picture, you may just see an innocent power plug extension.  If you’re looking more carefully at the left bottom corner of the device, you may notice some connectors!   Why should a power extension need connectors?

Indeed, this device is a perfectly integrated penetration testing platform.  Here is a non-exhaustive list of features:

  • On board wireless Wifi connection, Bluetooth connection, Ethernet connection;   Everything to sniff communications.
  • Everything to create SSH connection, VPN connections
  • Out of band communication through 4G/GSM adapter!  You can send commands through SMS.
  • Stealth mode with device unpingable, and no listening ports
  • A wealth of preloaded tools
  • And many, many other goodies…
  • Of course, the plugs are functional

Of course, it should only be used by white hats.   Extracted from the user manual

All Pwnie Express / Rapid Focus Security products are for legally authorized uses only.

This may be a formidable tool!  Of course, it is better suited for the US, as the plugs are following US standards.   The device does not (yet) exist for other power plugs.

The product (and less powerful ones) is available form pwnie express.

Designing security warnings

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Microsoft released some interesting rules for deciding when and what to display to users in case of a security warning.  Microsoft proposed two nice acronyms.

 

A security warning should be Necessary, Explainable, Actionable and Tested (NEAT).  In other words, the designer should only present a security warning to the user if the user is needed to make a decision and that it could be precisely explained to the user.

Explaining a security warning is a difficult task.  Thus, Microsoft proposed another acronym.  The explanation should clearly explain the Source of the issue, the Process that the user may follow to solve, describe the Risk, Unique to user (with his/her context), offer some Choices and give Evidence (SPRUCE).

A nice initiative.

World of Warcraft: a virtual genocide

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On 7 October 2012, the population of the towns of Stormwind, Orgrimmar, Tarren Mill, Ragnaros, Draenor and Twisting Nether were wiped out in a few seconds.   This made tens of thousands of dead people.  Did you here about this carnage?  If not, then you’re probably not a hard gamer.

 

These towns are in the virtual realms of World of Warcraft (WoW).   This is the most deployed MMORPG with millions of players.   Thus, those are virtual deaths.   And the cause was a hack.  It seems that a script allowed to launch an extremely powerful spell (Aura of God) that kills everybody around.  The attack was claimed by Jadd.

 

Blizzard, the developer of WoW, quickly reacted, and hot-fixed the exploit within four hours.   In an official statement, Blizzard announced that

It’s safe to continue playing and adventuring in major cities and elsewhere in Azeroth.

Usually attacks on games are more oriented towards either cheating and gaining more money.  Jadd claims the exploit just for fun.

 

LinkedIn Password Leak (3) or The cost of one leak

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In June 2012, 6.5 million of nonsalted passwords leaked out of LinkedIn.  The company asked the affected members to change their password (and hopefully salted the hashed passwords).

When publishing the earnings of Q2, LinkedIn described some expenses.    Obviously, the leakage had a direct impact.

  • The forensic investigation itself cost in the range $500,000 and $1,000,000.
  • LinkedIn provisioned additional  $2,000,000 – $3,000,000 to increase their security.

Therefore, this leakage seems to have cost less than other recent leakages such as Sony network.   As the number of LinkedIn members still grew, it seems neither to have impacted the popularity of the site.  The Q3 results (to be published soon) should still show growth in membership.

There is no news about the class action initiated by Katie Szpyrka.

World of Warcraft and watermarking

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An old news, as it started in September.  On 8 September 2012, Sendatsu published on the ownedcore a detailed study of the use of watermark within Blizzard’s World of Warcraft (WoW).  According to him, it seems that WoW adds an “invisible” watermark to screenshots (at least with JPEG in lower quality).   A capture of a screenshot without texture repeatedly produces a pattern similar to this one.  wow-watermark

The watermark carries 88 bytes with the account ID, a time stamp and the IP address of the server.  Clearly, it does not carry any personal information.   It seems that this Digimarc based watermark was in use since 2007 (when screenshots were added).

The aim of this watermark seems obvious to me.  There are many illegal WoW servers in the field.  Of course, users playing WoW through these non-Blizzard servers do not pay the monthly subscription.  This means a loss of revenue for Blizzard.  Finding the IP address of such unauthorized servers is a good start to fight piracy back .

Strangely, nobody reported a similar case for other Blizzard MMORPGs such as Diablo III or StarCraft.  Is it because nobody looked at, it yet? Or because there is no such watermark (less pirate servers)?

Update (30-oct-12):  The allegation that it is a Digimarc solution seems wrong.  Thus, currently no clue about the solution provider.

Insuring clouds

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Every body is running, very enthusiastically, towards cloud computing.  Sometimes, it reminds me lemmings.  I hope that I am wrong.  Let’s be positive.  Obviously, cloud computing will bring advantages.  Nevertheless, according to me, cloud security is only in its early infancy.

 

Thus, any cloud deployment should make a serious risk analysis (even if we have only a vague idea of the real threats).  When risks appear, insurance should also appear.

 

A company Cloud Insure seems to explore this new opportunity.

CloudInsure is a Cloud Insurance platform designed to specifically address emerging liabilities within the Cloud environment. In partnership with global insurance and reinsurance carriers, we’ve engineered privacy & security liability coverage to meet the needs of the Cloud Computing space for enterprise customers. Through our innovative underwriting models and proprietary analytics, we bring insurance solutions that move at the pace of Cloud technology.

Are you aware of other such companies?

The Way of Shadows

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way-of-shadowsI just finished the first volume of Brent Weeks’ s trilogy “The Night Angel”.   Its title is “The Way of Shadows”.  Azoth becomes the apprentice of Durzo Blint, the best wetboy of Cenaria.  Wetboys are assassins with magical Talents.   He will be deeply implied in the future of this small nation…

 

The ecosystem is interesting with many fighting countries, political plots, different types of wizardry, and several interesting magical artifacts.  The characters are complex and far from being Manichean (I like characters that are both evil and good, such as Moorcock’s Elric of Menilbone).  The plot is rich with many surprises, and extremely dark.  If you are expecting bright happy ending, do not start this book.

 

The book starts slowly, but soon becomes breathtaking.  An excellent book.  I will immediately start the second volume ‘Shadow’s edge”.  I hope that the other books of the trilogy are also breathtaking.