All posts by Bruce Schneier

Samsung Encryption Flaw

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/03/samsung-encryption-flaw.html

Researchers have found a major encryption flaw in 100 million Samsung Galaxy phones.

From the abstract:

In this work, we expose the cryptographic design and implementation of Android’s Hardware-Backed Keystore in Samsung’s Galaxy S8, S9, S10, S20, and S21 flagship devices. We reversed-engineered and provide a detailed description of the cryptographic design and code structure, and we unveil severe design flaws. We present an IV reuse attack on AES-GCM that allows an attacker to extract hardware-protected key material, and a downgrade attack that makes even the latest Samsung devices vulnerable to the IV reuse attack. We demonstrate working key extraction attacks on the latest devices. We also show the implications of our attacks on two higher-level cryptographic protocols between the TrustZone and a remote server: we demonstrate a working FIDO2 WebAuthn login bypass and a compromise of Google’s Secure Key Import.

Here are the details:

As we discussed in Section 3, the wrapping key used to encrypt the key blobs (HDK) is derived using a salt value computed by the Keymaster TA. In v15 and v20-s9 blobs, the salt is a deterministic function that depends only on the application ID and application data (and constant strings), which the Normal World client fully controls. This means that for a given application, all key blobs will be encrypted using the same key. As the blobs are encrypted in AES-GCM mode-of-operation, the security of the resulting encryption scheme depends on its IV values never being reused.

Gadzooks. That’s a really embarrassing mistake. GSM needs a new nonce for every encryption. Samsung took a secure cipher mode and implemented it insecurely.

News article.

Details of an NSA Hacking Operation

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/03/details-of-an-nsa-hacking-operation.html

Pangu Lab in China just published a report of a hacking operation by the Equation Group (aka the NSA). It noticed the hack in 2013, and was able to map it with Equation Group tools published by the Shadow Brokers (aka some Russian group).

…the scope of victims exceeded 287 targets in 45 countries, including Russia, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, etc. The attack lasted for over 10 years. Moreover, one victim in Japan is used as a jump server for further attack.

News article.

Vulnerability in Stalkerware Apps

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/03/vulnerability-in-stalkerware-apps.html

TechCrunch is reporting — but not describing in detail — a vulnerability in a series of stalkerware apps that exposes personal information of the victims. The vulnerability isn’t in the apps installed on the victims’ phones, but in the website the stalker goes to view the information the app collects. The article is worth reading, less for the description of the vulnerability and more for the shadowy string of companies behind these stalkerware apps.

Decrypting Hive Ransomware Data

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/03/decrypting-hive-ransomware-data.html

Nice piece of research:

Abstract: Among the many types of malicious codes, ransomware poses a major threat. Ransomware encrypts data and demands a ransom in exchange for decryption. As data recovery is impossible if the encryption key is not obtained, some companies suffer from considerable damage, such as the payment of huge amounts of money or the loss of important data. In this paper, we analyzed Hive ransomware, which appeared in June 2021. Hive ransomware has caused immense harm, leading the FBI to issue an alert about it. To minimize the damage caused by Hive Ransomware and to help victims recover their files, we analyzed Hive Ransomware and studied recovery methods. By analyzing the encryption process of Hive ransomware, we confirmed that vulnerabilities exist by using their own encryption algorithm. We have recovered the master key for generating the file encryption key partially, to enable the decryption of data encrypted by Hive ransomware. We recovered 95% of the master key without the attacker’s RSA private key and decrypted the actual infected data. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first successful attempt at decrypting Hive ransomware. It is expected that our method can be used to reduce the damage caused by Hive ransomware.

Here’s the flaw:

The cryptographic vulnerability identified by the researchers concerns the mechanism by which the master keys are generated and stored, with the ransomware strain only encrypting select portions of the file as opposed to the entire contents using two keystreams derived from the master key.

The encryption keystream, which is created from an XOR operation of the two keystreams, is then XORed with the data in alternate blocks to generate the encrypted file. But this technique also makes it possible to guess the keystreams and restore the master key, in turn enabling the decode of encrypted files sans the attacker’s private key.

The researchers said that they were able to weaponize the flaw to devise a method to reliably recover more than 95% of the keys employed during encryption.

Insurance Coverage for NotPetya Losses

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/insurance-coverage-for-notpetya-losses.html

Tarah Wheeler and Josephine Wolff analyze a recent court decision that the NotPetya attacks are not considered an act of war under the wording of Merck’s insurance policy, and that the insurers must pay the $1B+ claim. Wheeler and Wolff argue that the judge “did the right thing for the wrong reasons..”

Privacy Violating COVID Tests

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/privacy-violating-covid-tests.html

A good lesson in reading the fine print:

Cignpost Diagnostics, which trades as ExpressTest and offers £35 tests for holidaymakers, said it holds the right to analyse samples from seals to “learn more about human health” — and sell information on to third parties.

Individuals are required to give informed consent for their sensitive medical data to be used ­ but customers’ consent for their DNA to be sold now as buried in Cignpost’s online documents.

Of course, no one ever reads the fine print.

An Elaborate Employment Con in the Internet Age

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/an-elaborate-employment-con-in-the-internet-age.html

The story is an old one, but the tech gives it a bunch of new twists:

Gemma Brett, a 27-year-old designer from west London, had only been working at Madbird for two weeks when she spotted something strange. Curious about what her commute would be like when the pandemic was over, she searched for the company’s office address. The result looked nothing like the videos on Madbird’s website of a sleek workspace buzzing with creative-types. Instead, Google Street View showed an upmarket block of flats in London’s Kensington.

[…]

Using online reverse image searches they dug deeper. They found that almost all the work Madbird claimed as its own had been stolen from elsewhere on the internet — and that some of the colleagues they’d been messaging online didn’t exist.

[…]

At least six of the most senior employees profiled by Madbird were fake. Their identities stitched together using photos stolen from random corners of the internet and made-up names. They included Madbird’s co-founder, Dave Stanfield — despite him having a LinkedIn profile and Ali referring to him constantly. Some of the duped staff had even received emails from him.

Read the whole sad story. What’s amazing is how shallow all the fakery was, and how quickly it all unraveled once people started digging. But until there’s suspicion enough to dig, we take all of these things at face value. And in COVID times, there’s no face-to-face anything.

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Videos

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/friday-squid-blogging-squid-videos.html

Here are six beautiful squid videos. I know nothing more about them.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Read my blog posting guidelines here.

EDITED TO ADD (2/25): This post accidentally went live on Wednesday, two days early, and people started adding their comments then. I have changed the posting date to the correct one, which means that the comments existing before that time will appear to have been made before the post. I apologize for the confusion.

Bypassing Apple’s AirTag Security

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/bypassing-apples-airtag-security.html

A Berlin-based company has developed an AirTag clone that bypasses Apple’s anti-stalker security systems. Source code for these AirTag clones is available online.

So now we have several problems with the system. Apple’s anti-stalker security only works with iPhones. (Apple wrote an Android app that can detect AirTags, but how many people are going to download it?) And now non-AirTags can piggyback on Apple’s system without triggering the alarms.

Apple didn’t think this through nearly as well as it claims to have. I think the general problem is one that I have written about before: designers just don’t have intimate threats in mind when building these systems.

A New Cybersecurity “Social Contract”

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/a-new-cybersecurity-social-contract.html

The US National Cyber Director Chris Inglis wrote an essay outlining a new social contract for the cyber age:

The United States needs a new social contract for the digital age — one that meaningfully alters the relationship between public and private sectors and proposes a new set of obligations for each. Such a shift is momentous but not without precedent. From the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 to the Clean Air Act of 1963 and the public-private revolution in airline safety in the 1990s, the United States has made important adjustments following profound changes in the economy and technology.

A similarly innovative shift in the cyber-realm will likely require an intense process of development and iteration. Still, its contours are already clear: the private sector must prioritize long-term investments in a digital ecosystem that equitably distributes the burden of cyberdefense. Government, in turn, must provide more timely and comprehensive threat information while simultaneously treating industry as a vital partner. Finally, both the public and private sectors must commit to moving toward true collaboration — contributing resources, attention, expertise, and people toward institutions designed to prevent, counter, and recover from cyber-incidents.

The devil is in the details, of course, but he’s 100% right when he writes that the market cannot solve this: that the incentives are all wrong. While he never actually uses the word “regulation,” the future he postulates won’t be possible without it. Regulation is how society aligns market incentives with its own values. He also leaves out the NSA — whose effectiveness rests on all of these global insecurities — and the FBI, whose incessant push for encryption backdoors goes against his vision of increased cybersecurity. I’m not sure how he’s going to get them on board. Or the surveillance capitalists, for that matter. A lot of what he wants will require reining in that particular business model.

Good essay — worth reading in full.

Stealing Bicycles by Swapping QR Codes

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/stealing-bicycles-by-swapping-qr-codes.html

This is a clever hack against those bike-rental kiosks:

They’re stealing Citi Bikes by switching the QR scan codes on two bicycles near each other at a docking station, then waiting for an unsuspecting cyclist to try to unlock a bike with his or her smartphone app.

The app doesn’t work for the rider but does free up the nearby Citi Bike with the switched code, where a thief is waiting, jumps on the bicycle and rides off.

Presumably they’re using camera, printers, and stickers to swap the codes on the bikes. And presumably the victim is charged for not returning the stolen bicycle.

This story is from last year, but I hadn’t seen it before. There’s a video of one theft at the link.

Friday Squid Blogging: South American Squid Stocks Threatened by Chinese Fishing

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/friday-squid-blogging-south-american-squid-stocks-threatened-by-chinese-fishing.html

There’s a lot of fishing going on:

The number of Chinese-flagged vessels in the south Pacific has surged 13-fold from 54 active vessels in 2009 to 707 in 2020, according to the SPRFMO. Meanwhile, the size of China’s squid catch has grown from 70,000 tons in 2009 to 358,000.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Read my blog posting guidelines here.

Possible Government Surveillance of the Otter.ai Transcription App

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/possible-government-surveillance-of-the-otter-ai-transcription-app.html

A reporter interviews a Uyghur human-rights advocate, and uses the Otter.ai transcription app.

The next day, I received an odd note from Otter.ai, the automated transcription app that I had used to record the interview. It read: “Hey Phelim, to help us improve your Otter’s experience, what was the purpose of this particular recording with titled ‘Mustafa Aksu’ created at ‘2021-11-08 11:02:41’?”

Customer service or Chinese surveillance? Turns out it’s hard to tell.

Vendors are Fixing Security Flaws Faster

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/vendors-are-fixing-security-flaws-faster.html

Google’s Project Zero is reporting that software vendors are patching their code faster.

tl;dr

  • In 2021, vendors took an average of 52 days to fix security vulnerabilities reported from Project Zero. This is a significant acceleration from an average of about 80 days 3 years ago.
  • In addition to the average now being well below the 90-day deadline, we have also seen a dropoff in vendors missing the deadline (or the additional 14-day grace period). In 2021, only one bug exceeded its fix deadline, though 14% of bugs required the grace period.
  • Differences in the amount of time it takes a vendor/product to ship a fix to users reflects their product design, development practices, update cadence, and general processes towards security reports. We hope that this comparison can showcase best practices, and encourage vendors to experiment with new policies.
  • This data aggregation and analysis is relatively new for Project Zero, but we hope to do it more in the future. We encourage all vendors to consider publishing aggregate data on their time-to-fix and time-to-patch for externally reported vulnerabilities, as well as more data sharing and transparency in general.

Friday Squid Blogging: Climate Change Causing “Squid Bloom” along Pacific Coast

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/friday-squid-blogging-climate-change-causing-squid-bloom-along-pacific-coast.html

The oceans are warmer, which means more squid.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Read my blog posting guidelines here.

On the Irish Health Services Executive Hack

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/on-the-irish-health-services-executive-hack.html

A detailed report of the 2021 ransomware attack against Ireland’s Health Services Executive lists some really bad security practices:

The report notes that:

  • The HSE did not have a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) or a “single responsible owner for cybersecurity at either senior executive or management level to provide leadership and direction.
  • It had no documented cyber incident response runbooks or IT recovery plans (apart from documented AD recovery plans) for recovering from a wide-scale ransomware event.
  • Under-resourced Information Security Managers were not performing their business as usual role (including a NIST-based cybersecurity review of systems) but were working on evaluating security controls for the COVID-19 vaccination system. Antivirus software triggered numerous alerts after detecting Cobalt Strike activity but these were not escalated. (The antivirus server was later encrypted in the attack).
  • There was no security monitoring capability that was able to effectively detect, investigate and respond to security alerts across HSE’s IT environment or the wider National Healthcare Network (NHN).
  • There was a lack of effective patching (updates, bug fixes etc.) across the IT estate and reliance was placed on a single antivirus product that was not monitored or effectively maintained with updates across the estate. (The initial workstation attacked had not had antivirus signatures updated for over a year.)
  • Over 30,000 machines were running Windows 7 (out of support since January 2020).
  • The initial breach came after a HSE staff member interacted with a malicious Microsoft Office Excel file attached to a phishing email; numerous subsequent alerts were not effectively investigated.

PwC’s crisp list of recommendations in the wake of the incident ­ as well as detail on the business impact of the HSE ransomware attack ­ may prove highly useful guidance on best practice for IT professionals looking to set up a security programme and get it funded.

Bunnie Huang’s Plausibly Deniable Database

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/bunnie-huangs-plausibly-deniable-database.html

Bunnie Huang has created a Plausibly Deniable Database.

Most security schemes facilitate the coercive processes of an attacker because they disclose metadata about the secret data, such as the name and size of encrypted files. This allows specific and enforceable demands to be made: “Give us the passwords for these three encrypted files with names A, B and C, or else…”. In other words, security often focuses on protecting the confidentiality of data, but lacks deniability.

A scheme with deniability would make even the existence of secret files difficult to prove. This makes it difficult for an attacker to formulate a coherent demand: “There’s no evidence of undisclosed data. Should we even bother to make threats?” A lack of evidence makes it more difficult to make specific and enforceable demands.

[…]

Precursor is a device we designed to keep secrets, such as passwords, wallets, authentication tokens, contacts and text messages. We also want it to offer plausible deniability in the face of an attacker that has unlimited access to a physical device, including its root keys, and a set of “broadly known to exist” passwords, such as the screen unlock password and the update signing password. We further assume that an attacker can take a full, low-level snapshot of the entire contents of the FLASH memory, including memory marked as reserved or erased. Finally, we assume that a device, in the worst case, may be subject to repeated, intrusive inspections of this nature.

We created the PDDB (Plausibly Deniable DataBase) to address this threat scenario. The PDDB aims to offer users a real option to plausibly deny the existence of secret data on a Precursor device. This option is strongest in the case of a single inspection. If a device is expected to withstand repeated inspections by the same attacker, then the user has to make a choice between performance and deniability. A “small” set of secrets (relative to the entire disk size, on Precursor that would be 8MiB out of 100MiB total size) can be deniable without a performance impact, but if larger (e.g. 80MiB out of 100MiB total size) sets of secrets must be kept, then archived data needs to be turned over frequently, to foil ciphertext comparison attacks between disk imaging events.

I have been thinking about this sort of thing for many, many years. (Here’s my analysis of one such system.) I have come to realize that the threat model isn’t as simple as Bunnie describes. The goal is to prevent “rubber-hose cryptanalysis,” simply beating the encryption key out of someone. But while a deniable database or file system allows the person to plausibly say that there are no more keys to beat out of them, the perpetrators can never be sure. The value of a normal, undeniable encryption system is that the perpetrators will know when they can stop beating the person — the person can undeniably say that there are no more keys left to reveal.

Breaking 256-bit Elliptic Curve Encryption with a Quantum Computer

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/breaking-245-bit-elliptic-curve-encryption-with-a-quantum-computer.html

Researchers have calculated the quantum computer size necessary to break 256-bit elliptic curve public-key cryptography:

Finally, we calculate the number of physical qubits required to break the 256-bit elliptic curve encryption of keys in the Bitcoin network within the small available time frame in which it would actually pose a threat to do so. It would require 317 × 106 physical qubits to break the encryption within one hour using the surface code, a code cycle time of 1 μs, a reaction time of 10 μs, and a physical gate error of 10-3. To instead break the encryption within one day, it would require 13 × 106 physical qubits.

In other words: no time soon. Not even remotely soon. IBM’s largest ever superconducting quantum computer is 127 physical qubits.

Amy Zegart on Spycraft in the Internet Age

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/02/amy-zegart-on-spycraft-in-the-internet-age.html

Amy Zegart has a new book: Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence. Wired has an excerpt:

In short, data volume and accessibility are revolutionizing sensemaking. The intelligence playing field is leveling­ — and not in a good way. Intelligence collectors are everywhere, and government spy agencies are drowning in data. This is a radical new world and intelligence agencies are struggling to adapt to it. While secrets once conferred a huge advantage, today open source information increasingly does. Intelligence used to be a race for insight where great powers were the only ones with the capabilities to access secrets. Now everyone is racing for insight and the internet gives them tools to do it. Secrets still matter, but whoever can harness all this data better and faster will win.

The third challenge posed by emerging technologies strikes at the heart of espionage: secrecy. Until now, American spy agencies didn’t have to interact much with outsiders, and they didn’t want to. The intelligence mission meant gathering secrets so we knew more about adversaries than they knew about us, and keeping how we gathered secrets a secret too.

[…]

In the digital age, however, secrecy is bringing greater risk because emerging technologies are blurring nearly all the old boundaries of geopolitics. Increasingly, national security requires intelligence agencies to engage the outside world, not stand apart from it.

I have not yet read the book.