Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/friday-squid-blogging-bigfin-squid-captured-on-video.html
“Eerie video captures elusive, alien-like squid gliding in the Gulf of Mexico.”
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.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/new-rowhammer-technique.html
Rowhammer is an attack technique involving accessing — that’s “hammering” — rows of bits in memory, millions of times per second, with the intent of causing bits in neighboring rows to flip. This is a side-channel attack, and the result can be all sorts of mayhem.
Well, there is a new enhancement:
All previous Rowhammer attacks have hammered rows with uniform patterns, such as single-sided, double-sided, or n-sided. In all three cases, these “aggressor” rows — meaning those that cause bitflips in nearby “victim” rows — are accessed the same number of times.
Research published on Monday presented a new Rowhammer technique. It uses non-uniform patterns that access two or more aggressor rows with different frequencies. The result: all 40 of the randomly selected DIMMs in a test pool experienced bitflips, up from 13 out of 42 chips tested in previous work from the same researchers.
[…]
The non-uniform patterns work against Target Row Refresh. Abbreviated as TRR, the mitigation works differently from vendor to vendor but generally tracks the number of times a row is accessed and recharges neighboring victim rows when there are signs of abuse. The neutering of this defense puts further pressure on chipmakers to mitigate a class of attacks that many people thought more recent types of memory chips were resistant to.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/is-microsoft-stealing-peoples-bookmarks.html
I received email from two people who told me that Microsoft Edge enabled synching without warning or consent, which means that Microsoft sucked up all of their bookmarks. Of course they can turn synching off, but it’s too late.
Has this happened to anyone else, or was this user error of some sort? If this is real, can some reporter write about it?
(Not that “user error” is a good justification. Any system where making a simple mistake means that you’ve forever lost your privacy isn’t a good one. We see this same situation with sharing contact lists with apps on smartphones. Apps will repeatedly ask, and only need you to accidentally click “okay” once.)
EDITED TO ADD: It’s actually worse than I thought. Edge urges users to store passwords, ID numbers, and even passport numbers, all of which get uploaded to Microsoft by default when synch is enabled.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/wire-fraud-scam-upgraded-with-bitcoin.html
The FBI has issued a bulletin describing a bitcoin variant of a wire fraud scam:
As the agency describes it, the scammer will contact their victim and somehow convince them that they need to send money, either with promises of love, further riches, or by impersonating an actual institution like a bank or utility company. After the mark is convinced, the scammer will have them get cash (sometimes out of investment or retirement accounts), and head to an ATM that sells cryptocurrencies and supports reading QR codes. Once the victim’s there, they’ll scan a QR code that the scammer sent them, which will tell the machine to send any crypto purchased to the scammer’s address. Just like that, the victim loses their money, and the scammer has successfully exploited them.
[…]
The “upgrade” (as it were) for scammers with the crypto ATM method is two-fold: it can be less friction than sending a wire transfer, and at the end the scammer has cryptocurrency instead of fiat. With wire transfers, you have to fill out a form, and you may give that form to an actual person (who could potentially vibe check you). Using the ATM method, there’s less time to reflect on the fact that you’re about to send money to a stranger. And, if you’re a criminal trying to get your hands on Bitcoin, you won’t have to teach your targets how to buy coins on the internet and transfer them to another wallet — they probably already know how to use an ATM and scan a QR code.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/why-i-hate-password-rules.html
The other day, I was creating a new account on the web. It was financial in nature, which means it gets one of my most secure passwords. I used Password Safe to generate this 16-character alphanumeric password:
:s^Twd.J;3hzg=Q~
Which was rejected by the site, because it didn’t meet its password security rules.
It took me a minute to figure out what was wrong with it. The site wanted at least two numbers.
Okay, that’s not really why I don’t like password rules. I don’t like them because they’re all different. Even if someone has a strong password generation system, it is likely that whatever they come up with won’t pass somebody’s ruleset.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/book-sale-click-here-to-kill-everybody-and-data-and-goliath.html
For a limited time, I am selling signed copies of Click Here to Kill Everybody and Data and Goliath, both in paperback, for just $6 each plus shipping.
I have 500 copies of each book available. When they’re gone, the sale is over and the price will revert to normal.
Please be patient on delivery. It’s a lot of work to sign and mail hundreds of books. And the pandemic is causing mail slowdowns all over the world. I’ll send them out as quickly as I can, but I can’t guarantee any particular delivery date. Also, signed but not personalized books will arrive faster.
EDITED TO ADD (11/17): I am sold out. The sale is over.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/securing-your-smartphone.html
This is part 3 of Sean Gallagher’s advice for “securing your digital life.”
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/friday-squid-blogging-giant-squid-art.html
Images of giant squid (and octopi) attacking.
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.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/macos-zero-day-used-against-hong-kong-activists.html
Google researchers discovered a MacOS zero-day exploit being used against Hong Kong activists. It was a “watering hole” attack, which means the malware was hidden in a legitimate website. Users visiting that website would get infected.
From an article:
Google’s researchers were able to trigger the exploits and study them by visiting the websites compromised by the hackers. The sites served both iOS and MacOS exploit chains, but the researchers were only able to retrieve the MacOS one. The zero-day exploit was similar to another in-the-wild vulnerability analyzed by another Google researcher in the past, according to the report.
In addition, the zero-day exploit used in this hacking campaign is “identical” to an exploit previously found by cybersecurity research group Pangu Lab, Huntley said. Pangu Lab’s researchers presented the exploit at a security conference in China in April of this year, a few months before hackers used it against Hong Kong users.
The exploit was discovered in August. Apple patched the vulnerability in September. China is, of course, the obvious suspect, given the victims.
EDITED TO ADD (11/15): Another story.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/advice-for-personal-digital-security.html
ArsTechnica’s Sean Gallagher has a two–part article on “securing your digital life.”
It’s pretty good.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/hacking-the-sony-playstation-5.html
I just don’t think it’s possible to create a hack-proof computer system, especially when the system is physically in the hands of the hackers. The Sony Playstation 5 is the latest example:
Hackers may have just made some big strides towards possibly jailbreaking the PlayStation 5 over the weekend, with the hacking group Fail0verflow claiming to have managed to obtain PS5 root keys allowing them to decrypt the console’s firmware.
[…]
The two exploits are particularly notable due to the level of access they theoretically give to the PS5’s software. Decrypted firmware which is possible through Fail0verflow’s keys would potentially allow for hackers to further reverse engineer the PS5 software and potentially develop the sorts of hacks that allowed for things like installing Linux, emulators, or even pirated games on past Sony consoles.
In 1999, Adam Shostack and I wrote a paper discussing the security challenges of giving people devices that included embedded secrets that needed to be kept from those people. We were writing about smart cards, but our lessons were general. And they’re no less applicable today.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/drones-carrying-explosives.html
We’ve now had an (unsuccessful) assassination attempt by explosive-laden drones.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/friday-squid-blogging-squid-game-cryptocurrency-was-a-scam.html
The Squid Game cryptocurrency was a complete scam:
The SQUID cryptocurrency peaked at a price of $2,861 before plummeting to $0 around 5:40 a.m. ET., according to the website CoinMarketCap. This kind of theft, commonly called a “rug pull” by crypto investors, happens when the creators of the crypto quickly cash out their coins for real money, draining the liquidity pool from the exchange.
I don’t know why anyone would trust an investment — any investment — that you could buy but not sell.
Wired story.
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.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/us-blacklists-nso-group.html
The Israeli cyberweapons arms manufacturer — and human rights violator, and probably war criminal — NSO Group has been added to the US Department of Commerce’s trade blacklist. US companies and individuals cannot sell to them. Aside from the obvious difficulties this causes, it’ll make it harder for them to buy zero-day vulnerabilities on the open market.
This is another step in the ongoing US actions against the company.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/using-fake-student-accounts-to-shill-brands.html
It turns out that it’s surprisingly easy to create a fake Harvard student and get a harvard.edu email account. Scammers are using that prestigious domain name to shill brands:
Basically, it appears that anyone with $300 to spare can – or could, depending on whether Harvard successfully shuts down the practice — advertise nearly anything they wanted on Harvard.edu, in posts that borrow the university’s domain and prestige while making no mention of the fact that it in reality they constitute paid advertising….
A Harvard spokesperson said that the university is working to crack down on the fake students and other scammers that have gained access to its site. They also said that the scammers were creating the fake accounts by signing up for online classes and then using the email address that process provided to infiltrate the university’s various blogging platforms.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/on-cell-phone-metadata.html
Interesting Twitter thread on how cell phone metadata can be used to identify and track people who don’t want to be identified and tracked.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/11/hiding-vulnerabilities-in-source-code.html
Really interesting research demonstrating how to hide vulnerabilities in source code by manipulating how Unicode text is displayed. It’s really clever, and not the sort of attack one would normally think about.
From Ross Anderson’s blog:
We have discovered ways of manipulating the encoding of source code files so that human viewers and compilers see different logic. One particularly pernicious method uses Unicode directionality override characters to display code as an anagram of its true logic. We’ve verified that this attack works against C, C++, C#, JavaScript, Java, Rust, Go, and Python, and suspect that it will work against most other modern languages.
This potentially devastating attack is tracked as CVE-2021-42574, while a related attack that uses homoglyphs –- visually similar characters –- is tracked as CVE-2021-42694. This work has been under embargo for a 99-day period, giving time for a major coordinated disclosure effort in which many compilers, interpreters, code editors, and repositories have implemented defenses.
Website for the attack. Rust security advisory.
Brian Krebs has a blog post.
EDITED TO ADD (11/12): An older paper on similar issues.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/10/friday-squid-blogging-squid-game-has-a-cryptocurrency.html
In what maybe peak hype, Squid Game has its own cryptocurrency. Not in the fictional show, but in real life.
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.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/10/more-russian-svr-supply-chain-attacks.html
Microsoft is reporting that the same attacker that was behind the SolarWinds breach — the Russian SVR, which Microsoft is calling Nobelium — is continuing with similar supply-chain attacks:
Nobelium has been attempting to replicate the approach it has used in past attacks by targeting organizations integral to the global IT supply chain. This time, it is attacking a different part of the supply chain: resellers and other technology service providers that customize, deploy and manage cloud services and other technologies on behalf of their customers. We believe Nobelium ultimately hopes to piggyback on any direct access that resellers may have to their customers’ IT systems and more easily impersonate an organization’s trusted technology partner to gain access to their downstream customers. We began observing this latest campaign in May 2021 and have been notifying impacted partners and customers while also developing new technical assistance and guidance for the reseller community. Since May, we have notified more than 140 resellers and technology service providers that have been targeted by Nobelium. We continue to investigate, but to date we believe as many as 14 of these resellers and service providers have been compromised. Fortunately, we have discovered this campaign during its early stages, and we are sharing these developments to help cloud service resellers, technology providers, and their customers take timely steps to help ensure Nobelium is not more successful.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/10/how-the-fbi-gets-location-information.html
Vice has a detailed article about how the FBI gets data from cell phone providers like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, based on a leaked (I think) 2019 139-page presentation.