Tag Archives: Hacking

Hacking Cars: Taken Seriously?

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Turn on an ad for new vehicles and you are bound to see how connected they are to our lives. Gone are the days when your vehicle is just a stand alone product. Now we are seeing cars that have internet connectivity. We are moving past the simple satellite radio or GPS systems and becoming connected to a lot of data. Security folks have been talking about vehicle security for a while now and a few researchers have been focusing on showing how serious the security of these vehicles is.

Today, a story was released on Wired “Hackers Remotely Kill a Jeep on the Highway – With Me In It” (http://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/) describing how a Jeep was remotely controlled by a laptop 10 miles away. For the full details, check out the link I just provided. Once the story hit the airwaves, it received lots of attention, both good and bad.

Lets start with the positive side of things that were shown. It is possible to actually show the capability to breach a vehicles systems (remotely) and then control many of the functions. These functions include the radio, wipers, temperature controls, transmission and brakes to name a few. It is a concern that this can be done without authorization. I certainly do not want my vehicle to be taken over while I am driving it making it unsafe for myself or my family. The highlight: Security is important for vehicles with them being more reliant on software and internet connectivity.

Rumor is that there is a patch for the vehicle to fix this issue. The issue we now have to address is how do we efficiently and effectively get these patches to the vehicles. At this point, bringing the vehicle in to a dealership to have the software updated is the only real option.

The negative reception is where it gets interesting. They decided to do this experiment on a highway with other vehicles around traveling at the speed limit (70 MPH). At one point the driver is explaining how he can’t see because the windshield wipers are going with the fluid spraying. At another point, they cut out the transmission and the vehicle slows way down on the highway where there was no breakdown lane. That is a brief and probably insufficient summary, however the point is that a lot of people are upset.

This type of testing in a public place like this puts the other drivers on that highway at risk. This is not much different than the plane hacking bonanza that happened a few months ago (http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/17/us/fbi-hacker-flight-computer-systems/) causing a huge backlash. It is one thing to look for security issues that may help make things safer, but it is critical that the testing of these theories are done in a controlled environment, not putting people at risk. They don’t test vehicle crash ratings on the highway, they do it in a secluded area where safety is a priority.

If you are going to research security issues, no matter what they are, it is critical to think about this type of stuff before you just jump on in. While I understand that this type of stunt hacking is great for advertising an upcoming talk at your local hacker conference, it is not acceptable when directly putting other people at risk. You want to hack a plane? Get an airline to get you into a hangar in a controlled environment. The other option, by a plane to test out yourself. But don’t do it on a plane full of passengers at 30,000 feet. In this case, the researchers went out and acquired the vehicle and researched in their own facilities. The issue arose when they did their testing on a highway and not on a closed course. Security research is walking a fine line and it will require the best foot forward to push it in a positive direction. If all people see is the stunt hacking they will lose sight of the real issue at hand and just see these stunts as reckless. It will have the opposite effect of what the end goal is: to increase security awareness and security of the devices or products.

If you are in the market for a new vehicle, don’t be afraid to ask questions about the security of the vehicles communication systems. The more we dig as consumers the more aware the manufacturers will be. At some point, promoting security as a feature will be critical to beating out the competition ultimately forcing everyone to get on board. Be smart and stay safe.

Ashley Madison site breached

If you are keeping up with the news you have probably already heard about the breach of the adult site known as Ashley Madison.   Here is a link to one of the articles about it: http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/20/technology/ashley-madison-hack/index.html. Like the breach at Adult Friend Finder (http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/22/technology/adult-friendfinder-hacked/) a few months ago, this type of incident is a little different than the usual breach.   This breach is less about identity information (although at the root has a lot to do with it), financial information, or even health information.   The focus of this type of site/service is on secrecy and discreetness.   It is about sharing sensitive information about an individual’s private life.

As we become more content with the Internet and the freedoms it provides us, we often start to overlook the reality that it creates.  Some people think what they do on a computer isn’t real, rather, more of a game.   That the effects are not real.   We have this notion that everything we do is anonymous, leading us to take more risks than we might have otherwise.  Take a moment and think about some things you might have said or done online that you most likely wouldn’t have done in person.  Think about how quickly that can snowball out of control.  

The breach at Ashley Madison should serve as a reminder that what we do may not be as anonymous as we thought.   That the effects of our actions may turn out to have some real life consequences.   Is it possible someone was just curious and meant no harm signing up on the site?  Maybe they got in a fight with their spouse, had a bad day at work, were just bored.   Of course those may not be acceptable excuses for joining a site that promotes adultery, but it could be something that small that led to the initial curiosity.  There are also people just looking for another relationship.  Anyone who has their name released as being a member has the same potential consequences.  You may be publicly criticized, sorry.. that is what society does now.  Your job or career could be effected. Your relationship with your significant other and/or children can be effected.  The list goes on.

We are all still learning the effects our online actions have on us over time. Our parents didn’t have nearly as much technology so many of us are learning on our own. We need to understand that, just like business, we assume a level of risk when acting online.  There is no 100% secure systems.  It doesn’t matter if we are talking online banking, adult sites, social media, or password managers.  There is always some level of risk.  We must learn to calculate that risk and determine if it is worth it.  We are often quick to blindly accept the risk for the quick reward.  Share your contacts for some coins in a game.  Post atrocious comments for a chance to feel like you stood for something.  

Is there a risk to joining an adult site like this?  Of course there is.  For many, that risk is acceptable for their own personal reasons.  Some members may had not really considered the risks, while others may have given great thought to joining.  Either way, the risk is there.   The big question in this situation is regarding what that risk now means to the individuals involved.

The media hypes this up to be devastating.  However if we look back at Adult Friend Finder, after a few days, you stopped hearing much about it.  This doesn’t mean that there were no consequences suffered by users effected by that breach, but it did quiet down a lot.  Maybe it was because of the personal nature that people didn’t want to put it out for everyone to see.  That makes it difficult to judge the real effect that this breach will have.

It will be interesting to see what types of effects this has going forward.  In the meantime, we should ensure that we are thinking about the risks. Be safe everyone.

Adult FriendFinder Hack: ID Theft is NOT the Only Game in Town

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When a breach occurs that shares our personal information we immediately think about identity theft and credit card fraud. More recently we are seeing more health information compromised as well, but the Adult FriendFinder breach changes that focus. The hack still revolves around personal information, but with the exception of the username/password, it does not include social security numbers or credit card numbers. Rather, this breach is focused on a persons sexual preferences or desires.

According to the story at CNN and other news sources, username and passwords were retrieved. As with any breach like this, it is recommended to change your passwords on other sites if you are reusing them, and definitely change the password for this site. While that can be devastating if your username/password combo work on other sites, especially financial sites, we are seeing a different concern arise here.

There are a lot of different data privacy or data breach notification laws that have been passed throughout the country. Originally the focus was on identity data, then moved to health data. Even more recently, Illinois is trying to include marketing data as well. In this situation, we have sexual preference data. This isn’t used to steal a persons identity or charge up their credit card accounts. This type of data is used for extortion or reputational harm. In our overly judgmental society, this type of data can destroy your livelihood.

It has already been shown that victims of the breach can be identified and that there are bad guys that are already using this data to start attacking them. How could they attack? The easiest way is by using identified social media accounts to send spear phishing attacks about the situation to them. A user clicks on the link in the email attack and is presented with a malicious file that gives the attacker control over their machine. This is probably the most likely attack because it is easy and efficient.

The second option is to extort those victims. Tell them that you have this information and if you don’t pay a large sum of money, that information will go public. Of course that information pretty much is public, and the organization of that may be more costly to the bad guys making this less attractive.

In either case, they are playing off of the victim’s fears of this information being leaked. Unlike a credit card number or a password, you can’t just change this information once it is made public. You can attempt a cover story of “that isn’t me” or “I just made that up” but recovering becomes a nightmare.

Even worse, besides not using the site, there is nothing you could do to prevent this hack. While they haven’t given details of how the site was hacked, it appears as though it was from the server, and not a user’s computer. Of course, there is a chance that this could be wrong, but if not, a user of the site has very little control over this happening. We rely on a site to protect this type of data because when they don’t, it can create a nightmare for the users of the site.

If you think you were a victim of this breach, be on the look out for phishing emails. Emails that claim to be about this breach asking you to go to a site to change your credentials, or input other information. Go to the site directly and change your password. If extortion occurs I would recommend reaching out to the local authorities for assistance on what to do.

Hacking Airplanes…Lets Think About This

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Recent news of airplane security and the did or didn’t someone take control of an airplane during a flight is scattered across the web. There are lots of opinions on whether or not the inflight entertainment systems and the airplane control systems are connected or not. I haven’t tested an airline system, so I can’t say for sure, and it may be different depending on the type of plane. One glaring issue here is we don’t know and there are a lot of people that don’t know either, while acting as if they do know. Is airplane security a concern? Of course it is, what security isn’t a concern? What is the right approach to having it tested?

United Airlines recently announced a bug bounty program. For those that may not know, a bug bounty program is set up by companies to recognize or reward security testers for identifying security bugs in their applications. Some of the big names like Google, FaceBook and Twitter have been doing this for a while now. While not something everyone is prepared for, it can help identify some of the security bugs in your applications, although many of these flaws should be identified internally by developers and QA before release to production. Any average person can participate in most bug bounties, no skills required (we won’t dig into that for this piece).

What seems to be interesting with the United program, at least what we see on Twitter, is that there is some concern that the airplane and in-flight systems are out of scope. This means that while you can test United’s external applications, they are NOT giving permission for anyone to test the airline systems during a flight. Airline security has been propelled into the spotlight recently with stories like GAO: Newer aircraft vulnerable to hacking and Chris Roberts tweeting on a plane about it and then getting questioned by authorities for hours upon arrival.

Does United have it right, by banning hacking on the plane? But what about the children you say? First off, without permission, you shouldn’t be security testing something that isn’t yours. I know there are lots of debate around this topic, but lets just get the permission thing out of the way. I understand, if the systems are not safe, then the issue should be addressed. Many will tell you that the only way to know if it is safe is to have any Joe Blow out there firing away at it. If telling the airline about it doesn’t get them to fix it then doing something a bit more rash is needed “for your safety”. Be prepared, when it comes to public disclosure of flaws that contain working exploits that are not patched “YOU” are the collateral damage.

Lets get real here for just a moment. Lets take a moment to realize that things that happen on computers DO have real consequences. Messing around on a website that exposes sensitive information is bad enough, but to think that allowing anyone to attempt hacking a plane to look for security vulnerabilities at 30,000 feet is a good idea is just ludicrous. You are directly, and immediately putting the lives of everyone on that plane at risk. Maybe you should do a vote to see who is ok with you attempting this. After events such as 9/11, I don’t think you want to announce you are hacking the plane.. you may find yourself duct taped to a chair and bruised up a bit for the remainder of the diverted flight.

In the professional world of security, when we want to test the security of something like this, we seek out the vendor and get a contract that outlines what testing will be done. Obviously this requires the vendor to agree to a contract and the testing. In this scenario, the testing would most likely be done in an airplane in a hangar at the airport, not at 30,000 feet and with no other passengers on board. If you are unable to get the vendor to commit to a contract for testing, then hopefully making people aware of the potential issue and the risks they assume by using that vendor could be enough to force the vendor into it. In our market, people stop using a service, vendor starts listening to people.

In the case of United, and hopefully any other airline that decides to open a bug bounty, I think they are making a good decision in not opening up a bounty on the airline systems. Of course these systems are critical, especially since they keep the plane safe in the air, but we need to make intelligent decisions about how things get tested. This decision by United does not seem to be a method of trying to silence “researchers” about the potential security vulnerabilities in the airplane. This is a move to keep people safe during a flight. We have ways to test, as mentioned earlier with the contract in a controlled environment, we don’t have to do it in the air with other passengers. It is also a smart decision to not open a bug bounty on those systems because with critical systems like this you want to ensure that only trained experts are assessing the system. Someone that can understand the fragility of the environment, the way it works, the things that shouldn’t be done. You start letting John in 34C who just learned what Metasploit is start firing exploits at a system all ad hoc, you are asking for a world of hurt.

If you really want to test the security of an airplane and its flight controls, pony up and buy a plane to do the testing. We see this with the guys that are testing the security of cars. They get funded or pay out of their own pocket to get a vehicle that they can test out the security. Look at some of what they have done, it doesn’t always go as planned. They are not hopping on a city bus and hacking it. They are not hopping on a train and attempting to hack it. They are doing their best to create a controlled environment to test in a safe environment.

Everything has security issues. There will never be a time when we don’t have some security issue still around in a system. We should be glad that due to recent events the airlines have not banned electronic devices on airplanes.. Yet if we keep making decisions to put people at risk with this type of “research” we will probably really learn with “chilling security research” really means.

SANS Pen Test Summit

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I was just recently in Washington D.C. where I attended and presented at the SANS Pen Test Summit. For those that have not had the chance to attend these events, they are two days of presentations and panels from well-known security experts. SANS has done a great job of presenting a great environment to bring together many different subjects all within the topic of Information Security.

I was fortunate enough to have been selected to be one of those presenters. I presented on Hacking ASP.Net: Tips and Tricks. I have been training secure .Net development for a while, but I feel that there are many things that pen testers just don’t understand that should be shared. Although my talk was limited to just a few key features of .Net, specifically Event Validation, Request Validation, and ViewState, I felt it was a lot of information that was new to the audience. I really enjoyed giving the presentation and hope that the audience enjoyed it just as much.

In addition to my talk, there were other great talk as well. Justin Searle, John Strand and Atlas of Doom all presented some great material. These guys all talk all over the country and world and it is always an experience to listen to them.

I recommend that if you are looking for a summit to attend, check out the SANS.org website. They host multiple discipline focused summits each year.