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I have sensitive data that will be hosted on a website, and I would like to prevent the data from being exposed in this scenario: The primary user logs off the application, but does not close the browser (assume a Kiosk environment ) Then and a second (malicious) user approaches the terminal and then hits the back bu...
The Massachusetts and Nevada PII laws require all email with SSNs or other personally identifying information to be encrypted (TLS or otherwise). Of the free email providers, GMail does support TLS but they also index the message contents to provide contextual advertising through AdSense. If we were to recommend our cl...
It's common knowledge among graphic designers that they can rename a PDF file and import it into Illustrator and access the "layers" within the document, revealing hidden information. I don't know enough about the binary image formats (jpeg, bmp, gifs), or the variety of applications that exist to edit or manipulate su...
I'm a decent programmer, fluent in several languages. Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Haskell, and Scheme are my favorites. I'm currently adding Perl to the mix. I haven't done much "low-level" programming. I've screwed around at the logic gate level and built a few basic chips, but I've never programmed in assembly. While I...
When I get credentials for a new machine, my company will often send the login id in email, then SMS (or sometimes Skype msg) the password. This is obviously in order to separate the login and password into separate channels under the assumption that it would be very unlikely that an eavesdropper would be sniffing bot...
I've just discovered this: You can create IFRAME pointing to "chrome-extension://" protocol You can access IFRAME content with jQuery Does this mean, I'm able to use badly written Chrome Extensions to exploit user workspace? by accessing extension files directly (sqlite db with passwords,...) using chrome.extensio...
I have a desktop application that uses a kind of package format to load a blob and do something with it. To ensure the authenticity of the blob, I would like to add a digital signature. I researched the topic and there is one thing I do not understand. If I distribute the public key with the package (having it availab...
I'm looking for well known tools that will scan for any PII within a network. For example, I would like to be able to use a plug and play method, meaning I drive to a client, plug my laptop in, and scan for all sensitive material, such as SSN, Account numbers, medical records, etc. I believe I'm looking for a "portable...
I connect to the VPN of another company with a company-specific username and password (they aren't giving everyone the same password to every company to access it or anything ridiculous like that.) After one of our employees left, I contacted this company about updating our password. I was told they are unable to chang...
My friend's GMail account was recently hacked and the perpetrator sent out one of those classic "help I was mugged, I need money" style e-mails. (Edit: I know it's legit; my friend called me to tell me she'd been hacked.) I figured this would be a fun experiment. This is perhaps more suited for a forum, but I have the ...
I'd like to set up OWASP WebGoat or a similar vulnerable web app in a VM (probably VirtualBox on Linux). For convenience's sake, I'd like to get it running on one of the primary machines I use (say, a laptop with an internet connection). I realize virtual machines don't provide complete security and isolation for, say,...
I know that you use tokens to prevent CSRF, but how should the receiving page respond when it is attacked? Should it fail silently, pretending the transaction was successful? Display an error message? Log the attack? Please explain your reasoning for your answer as I'd like to understand the why behind a best practice....
We know that WPA/WPA2-PSK uses a PTK (Pairwise Transient Key) for each client to encrypt the communication. This PTK is generated through the process known as 4-way handshake. As told in the related page on Wikipedia: The PTK is generated by concatenating the following attributes: PMK, AP nonce (ANonce), STA nonce (SN...
Everyday, I see many of my friends downloading movies off P2P networks like BitTorrent. Isn't there any way for those hardworking movie producers to save their work from being distributed like this? As a security enthusiast, I'm interested in knowing the technical methodologies for stopping the files from spreading ove...
The problem of SSL-Exhaustion attacks is well known for years, but nobody really cared until THC released their exploit-tool recently. THC talks about counter measurements in their release: No real solutions exists. The following steps can mitigate (but not solve) the problem: 1. Disable SSL-Renegotiation 2. Invest int...
While using a wireless network recently that implemented a captive gateway, I noticed that any third party DNS servers manually set would not allow the network to connect properly. This would seem to have the advantage of being able to block sites via DNS and not have people bypass that block by using an alternative D...
I know that NSXTS and Iodine can be used to bypass a captive portal by taking advantage of permissive DNS firewall rules. What I have found recently is that simply by using Tor, I can also bypass a captive portal without any need for manually configuring a DNS server under my control. Nor do I have to agree to anything...
How easily could someone crack my keepass .kdbx file if that person steals the file but never obtains the Master Password? Is this a serious threat, or would a brute force attack require massive computing time? Assume a password more than 10 characters long with randomly distributed characters of the set including ...
I'm comparing the HTTP headers of the various providers (LiveID, Google, Yahoo, etc) and notice a broad inconsistency in implementation on the sign in page, sign out page, and subsequent pages. What headers should I set/ignore, and what is the correct value to use in the following scenarios: SignIn General usage (HTT...
Being employed in the infosec field I would like to set a good example. However I also do not believe in sweating the small stuff and would like to maximize my productivity. My current workplace, while piloting byo devices, iPads etc does not yet have an enterprise iPad solution. I have a personal iPad that I would lik...
This does not involve me directly. However a friend believes her files are being tampered with and/or deleted by the only Windows domain admin there. (She has since kept backups) This started after she put in a complaint about him for misconduct (I'm being vague here as not to identify the person). What exactly can one...
It there reliable method of "wrapping" system calls under Linux ? (Like LD_PRELOAD for wrapping shared library function calls.) Is there reliable, secure method of "wrapping" system calls (and, maybe receiving signals), that process can not break (assuming proper Linux implementation) ?
It there a reliable method of “monitoring” system calls under Linux? There is strace for example to monitor system calls and signals. Is there a way for a process to dodge out of strace? If yes, is there another reliable, secure method of "monitoring" system calls (and, maybe receiving signals), that a process cannot e...
Google and Facebook authentication both have fake P3P policies in the HTTP headers that link to a webpage that explains why they don't support it: CP="This is not a P3P policy! See http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=151657 for more info." CP="Facebook does not have a P3P policy. Learn wh...
I can't wrap my head around how Yadis / XRDS would be used by a typical end user, or how it works so transparently? Considering that this technology isn't adopted by mainstream IDPs that makes me think this is an abandoned technology (last wiki edit was 2008). How does Yadis / XRDS work, and is it applicable or releva...
We have an SSL cert from GoDaddy and tried to run a PCI compliance check using McAfee's scan. The one problem they found was that the basic constraints / path length is not configured. Here's what they wrote back: An X.509 certificate sent by the remote host contains one or more violations of the restrictions imposed ...
I don't really know anything about computers. I need to run a virtual Windows machine inside an Ubuntu system. My current setup uses a stripped down version of Windows XP on VirtualBox. I intend to use RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) regularly to connect into the Ubuntu host. Is it possible for a program (or user RDP'...
I'm looking for a comprehensive list of browser test sites so that I can visually prove that the browser is patched and configured for safe web browsing. My intent is to know what risks may exist prior to using the browser. (as I may be using a Beta or a mobile version of a mainstream browser and want to verify) The ...
Some company have domain names worth a million dollar. But sometime they are lost to hackers. So I wonder how can we protect domains by law instead of technology?
So I'm always browsing the web through Privoxy using minimum these rules: vi /etc/privoxy/user.action { +redirect{s@http://@https://@} } .chrome.google.com .code.google.com .docs.google.com .encrypted.google.com .googlecode.com .googlelabs.com .mail.google.com # google calendar { +redirect{s@http://www.google.com/ca...
After reading this forum thread it does not sound like encrypted SSDs provide much protection at all - specifically encryption only occurs between the controller chipset and the NAND storage. Why is this? Is this a usual disk encryption design? Are there any studies of encrypted SSD hardware? What are the weaknesses a...
Often when I install applications on my computer, I realize that I need to trust the application because it can do what ever it want with my computer, e.g. accessing files, listen to my keyboard, monitor my network and so on. This feels unsecure. E.g. on Windows 7, how can I control or restrict what an application that...
A simple custom DLL source would be sufficient. All of the links I find on Google are dead. I don't mind reading some clear source if there's a tutorial DLL floating about. I tried for meterpreter and custom-payload tags... sadly no dice.
The OpenSSL website provides a long list of different ciphers available for SSL and TLS. My question is, which of those ciphers can be considered secure nowadays. I am especially interested in HTTPS, if this should matter, although I guess it doesn't. I am aware of the Apache Recommendation to use SSLCipherSuite HIGH:M...
My boss' computer has become infected with something called "Security Sphere". When googling for information on how to remove it I get many pages that have been optimized for the term "Security Sphere removal", usually trying to sell their own spyware removal tool. So I thought I would turn to a source I trust. How do...
There are at least three different common approaches to creating a threat model: Attacker-centric Software-centric Asset-centric You can take a look at Wikipedia for a quick overview. I wonder if one of those approaches has proven to be superior in general or if you have to choose them depending on the situation at h...
Is Facebook allowed to sell information about their users to other companies? For example selling name, address and IP information on a specific geographic location could be very valuable information for competitive ISP's trying to win customers from each other. According to Facebook's privacy help page it sais: While...
Short version What are the risks/ benefits / drawbacks of RODC's vs Child Domains vs Forest Trusts in AD Background I'm working with a company that has various business agreements between many small companies (200 to 400), and varying needs of control, trust, and autonomy between all of these business entities. The...
Why banking websites always ask me to authenticate my PC even after I'd chosen to Remember my PC? This is the case with all banking websites
I have an android phone which, like many others, has quickly become unsupported and is not receiving any updates. At the same time there are publicly available exploits for privilege-escalation vulnerabilities, which are mainly used for legitimate rooting the phone, however as far as I can see there is nothing stopping...
Often I install simple add-ons for Google Chrome. However, they almost all need what appears to me as excessive access to my data. For instance, I install an extension that allows me to click on any part of a page and it gives me the color of the clicked object. This is what this extension requires: Why does it need m...
A high security environment requires trust in the integrity of the employees. I am talking about administrators, developers and everyone else who could compromise the security easily. One way to reduce the risk is the application of the four-eyes principle, centralized logging and other ways of surveillance. In additio...
At a large enterprise environment I have come across a deployment approach for Digital Certificates where each user is issued two (2) key pairs: One for signing documents, emails, etc. that is completely "personal" (perhaps kept only by him in an e.g. smart card) One for encryption. To avoid any situations of user un...
Is one required to hash passwords by law in the US or elsewhere? If not required by law, are there legal ramifications if unhashed passwords are stolen? If not required in the US, but required in the EU, can one legally do business in the EU without hashing passwords?
I have the following process for encrypting and decrypting data in a python script using the PyCrypto module: Encryption - Server A AES 256 shared key is generated Associated IV is generated Data is encrypted using AES 256 shared key and associated IV using CBC mode and stored into the db RSA 4096 public key is used t...
I understand that it is bad to send passwords in plain text over the wire because somebody can look at it and clearly steal your information, and that the solution is to use HTTPS because the information is encrypted between end points. If you are on an untrusted network where other people can see traffic to/from your ...
I am wondering if there is any best practice firewalling rules that should be put in effect in most modern networks. For example should the network atleast have the following firewall zones? Client network DMZ Customer facing network (internett) Is it considered best practice to keep and maintain firewalls inside the...
I have little security knowledge and looking at image hosting for a startup: Considering S3 doesn't allow you to set a cap on costs, how likely is it that someone could flood S3 with requests for my files and run up a considerable amount of money? Say I have a 2MB document, is it possible for someone to send millions o...
I've just read this question What is the corrupted image vulnerability? How does it work? (GIFAR, EXIF data with javascript, etc..) I'm asking myself how can I protect myself and my website's users. My users are allowed to upload their own images (e.g. forum avatars, pictures as part of a message), these pictures being...
This is something that has been bugging me for quite some time: when I have a wifi access point with WPA2 encryption and I give out the key, how secure are the connections? With WEP you could easily decrypt all packets using the same key, but with WPA2 I'm not sure. Are all individual connections still secure? So, this...
I am building a web application which requires users to login. All communication goes through https. I am using bcrypt to hash passwords. I am facing a dilemma - I used to think it is safer to make a password hash client-side (using JavaScript) and then just compare it with the hash in DB server-side. But I am not sure...
Background: Recently I've seen hits for InstallIQ a "potentially unwanted application" from ESET. From what I can find it seems like this is an installer wrapper that asks people to install other benign software. It seems a lot of free software is using this to make some money from referrals. Questions: Is there an...
I'm about to distribute some relatively cheap promotional usb drives to some of my company's clients. I'm fairly confident the company I purchased them from wouldn't intentionally implant malware on the drives - but they were pretty cheap - how can I be sure that they do not have some sort of malware or rootkit secretl...
If you use a quick hashing algorithm like MD5 or SHA-1 to hash passwords and you don't use any salt at all, how quickly could one expect a hacker to find my password out? If I use a truly random salt for each user, on what order of magnitude will this affect the length of time to crack my password? I have heard that ha...
This is based on Stack Exchange podcast # 25. I really don't understand why there would need to be virus checking on uploaded files. It would generally be a bad idea to execute anything which was uploaded, so, so long as you make sure the files can't be executed... Granted, I also use Linux for my servers, so I leave ...
I was asked to deliver a signed SSL certificate for an IIS server for a client. I have previously done this for the same client/domain before, so it start to seem like an unnecessary expense to hold multiply certificates for different subdomains. Godaddy charges around $250 for a single SSL certificate with 5 year dura...
It occurred to me that the WIF FedAuth cookies contain identity information, that if tampered with, could permit someone to assume the identity of another user. Fortunately, WIF does cryptographically Authenticate the message, but I don't understand how this is done. What happens first, Authentication or Encryption...
I would like to check a Nokia N8 for possible software that might send any kind of data without my consent. Is there a specific tool to achieve this? Are there specific techniques?
I'm learning pentesting from books. So far I thought I know about DNS but now I'm completely lost and confused. well, I know what happens when you enter domain name in your browser: Say, I've bought a domain on name.com. So, all my DNS information will be stored with name.com right? Because I can manage my domain info...
Pidgin started prompting me to accept/reject new gtalk SSL certificate a few days ago and I am not able at the moment to tunnel the traffic to check if it would continue to happen or if it wouldn't (which would mean an attempt of SSL MITM attack). How (and where) can I check if the new SSL certificate is valid? Can I ...
If a user uploads a file but modifies the request by setting the mime-type to something arbitrary, like "superdangerous/blackhatstuff", is it safe for me to send the same mime type back to a different user later on? I.e. another user downloads the same file and I set the mimetype to "superdangerous/blackhatstuff", is ...
I was wondering if it possible to encrypt a flash drive (or any other external medium) using certificates instead of a password. The idea is to have a number of encrypted pendrives that can be used on PCs that have the appropriate certificate but nowhere else. Any ideas how that could be implemented?
Has anyone worked with eWay payment gateway before? Basically, there's a service endpoint where you post the customer's detail and credit card details from the web application after the browser sends those detail to the server. Now, how's that security of anykind? (Please note I'm no security expert. Just a developer) ...
When I was a kid, WEP had a 40 bit key. Later, they came out with a 128-bit key. But as we all know, WEP was so badly-designed that the RC4 key length didn't really matter much. Ignoring this, my question is about how to derive the 40-bit or 128-bit key from an ASCII string: this used to be platform-specific. In oth...
I would like to read more on Duqu and similar exploits when they appear. The problem is that most references from google are for laymen. Isn't there a reference website or... that reports on these exploits with words adequate to security experts?
Bear in mind that, although I am pretty good at coding clientside javascript, I am not so great at dealing with serverside PHP. It doesn't help that there is very little information/tutorials/APIs on suPHP. I am assuming you use it exactly like PHP and it magically knows to run all scripts as the owner of that script. ...
Are there any encryption (decryption?) libraries that take advantage of the Windows GPU API?
Sandboxing seem to be a way to restrict what an application can do. Today, I don't have much control of what my applications do with my computer. It feels more secure to use JavaScript based web applications than run native applications on my Windows system. What are the reasons to why applications aren't sandboxed by ...
I'm currently studying the Bell-LaPadula model and i need to do an implementation as an example. I understand how the model works, but I have difficulties implementing it in a programming language (for example Java). I consider to have the following classifications: Restricted, Confidential, Secret, Top Secret a...
Possible Duplicate: Is the Facebook login form using SSL without https in the URL? If you access http://www.facebook.com/, in the top right side there is the login section. You can enter your credentials there and click "Log In". My URL is on http:// though (!?). Is the login safe?
It is often helpful to be able to obtain a good cryptographic checksum of a file, e.g. the SHA-256 hash. This can be used to verify file integrity, so long as you have a reliable source for the hash. Support for both SHA-256 and MD5 from the command line are provided by default in Ubuntu and probably other flavors of ...
For as long as can remember, EICAR has been used to test for the presence of Antivirus systems in email, the file system, or other places. Sometimes the AV solution is so far out of date, that its efficacy is basically zero. That leads me to question why have support for EICAR at all? Is this test obsolete, and sho...
I have a few columns in the database which should be encrypted. I'm wondering if the way I chose to make this system work is ok, and I'm looking forward to hear some opinions: I chose RSA algorithm (with phpseclib). The data I need encrypted will be entered by users, so the private key needed for encrypting it will be ...
I have recently updated a website from Django 1.0 to 1.3. One of the changes introduced was automatic protection against CSRF attacks. For the most part, this works great, but I have a problem with clients that for some reason do not accept cookies at all. While it is OK to refuse such clients to register or log in, th...
I need some advice to choose a Keepass client on Android phone which can synchronize using Dropbox. As i keep all my passwords in one place, I would like to keep it safe. Is KeepassDroid client safe to use on mobile phones? Any bad experiences by using such a client?
Would you prefer a private cloud for your data or a public one? Who takes care of financial liability in case of any breach? Do companies still keep the most critical within their data centers, but would not mind hosting their other non-critical data on the cloud? Is the strategy to wait and watch? Or would you take...
I'm not sure if this question fits better in StackOverflowSE or CryptoSE but i think this is the right place. In an online community portal I want to save users' private messages encrypted in a database so the information can't be leaked if someone gets access to the database. But I have no idea how to manage the keys....
The X-Forwarded-For header is used by some HTTP proxies to identify the IP address of the client. The wiki page (linked above) mentions that ISPs may use this header as well. In addition there are a variety additional headers that may be used to identify a client. Some examples include: HTTP_CLIENT_IP HTTP_X_FORWARDE...
Is there a security benefit to using the browser's thumbprint in addition to a session identifier to identify a unique session? Would it then be advisable to ask the user to reauthenticate (or simply refresh the session token) if the thumbprint changes? Edit 1 Is anyone aware of server side implementations (DLLs) that...
It just isn't clear to me which choice is good for creating small/intermediate networks. I know one of flaws of Hubs is that they send all packets to all nodes connected to it, in contrast to Switch which can decide where each packet needs to be transmitted. Please explain to me what are the differences between each of...
This subject might just barely be a programming topic. Though, in my point of view, it is of great concern to programmers because of our responsibility to develop secure code. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about web exploits in my country. Certain organisation keep posting passwords and databases that they ha...
If an encrypted ASP.NET Viewstate is submitted with every form, and control POST, does that mean that ASP.NET is less vulnerable to CSRF than other solutions with this? What is the extent and limitation of that protection? Since the AntiForgeryToken isn't implemented by default in ASP.NET MVC does that mean that those ...
I wonder how hackers find vulnerabilities. If they use fuzzing, security engineers do it, and it's probably that security engineers (that work in a firm) have more resources than a group of hackers. Reverse-engineering takes a lot of time, and I think it's not reliable enough to depend on. Is that really the case, or ...
Lets say I want to run a out-of-the-box instance on Amazon EC2 and on my own standalone server. I don't run anything on them, just let them idle by themselves. What is the relative level of security offered by Amazon in that situation in comparison to a standalone server (say, if someone wanted to brake into those serv...
The * star property requirement for append access [SC(S) <= SC(O)] is looser than for write access [SC(S) = SC(O)]. Can someone explain the reason for this?
This answer describes a situation where CSRF can be used to trick an end user to enter a credit card into another person's Paypal account. It also highlights the fact that state-changing GET requests are just as bad a POST requests. This is pretty simple to understand when dealing with a single forms based authenticat...
Please explain the meaning of "AND 1 = 1" in a SQL injection attack. It's from an exercise in my university. E.g. select * from user where id = 'smith'' AND 1=1;-- and birthdate = 1970; or select * from user where id = 'smith' and birthdate = 1970 AND 1=1;--;
Amazon's S3 storage service offers server-side encryption of objects, automatically managed for the user (Amazon's Documentation). It's easy to enable so I'm thinking "why not?", but what kind of security does this really provide? I guess it prevents someone from wandering into the AWS datacenter and grabbing a hard dr...
I've signed on to help a department move buildings and upgrade their dated infrastructure. This department has about 40 employees, 25 desktops, an old Novell server, and a handful of laboratory processing machines with attached systems. At the old location, this department had two networks - a LAN with no outside acces...
I know Firefox 8 stores it's passwords in a SQLite database, which can easily be stolen with access to the HDD! What about Thunderbird 8? How does it store the passwords and how can one retieve them? I know NirSoft has this nice tool to retrieve passwords, but it's not compatible with Thunderbird > 5.
I'm comparing the pros and cons between having an authenticated "stateless" ASP.NET MVC session versus a ASP.NET Forms application with viewstate. Assuming that there is a webfarm of more than 1 web server behind a load balancer: What threats would a stateless application have that a traditional "state aware" applica...
Is there a website with the ability to search through viruses that will return detailed information on them? I can't seem to find one and I'm tired of only getting forums when I search for a specific virus on Google. I want to be able to look up a particular virus and read information about what that particular virus...
What would be the process in pentesting a Silverlight application? What would be the best method to proceed in a manual test? Any specific tools use? For example an application with lot of file upload, user input fields and database connectivity (with and without ORM).
I'm not in my college campus right now. In campus we had private LAN. There my computer was directly connected to a gateway. Using subnet masks I used to find out fellow nodes on my subnet. There were tens of such subnets and we used to access internet using a proxy server, it made requests on our behalf and fetched da...
Is there a proven library with functions for preventing XSS attacks? Many people don't realise that htmlspecialchars is not enough to prevent XSS attacks. There are various contexts that need their own escaping (html properties, Javascript, more?). Is there a proven library that will provide functions for me to escape ...
We have a web application behind a firewall that requires no user authentication. If we open up access to this application via the firewall to a small list of IP addresses what is the risk of unauthorized access from other hosts? Is there a risk to the web server and other hosts behind the firewall. If there is a risk ...
How unique is this bug? Is there a more sophisticated and well-studied attempt behind? Is it accidence? The article below says "continouos stream to UDP". What stream? Just an hour stream of zeros? 1.000.000 PSs of 1601 bytes packets of zeros? Of the information provided around this bug, it look "accidentally discover...
For connecting to a remote Windows Server 2008 I use a standard Windows 7 RDP remote desktop connection. In an RDP dialog there is an option to save connection parameters to an RDP file to use it later for a quick connection. Is it safe to save connection parameters (IP address, login, password) in an RDP file? The com...
I'm a post graduate student and self taught programmer. I concentrated on Computer Networks & Operating Systems more during my undergraduate studies. I can explain usually used protocols by sniffing the traffic on wires. Operating Systems was my obsession, I know internals of Linux (read code & books). Now I'm teaching...
In a hypothetical system, lets say that a design requirement is that people who snoop around the database of a web application (sysadmin gone rogue, or what have you), do not have access to the plain text of private messages between users. An encrypted version of the text is stored instead. The easy way to do this is t...

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