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Wondering if there was a possible attack vector still around for LFI attacks that remove the file extension. Obviously the null byte was fixed in previous PHP versions and no longer works, along with file truncation. To clarify, is there a method of reading /etc/passwd with this code in PHP 5.4.4+ assuming worst case server side settings. include( $_GET['page'] . '.php' );
I've a ssh host key login setup in a remote server, for some reason, the DNS of that host is mapped to another server. So assume the mistaken host cannot be trusted, should I change my key?
I am trying to generate RSA 1024 key pair (public/private) using the following command openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024 In the server.key file, only RSA private block is there, so where does the public key go ?
My computer won't let me log into my account. On the Windows sign in screen it has my account name, but when I put in my password, it always says my password is wrong. No Caps Lock. This happened just after I configured MadMACs to "Run on Startup" and rebooted Windows! Can MadMACs change/corrupt Windows' login password? I'm using Windows 7 x64 Ultimate. Here's the MadMACs' source code I already reinstalled Windows but I'm afraid if it was a malware some data might be stolen (bitcoin wallet and other important stuff).
Disclaimer: I know I should use bcrypt to securely store user's passwords. Please, keep reading. I want to store credentials for several email services for each user. So if I log in with my username and password (which is properly hashed), then I can access several emails, including 2 @hotmail, 1 @gmail, my university one and several others through imap. I'm using imap to read the emails, which requires the email and password in plain text. So, how do I securely store these passwords? What I've thought of: Some services offer an API. Use them whenever possible. Encrypt each user's credentials with their login passwords, so only a user that knows his login details can decrypt his credentials and thus access the emails. I'm not sure of how to properly do this, so here's where I need help. I'd use mcrypt_encrypt() from PHP with MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256. Request the password each time the user logs in. Not practical if the user has more than 2 services connected. TL;DR How do I store passwords in a db so I can use them with imap later on?
I am a staff member of a large fanfic site, but not the head administrator with control over the site itself. Recently, we had a security breach and the databases were copied, which included the users' usernames, emails, and password hashes. We put a notice on the front page telling people that we were hacked and that they should change their passwords anywhere else where they use the same password. However, during a staff meeting, we had a chance to look at the backend structure. Turns out everything was MD5, with the same salt for every user. I have been trying to convince the rest of the team that this is a very bad situation. I do not think they understand how easy it is for someone to break most of those passwords in a short amount of time despite everything I have done to explain the basics of salting and why MD5 is too fast to be good password security (I've been recommending bcrypt). If compromised users are using the same passwords on other sites, they are at risk of being compromised there, as well. But most importantly, I've been imploring them to email the users, because simply posting a quick notice on the front page is not going to reach everyone. Their main counterarguments: We have limited ability to send out that many emails from our server, so reaching everyone is not feasible. (I then recommended Mailchimp, but this was "too expensive" and that I am asking them to do "more than the big companies would do, who have more resources"). If someone's password is weak enough to be cracked that quickly, there is no point in emailing them because the attacker would have compromised them already by now. Our main focus is patching up security going forward, not worrying about the past. I've been trying to counter these arguments because I think they are not responsible or justified excuses, but I appear to be failing. It seems like a huge risk to have an information leak like this when security was this poor, and then not properly inform your users (directly via email) that they need to change their passwords. Putting up a notice on the main page or relying on word of mouth, to me, is not nearly enough and won't necessarily reach inactive users who still have accounts on the site (which are many, if not most). Am I overreacting? Am I expecting too much from them? Is it unreasonable for me to expect them to email everyone? Am I overestimating the severity of the situation? What more can I do or say in this situation?
I have just received an email from a close friend, which had "Pionee Red" as the subject, and the following body: you've a new private message from your friend Click To View The Full Message As I hovered over the link, the following address appeared: http://107.183.127.168/l/?gapaxobi=xayimasodo&batipikumemajojipo=&id=d2lsc29ubWFyYXZpbGhhQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ==&xuranoteyu=d2lsc29ubWFyYXZpbGhh When I followed the link (from my VM), it took me to the screen below: Where the email field was pre-filled with my actual email (not the one in the screenshot) I went a little further and navigated to the IP contained in the original URL to see where that led, and it redirected many times before it finally took me to http://www.kiss4you.com/ ...where I was invited to Date Crazy in Happy Hours with more than 30 000 thousands of Beautiful Girls from Russia Is that even a number? Crazy stuff. Anyway, what I wanted to ask is: How badly might my friend's account be compromised? Which security steps should we take? Should we submit some sort of report anywhere about this?
I have been asked to compare "officially" some pentest certifications, namely: GIAC CEH OPST OSCP ...and if you have some more, they're welcome! Now, I have my points of view and I don't want to be biased by them, hence I would like to ask you if you have some references to benchmarks or comments around the network. And yes, I know Google's a friend, but people's mind works somehow better. Especially, considering that this is a heavily "sponsored" topic.
I am using the following iptables rules for port knocking. Everything works well, but it open the port for just a second and then close it. So how to improve this script to accept connection for a 30 seconds for example ? #!/bin/sh iptables -F iptables -X iptables -Z iptables -N STATE0 iptables -A STATE0 -p udp --dport 12345 -m recent --name KNOCK1 --set -j DROP iptables -A STATE0 -j DROP iptables -N STATE1 iptables -A STATE1 -m recent --name KNOCK1 --remove iptables -A STATE1 -p udp --dport 23456 -m recent --name KNOCK2 --set -j DROP iptables -A STATE1 -j STATE0 iptables -N STATE2 iptables -A STATE2 -m recent --name KNOCK2 --remove iptables -A STATE2 -p udp --dport 34567 -m recent --name KNOCK3 --set -j DROP iptables -A STATE2 -j STATE0 iptables -N STATE3 iptables -A STATE3 -m recent --name KNOCK3 --remove iptables -A STATE3 -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT iptables -A STATE3 -j STATE0 iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -s 127.0.0.0/8 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p icmp -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -m recent --name KNOCK3 --rcheck -j STATE3 iptables -A INPUT -m recent --name KNOCK2 --rcheck -j STATE2 iptables -A INPUT -m recent --name KNOCK1 --rcheck -j STATE1 iptables -A INPUT -j STATE0
I'm learning that much of the security advice I come across under the "hardening" heading simply does not apply to a single-user home desktop box sitting in a private wireless IPv4 LAN behind a Comcast cable modem. Furthermore, FWIW, this system is Unix-based, and sudo is used whenever superuser privileges are needed. My understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that such a machine is basically "invisible to the outside", and thus cannot be specifically targeted, out-of-the-blue, by some random attacker. (See https://security.stackexchange.com/a/7831/49340.) Therefore, AFAICT, the only significant vulnerabilities for such a machine would fall into one of four broad categories: "physical access" (e.g. a break-in); insecure passwords and/or weak password management; vectors inadvertently downloaded by the user while browsing the web; remote (third-party) site vulnerabilities. The last category above, 4, refers to the exposure to home computer A that may suddenly arise when a third-party site B, holding confidential information about A, suffers a security breach, thereby rendering A more vulnerable than it was before. There's not much that the owner of A can do to prevent this, other than avoiding giving sensitive information to insecure third-party sites (which is, of course, easier said than done). Regarding category 1, one thing that the owner of home desktop A could do to reduce this vulnerability would be to encrypt the machine's storage media using a strong password. As for categories 2, a decent keyring-type program should offer adequate protection. And for category 3, which is probably the most significant of all four, adopting "safe browsing habits" (including always browsing the web as an non-privileged user) is just about the only thing one can do. I see very little "machine/OS hardening" in any of the above. (Or, to put it differently, I don't recall seeing any of the measures described above in the many articles, posts, etc. that I've read in the general category of "hardening".) The one possible exception is the business of encrypting the machine's storage. So my question is: how applicable is "hardening" to a home setup like the one described above? Have I missed some major security areas for which "hardening", as typically understood, would be of significant benefit to such a system? (EDIT: clarified that the system is Unix-based, and that the browsing is done always by a non-privileged user.)
I am to reinstall an old Windows XP installation. Before I format the drive, I have to backup some data (~200GB) like .doc files, pdfs, photos to an external hard drive. My concern is that this installation might be infected. My presumption, or rather fear, is that if it is infected, the infection might live on in the backups. What would be the best way to backup these files so as to minimize chances of carrying over an infection?
I'm working on a small web service that provides some functionality that can be embedded in a web page with an iframe. As this is a subscription-based service, I'd like to be able to manage who can and cannot access the functionality in question via API keys. My understanding is that one popular approach is to embed an API key into the resource, e.g.: <iframe src='http://service.com/API_KEY_GOES_HERE/' height='750' width='640'> When the server receives a request from client, it does a lookup on the referrer to ensure that the site requesting the resource is allowed to access it. My question is as follows: can't referres be spoofed and wouldn't this make it trivial to circumvent this system? What am I missing?
One of my friends rents a VPS on which he runs around 20 websites, some of them for small businesses. He has been having some security issues and has asked me to help assess the vulnerability of his box (I'm just an undergraduate interested in infosec). I have managed to gain root on the MariaDB database, and am now attempting to get root on the box itself. From what I see, most of the sites run Wordpress, so I figure I can inject some php in a page to print the content of /etc/shadow and from there I can crack the passwords. My question is is there a better way to pivot from root on the database to root on the box?
The fact that carriers deploy the latest security updates to Android devices much later than Google does to Google Play Edition and Nexus devices, should we avoid using those devices altogether?
Someone sent me a Starbucks gift card. The email contained a redemption link, and that redemption link ended in a long secure hash, much like those on github secret gists. Clicking the redemption link took me to a page with a single form field, asking me to enter the email address the link was sent to. After entering my email, I was taken to a page showing the image equivalent of a gift card with the protective coating scratched off -- a credit-card-like number which, when entered or scanned into the starbucks app, credits your account with money. That number, I believe, could have been entered by anyone to claim the cash. My question is: Why ask me to confirm the email address? Does that provide any additional security beyond the hashed link itself? It seems to me the security is provided by the hash link, and if that link was compromised then in all cases my email address would be compromised too (eg, if someone had hacked into my email account, or read the email in transit). Of course, in theory it is preventing a brute force attack from someone randomly guessing hashes, but the search space is so massive that it seems like an unnecessary precaution assuming the hash has been generated securely.
The recent news item Chinese Star N9500 Android smartphone contains factory-installed Trojan, says security firm has prompted me to think about firmware security. The news mentions the spyware is part of the device's firmware. This makes me worry: How can I detect when firmware is stealing my information? What can I do to mitigate this problem? I'm worried about cell phones (Android) and routers. Does someone have some information regarding detection programs? [Edit]: Reason I ask is that I am considering a router from a China brand - which would cost much much more if it is from other brand. It is from Mi.com. The router, costs 699 RMB or 112 USD, includes a 1TB 2.5 inch hard drive. The price is very attractive, but I am worrying that my information may not be secure.
We all can read news about "Hardware trojans" (it has grown in the recent few years..). But my question is: Besides the network card, could there be any HW trojan that can cause any real damage? If I would need to put a HW trojan in a server/computer, then I would put it in the NIC, since I can only reach the machine over ethernet/wifi. It does not make sense to me to put a HW trojan in a CPU. (I just don't understand why are people so afraid of HW trojans. Shouldn't they only need to be worried about their NIC card? )
I'm quite new to this, so don't be too hard on me. I'm currently using the CipherMail MTA to generate e-mail encryption certificates. I created an own CA and public and private keys for our contact mail adress. I want to post the public key and the certificate on our website so that clients may encrypt mails toward us, but have difficulties understanding how it would be verified by our clients, seeing that the issuer of the certificate is our own CA. Should I post the Certification Authority as well? Is it safe to do so? If I do so, then each client that wants to send us encrypted mails would have to install the CA in their e-mail client and then install the certificate. Is there an easier way?
It seems that WordPress retrieves all the crypto constants remotely (via HTTPS): // setup-config.php $secret_keys = wp_remote_get( 'https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/' ); Are there any benefits to doing this instead of generating the keys locally? Is this completely unnecessary? Will it only provide another attack vector to WordPress setups?
I have a peculiar case to work on. We are using a proprietary product which supports LDAP integration. However, it can be configured to use only one LDAP service. (most of the products are shipped that way). Now, our customers want to login to this product with their own authentication authority. So, the question is, Am I looking at single Sign-on? We basically need some service which can sync all these authentication services (e.g. Windows Active directory, Tivoli access manager, Redhat Directory Server...and many more) and then integrate with our application.
I was challenged by a friend to decrypt a piece of text that was somehow encrypted. The encrypted text is the following: LY3IoH5HWSnp9-efCfOH3jqmoGaXdURF4YAKgIh2KotjHLyFbLBgXr0uzPu1-K0sEGUogoTduKF1_eklAVzOlEfziqIvqtlhZeJPF8H2ER0jLc25jPC8_AOPlAvTHKdA8BVPFPwu1Ldaul4IPBVWJSJc5fhTGJAjfSL2Rum-pW8VCSJwnB3LZR1ACVR0KN0HCv7hIKJ88TNUc4hHk5g4sstPxdeQqUIu7GjY1C8M3jl4EMo9yqHoo1Mj7Q4vxPWGUM_OhMR46s772EpqNXk62pldQomWovdvB2pYh_srTFYM0u5MMQd5Z1nUUCwA--QiQX5cJmSxw7U8lVo78K6Qm4oGirfFJVlYIzPClCNziLewhEXvaKv1KmDtnUi03lAXQMuHjQqfMzMLJibXrw How would one go about solving this type of puzzle?
I have a problem. I'm not sure, but I think that somebody found out a password to my Facebook account and sometimes logs in. Is there a way to find out whether it is true? There must be something like Facebook connects log but I'm not sure if it would be helpful in my situation.
I'm currently working on an Android app in which I want to authenticate someone against an REST API. I want to do this as secure as is (cost-)effective/possible/user friendly. I've been looking around and found that 2FA (two factor authentication) seems the most viable solution (after initiating the sign up process I'll send a POST to the REST API to store device data and give the device a token that is generated from the device information and then send an SMS with a different token to the phone which the user then has to enter (likely TOTP)). SSL is used whilst communicating with the remote API. My question to you is, is it worth the effort to look into biometrics? There are just so many possibilities to do this: Voice Gestures Finger prints (seems very unsafe. Mythbusters 2006 episode) A picture of the user (since a 'selfie' is a thing, but has to be monitored if no proper matching software is found). and I'm probably forgetting a few more now...
In presence of 'trust certificates' & other attributes .. how important is this? Does OpenSSL implement it now & If not why does OpenSSL not implement? This is between non browser client & server.
Are there any tools for sandboxing Iceweasel (Firefox) on Debian systems? I'm mostly interested in tools distributed by Debian. (An equally trustworthy source would be second best.) (I suppose that installing VirtualBox and running Iceweasel (or Firefox) within it would effectively sandbox the browser, but VirtualBox instances take up a lot of disk space, and my machine's drive is not that big. I'm hoping to find a way to achieve the same results with a smaller disk footprint.)
How long would it take to crack passwords up to 10 letters long if you knew the hashes were MD5 with a salt (that you know)?
What protocols get encrypted and go through the VPN? Is it just port 80 and DNS traffic that does not go through the VPN? Does this impose any security risks by running a split tunnel? Making the assumption that maybe we connected to a rogue AP by mistake because it looked exactly like a public wifi spot. I know that running a full VPN will tunnel everything so you are immune to MITM attacks and several other attacks as everything is connecting directly to your own network.
There are many programs available (like NSIS) that generate installers from a collection of files. One thing that I have noticed is, the installers produced by these programs have some kind of integrity checking built into them. For a moment I thought that this was perhaps meant not as a security measure, but only to protect against a corrupted download. But, if it's a corrupted download, the installer won't even run, since the resources section is mangled; and even if it runs, extraction of the compressed data will inevitably fail. The integrity check is, then, perhaps meant as a security measure. However, I'm really in doubt regarding the effectiveness of such a measure. An attacker able to MITM the download could easily disable the integrity checking for purposes of trojanisation (if not serve an entirely different binary). So why is such a security measure implemented at all?
I am buying a new Thinkpad with an in-built GPS/Cellular modem. I am thinking what are the best practices for making the notebook secure in case of theft. I am planning to do full disk encryption and use ESET NOD anti-theft tracking option when somebody logs in to Windows in case of theft(don't know how useful that will be since the disk is encrypted but still.). I am thinking whether it is possible to track the computer when the computer is powered off. Would it be possible to keep the GPS module activated all the time as long as the battery is attached? Are there any other good practices for making the computer more secure in such events?
I have a server that communicates with clients over a .NET socket. I want the server to authenticate the connection in an SSO kind of style by checking that the current user is in a certain group. The naive way is to send System.Environment.UserName to the server and let it determine the user permissions in this way. However, it seems to be against best practices since any client can spoof the user name. Is there an API I can use to send the credentials in a trusted manner to my server application, over a TCP socket? SSL is not enough, since anyone can establish a secure connection, yet still spoof the username.
If ca's act in the interests of an eavesdropper, what is the worst they cold do? I guess they can decrypt traffic not using perfect forward secrecy and impersonate the server. Is this the case?
I use someone's wifi network. Is there anyway to stop him by getting my browsing information or can I somehow hide my browsing history from him?
I understand the utility in having one application remember a bunch of long, randomized passwords, but all you'd need is one well-placed phishing scam or a keylogger and they get all the keys to the kingdom. Has there been any progress in this area? I want to consider using a password manager but feel incredibly uncomfortable with putting all my eggs in one basket. I could theoretically have multiple managers and only remember 3 long passwords or so (try to diversify the risk), but I feel like that only goes so far. It is frustrating that the best passwords seem to be exactly the ones that you cannot memorize well. Where do I draw the line?
Is is the same as a public key in RSA, except they made it more suitable for self-signed hosts? What happens behind the scenes when our ssh client presents it to us?
I have a web service (PHP & MySQL on Ubuntu 12.04) running in a corporate intranet. I have also connected it to internet through a firewall letting incoming connections on HTTPs only (port 443). I'm considering now to add VPN over it to add additional security level, to open VPN ports and close HTTPs. That seems to be more secure but more inconvinient for an end user too. Users will be loginging from ther PCs, tablets and phones using a VPN client to access the web service and the their login and password to access their data. As I understand it adds additional login/password pair to the authentication process and basically that is the only advantage. Of course such a set up adds IPSec encryption but I don't think VPN encryption is a useful feature here as the traffic already encrypted with HTTPs. In a VPN case a malicious user would scan a server for open ports, find the VPN ports open and start to brute force VPN user access credentials before he can start to brute-force/code inject the actual web service. But if I would just need another login/password pair I can just make a double-step authentication process on the web service instead of bothering users with a VPN client set up. So it seems like a VPN pros in my case are: Additional authentication step using a VPN client IPSec encryption Everybody think you are safe VPN cons are: Additional authentication step which adds complexity for the users Useless encryption of already encrypted HTTPs traffic VPN user get access not only to the web service but to the entire sub network so extra equipment needed to put the server to DMZ. Am I wrong on any of those points? Would a VPN really add more security in my case or it will give more unnecessary complexities instead without really adding anything useful?
I keep reading about situations where a hacker could "easily" brute force a password (most recent example) but I'm confused about when some has an opportunity to do this kind of thing. If it is a website/web service, aren't attempts like this rate limited? I.e. I can't try my Amazon password 50 million times per second, even if my internet connection were more awesome than it is. What needs to happen for someone to even have the opportunity to brute force their way into a system? And if systems can effectively throttle attempts to dozens or fewer per minute why is there such an emphasis on saying that GPU attacks can generate millions or billions of passwords per second if these are effectively useless?
Is there any reason why an -sS scan (or most others) would not report an open port that doesn't have a service attached to it? For example, in a regular -sS scan, the following port will be missing, but when I scan that port specifically, it appears as open. PORT STATE SERVICE 2509/tcp open unknown
From what I read, scrypt is (on paper) more secure than bcrypt, but it's pretty new so it's better to let it get time-tested and scrutinized first. However, is there any good, compelling reason to assume that it won't stand up to scrutiny?
My company uses a private PKI to handle such scenarios such as Mutual auth (TLS) to a website using client certificates SSL web server certificates on an Intranet (once a VPN session is established.) S/MIME secure email. Activesync authentication When upgrading Android to Kitkat the presence of a non-default root certificate results in these warnings and It is possible to remove this warning for a root user, or by uploading the certificate into Google Apps (and paying $5 per user/month), however I'm looking for a solution that does not incur this unnecessary cost. Several people have posted this as a defect in the FOSS code, however the issue #62076 (starred by 121 people) has been closed as "by design". Edit: This issue has been reopened in issue 82036 Please star it to vote as an issue, or comment as needed. Through testing I verified that this error still appears when using Name Constraints, and limiting the EKU purpose of the new Root CA. (S/MIME, client authentication, etc). Is there any way to add a certificate to the trusted roots on an Android phone that does not create this error? (in current or future version) Are non-default trusted roots, in practice, more problematic than the default CA list (in other words is Google solving the wrong problem?) Is it reasonable to allow a root cert that is properly constrained (at the root) by EKU usages, or Name Constraints to generate a different warning or set of approval dialogs?
We all know that we're supposed to take a fairly slow hashing algorithm, salt the password, and run the hash for many iterations. Let's say that I'm following almost everything except for one rule, and I have a static salt. Something like this: password = 'yaypuppies' + some_static_salt 1000.times do password = amazing_hash(password) end And now password is a great hashed and salted thing. All is well with the world. But what if we ran it a whole lot more iterations? 3000000000000000000.times do # 3 quintillion password = amazing_hash(password) end Would, in theory, many passwords collide? I.e. would this happen? pass1 -> lkajsdlkajslkjda > 23oiuolekeq > n,mznxc,mnzxc > common_thing > 987123oijd > liasjdlkajsd > 09893oiehd > 09uasodij pass2 -> loiuoklncas > 9830984cjlas > ioasjdknckauyieuh > common_thing > 987123oijd > liasjdlkajsd > 09893oiehd > 09uasodij And both passwords end up hashed to 09uasodij? With a non-randomized-per-password salt, does the chance of a collision go up with every iteration added?
I've just acquired a new CentOS server, which will be hosting a Ruby on rails application, it is public facing. What should I do to secure this server?
Assume, I have an executable which hooks the API CreateFileW located in Kernel32.dll which is shared globally across the system for all other processes. From hooking I mean, that I have overwritten the prologue of CreateFileW jmp Hook_CreateFileW nop // ...rest of original CreateFileW code... My Doubt:: From what I know, Kernel32.dll will be loaded at some address which is global across the system and its pages are shared across the processes. So, does hooking CreateFileW in my exe, means that it is hooked for all other processes too ? Any other process, which would call CreateFileW will try to jump Hook_CreateFileW ?
I am trying to understand same origin policy better. From what I understand same origin policy restricts code from one "origin" not access data from another "origin". What I am trying to understand is the context of this code. I can see that code across two tabs (example1.com and example2.com) cannot access data in each other's DOM. What about a page that loads code from both these sites? Is the restriction/security still hold in that case? This is a very valid use case as every site nowadays has code loaded from twitter, Facebook, google+ at the very least in addition to code from example1.com. So can code from twitter access the cookies set by example1.com? Or does same origin policy hold even in this case? Of course in this case I am assuming the code is loaded from twitter, Facebook directly and not relayed from the example1.com server. I am also guessing the danger of XSS exists if the example1.com is relaying the code for twitter, Facebook etc. Am I right? If I am right, how does the browser separate out the dom data for code loaded from each site when they are all loaded into the same page? How does it keep track of which data is allowed to be accessed by which code?
I've been asked to implement digital signatures for documents at work. I really need to read up more on the matter but several searches didn't make an obvious approach stand out. Main features I would like to see represented in a solution are: Insert a scanned image of the user's real paper-and-ink signature into an Office document such as Word, PDF, to make it look as if the user really signed the document when the document is printed. The signature should guarantee that the document hasn't been tampered with. The signature should uniquely match up with one person. Have some sort of verification process so that the user's digital signature can be checked against an authority that guarantees that the chain of trust is indeed going back to the company. Have a publicly accessible place where the validity of the user signatures issued for the company can be verified. Surely we're not the first company that wants something like this.. Where would I go to find a body that understands what I'm trying to describe and can help me offer some guidance? If this question is still to broad, please help me narrow it down further as I'm keen to get a dialog going that could be of use to the SE community as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface#Security_Risk Ubuntu Linux founder Mark Shuttleworth has likened ACPI to Trojan horses.[28] He has described proprietary firmware (firmware ACPI or any other firmware) as a security risk, saying that "firmware on your device is the NSA's best friend" and calling firmware (ACPI or non-ACPI) a Trojan horse of monumental proportions". He has pointed out that low quality, closed source firmware is a major threat to system security:[7] "Your biggest mistake is to assume that the NSA is the only institution abusing this position of trust — in fact, it's reasonable to assume that all firmware is a cesspool of insecurity, courtesy of incompetence of the highest degree from manufacturers, and competence of the highest degree from a very wide range of such agencies". As a solution to this problem, he has called for declarative firmware (ACPI or non-ACPI).[7] Firmware should be open-source so that the code can be checked and verified. Firmware should be declarative, meaning that it should describe "hardware linkage and dependencies" and should not include executable code. Is there anyway to properly protect yourself from backdoors in the ACPI or in general? Can firmware be infected or injected with backdoors or trojans very easily?
I have a question regarding one step of protection more than salt/hash. I work on an application that is distributed to many clients and then deployed on their networks. If I set a password on one instance of the application and then look up the generated salt and hash in the database, what mechanism can stop me from copying a known password's salt and hash into another instance of my application?
Network scanning tools such as nmap have the capability to infer operating system version based upon lower-level system details. EG: TCP/IP stack behavior, etc. Are there any known methods to trick these tools to either report the wrong OS or to confuse them so they cannot correctly detect an OS?
I'm currently trying to improve our API to be more restful, therfore avoid any state on the server. I want to accomplish this with a hmac token, appended on every request. The hmac will be made with the following data-part: host, request-method, request-uri, timestamp(to avoid replays) and in case of POST/PUT also the body of the request. Any objection against this? I'll send the hmac along with the username or maybe a hashed representation (public key) of the user to be able to have different secret keys for each user on the server. Now I'm planning on the secret-key exchange between client (JavaScript) and server (PHP) and got the idea of just using something the server and the client already both know without exchanging it and it should still be different for every user. So why not use the hashed password of the user as the secret key? The server has the hash of the password saved to the database next to the user in the usertable in anyway and the client can calculate the hash based on the input of the user and store it in a client session for later usage. What are the concerns against using the hashed userpassword as a secret key?
When submitting HTML that contains entities to the OWASP HTMLSanitzer, entities are converted. For example: BEFORE: <p>blah blah blah &diams;</p> The resulting HTML ends up looking like this: AFTER: <p>blah blah blah ?</p> The entity is converted back to it's original unicode character. Why does OWASP do that? Are entities unsafe? For me, having the entities solves any issues down the road with unicode text. Additionally, is there a way to allow the entities to remain untouched in HTMLSanitzer?
I've just taken over administering a lab of Apple computers on a university campus. We have about 15 computers and I've discovered that they all have public IPs and domain names. Even our printer is accessible from the Internet, which is probably the most terrifying. I tried running a port scan on the computers in my lab using nmap but (obviously) I started lighting up computers all over the building and further afield. I'm not sure how to test our vulnerability without getting in trouble with network operations. This situation makes me really nervous and I feel like I don't have full control over my cluster of machines. I have two questions: Is it reasonable for me to be scared about the security situation in the lab? Is it reasonable for me to ask IT services for an explanation of the networking here and ways to mitigate my lab's exposure? I'd feel much better with everything behind Tomato-based router and some port-forwarding rules rather than every single machine fully accessible to the Internet. I know that's not a silver bullet but it's better than nothing.
I want to audit the HTTP and HTTPS activity of apps downloaded onto my mobile device. What is the best way to do this? I own the device, can add a root certificate, and can connect the running device using USB to a computer and run diagnostic tools. I can also run in whatever developer mode exists to see the network IO.
I am sort of new to SSL. During a SSL connection establishment, I see that the server is sending multiple certificates. Can someone help me to understand why the server is sending multiple certificates? And how can I do the same with openssl, apache or gnutls server? Thanks in advance. ** Update ** Thank you for all the answers. I also figured how to do it in apache2 I added the SSL configuration in the ports.conf /etc/apache2/ports.conf <IfModule mod_ssl.c> Listen 443 <VirtualHost *:443> ServerName www.example.com SSLEngine on SSLCertificateFile /root/25apr-rootcert SSLCertificateKeyFile /root/25apr-rootkey SSLCertificateChainFile /root/25apr-chain.pem </VirtualHost> </IfModule> One need to add the chained crt as SSLCertificateChainFile /root/25apr-chain.pem For testing purpose, I just concatenated the /root/25apr-rootcert to /root/25apr-chain.pem few several times. Hope this helps!
I just opened a new bank account which comes with internet banking. Unlike the others I have used so far, this one requires a personal certificate (a .p12 file stored on my computer) + password for authentication instead of standard username + password. This method is rather inconvenient... I have to store the certificate somewhere safe, I have to back it up, I can't access my account on any computer unless I have the certificate with me, the certificate has an expiration date and I can't simply generate a new one. So... are there any upsides? I would assume that this method would be more secure, but I'm not sure about it. I don't know how the authentication process actually works but it seems to me that stealing a certificate from client's computer is just as easy/difficult as stealing his username. Personally, I feel better about my username stored only in my head than about a file stored somewhere on my hard drive.
Why is it that some security advisers recommend using an 8 character password with upper, lower, digits, and symbols while banks only use a 4 digit number pin for debit and 3 digit pin for credit card? Isn't it a risk for security using a short non-random password like that?
How can I technically verify* that the e-mail I'm sending from Gmail to Yahoo is encrypted all the way from Gmail's servers to Yahoo's servers? I know that it's advised to have encryption between the mail service provider and the client's desktop, e.g. using IMAPS or SMTPS, and when using a web interface, HTTPS. But if an e-mail is sent from e.g. the web interface, then that e-mail could be sent in "plain text" format through the mail relay servers until it reaches its destination mail service provider. * besides reading the corresponding FAQs
I'm interested in protecting email messages from NSA-style snooping, but don't want to incur additional legal risk in doing so. In other words, does SMIME encryption and/or signing cause a given email message to have more legal "power" than a message sent over TLS, PGP, DMARC, or similar technology such as an encrypted email portal? For example, perhaps that a SMIME certificate has Low | Medium | High Assurance attribute embedded in the certificate; would that lower or raise the legal risk accordingly? Q: Are there any precedents, or thought leaders that define when an email can be used in legal matters, and when not? In particular a "signed" message? I found this post that might mean there is nothing to worry about, since non-repudiation in the computer-sciences sense is much different than a legal sense There is a definitional distinction between the legal use of the term "non-repudiation" and its crypto-technical use. In the legal sense an alleged signatory to a document is always able to repudiate a signature that has been attributed to him or her [4]. The basis for a repudiation of a traditional signature may include: The signature is a forgery; The signature is not a forgery, but was obtained via: Unconscionable conduct by a party to a transaction Fraud instigated by a third party Undue influence exerted by a third party So if the
I'm writing up documentation and want to ensure that I'm using proper terminology. 1) What is the proper technical term for the SMTP tunnel encryption standard that typically starts on TCP/25, involves checking ESMTP capabilities for 250-STARTTLS and issuing the STARTTLS command (followed by negotiation, public cert exchange, etc)? 2) Likewise, what is the proper technical term for SMTP tunnel encryption that uses port TCP/465 and requires negotiation immediately I've always just called #1 "TLS Encryption"/"TLS" and #2 "Secure SMTP"/"SMTPS" but I don't think that's accurate.
say there are three players: A, B, C where A is local machine, B is ssh server, C is the final destination. through ssh local port forwarding, A can connect to C via B. So then data will be following the path A--B--C in order to communicate each other. Let say C was originally designed to only allow connection from B but restrict connection from A. Of course this is the reason why A would use port forwarding to reach C. In this case, is there a way for C to detect that even though its data is going to B, the end-user is actually A? In other words, is there a way for C to detect port forwarding? Based on my limited knowledge, since C is sending all the data to B afterall, shouldn't it NOT be able to detect A?
Is possible (and practical) for two users to create their own self-signed SSL certificates, exchange these certificates (perhaps in a face-to-face meeting), and then communicate with each other securely (e.g. S/MIME)? No CA involved here.
I'm writting a ebook and I'm gonna to sell it soon. I'd sell it at Google Play Store, but here in Brazil they don't accept PayPal as payment (and many brazilian don't have a credit card), so I think that the best option is to sell it by myself. I could sell it also at Amazon, but the Kindle format just sucks when you work with (a lot of) equations. But, of course, there's a problem about sending the pdf file to the buyer. My friend suggested me to lock it with a serial key - like a software. Then a person could open it just in one or three computers. I know there's a package that lock the pdf file with a password (that I create), but I'd like to have a way that block this password when it's used a lot of times - really like a software. Is it possible? Do you have any other ideas to protect a pdf file? I'm gonna take the copyright of my ebook here in Brazil and I know that I can't protect it totally, but I'm trying to do everything I can do to protect it. There's also a brazilian site (www.hotmart.com.br) where you can publish anything you want and they say that, about pdf files, they print in each page the document number of that one who bought my ebook. Thanks! :)
I have a web interface to a hardware that is primarily used to reboot the hardware. Reboot can be done only by authenticated user.The web interface is written in CGI/shellscript. It does not use any session/cookies. It is one time authentication through lighttpd ldap authentication. No cookies are transferred on browser. Can CSRF attack reboot the hardware? How can i find the CSRF vulnerability in such CGI/shell script web interfaces?
I've been reading over the logs on my honeypot and discovered the following messages that seem to be either gibberish or a cypher message: kernel: v0 neigfradn tt kernel: [2108296.63083] devc nt nee rmcosmd kernel: [2110073.035288] host 192.168.122.184/if4 ignores redirects or 12181214t 9.6.2.8.r1ve0 neigfradn tt kernel: dr12181214t 9.6.2.8.<>[21185727]vrr:pr (nt)etrn owrigsae<>2185749]vrr:pr (nt)etrn ialdsae<>2185745]dvc nt etpoicosmd kernel: 6[118.864 ib0 ot1ve0 neigdsbe tt kernel: 618.602 eieve0etrdpoicosmd Anyone have a clue what this could be related to?
I work at government organization. We would like to become Intermediate CA so that we can provide SSL certificates to our branch organizations. We must be able to do code signing, green address bar etc,. I heard that we can be intermediate CA provided that we prove our identity because we are governmental organization. Where do I contact for inquiry? And what document do I need to provide in order to be Intermediate CA? Thanks in advance.
Is there a way to deterministically create an RSA private-key for an X.509 certificate, ideally through a library which has been vetted already? i.e. user enters some phrase like "this is my private group", and that seed value is used to generate a private RSA key which I can then use as a certificate authority. But in such a way I can get the same key predictably on different machines from just that seed value. My use case is I would like to support pre-shared keys in my application, but use the existing X.509 support it uses for keying. If I could create a predictable X.509 certificate from some initial value, then this would be trivial since users could verify each other's certificates against the generated key. I would like to avoid hand-rolling a library to do this for obvious reasons, but this doesn't seem to be a commonly done thing - even though obviously various systems which support PSK must, internally, be doing something quite similar.
I am new to this kind of stuff (HTTPS etc.) and pretty much confused on how to go ahead with this. An LDAP server (ApacheDS) at the back-end stores the user details. To add new users, the user creation form can be provided as web service over HTTPS. As per this mail chain, LDIF files should better have userPassword as plain text so that the LDAP server takes care of hashing. Is it possible to get the userPassword as plain text, at the server-side, when the password is entered by an end user on client side with HTTPS being used ? Is it a good idea at all ? Or should I leave it to the user to hash it in SSHA on client-side and give it to the server, which I would add in the LDIF file ?
I can imagine that for sensitive systems logging to a central logging server it can be handy to be able to verify the integrity of the logs. Each line can either be signed or a shared secret may be used (HMAC) to add an additional field before sending it off to a central logging server. I was wondering what is generally considered a best practice when it comes to log signing?
How can we solve CryptAcquireCertificatePrivateKey fails with 0x8009200B when adding certificate from smartcard to local user store? In an enrollment system where users generate smartcard certificate request online to a CA, the certificate is loaded 'offline' in the smartcard, for example several days after the request was issued so the certenrolllib objects used for the creation of the request cannot be used for installing the certificate on the card and the card generated the private key which will never and cannot anyway be exported outside of the card. When we load the certificate in the card, we use the Minidriver API, we have the name of the key container that was used for generation of the key (usually a GUID, something like lr-e46f1586-7133-4284-895d-557e2261c24d) we start to read the cmapfile and we get the keycontainer index XX that corresponds to that GUID and we create a kscXX certificate in the mscp folder in the card minidriver filesystem, we compress with zlib the DER binary certificate obtained from the CA, we add a header and we load that on the kscXX file. We can see that the on card certificate is well formed and that we can see it using various tools. The problem is that this certificate does not appear on the Microsoft user store. In fact it 'may' appear sometimes especially if the container is the default container, but anyway not immediately and not in all OS. We created a lib using MSCAPI that get the certificate context and that proves private key ownership by using CryptAcquireCertificatePrivateKey in the following code (used in say: addCardCertToStore.exe tool for example) Logging with PIN, getting the userkey etc.: fStatus = CryptGetKeyParam( hKey, // HCRYPTKEY hKey, KP_CERTIFICATE, // DWORD dwParam, pCertBlob, // BYTE* pbData, &dwCertLen, // DWORD* pdwDataLen, 0 // DWORD dwFlags ); if (!fStatus) { return 1; } pCertContext = CertCreateCertificateContext( PKCS_7_ASN_ENCODING | X509_ASN_ENCODING, pCertBlob, dwCertLen); //trying to prove privatekey ownership by calling CryptAcquireCertificatePrivateKey HCRYPTPROV_OR_NCRYPT_KEY_HANDLE hCrypt; DWORD hInfo; fStatus=CryptAcquireCertificatePrivateKey(pCertContext,0,NULL,&hCrypt,&hInfo,NULL); if (!fStatus) { return 1; } hStoreHandle = CertOpenStore(CERT_STORE_PROV_SYSTEM, 0, 0, CERT_SYSTEM_STORE_CURRENT_USER, L"My"); // saving certificate context to store If CryptAcquireCertificatePrivateKey is not called, then the certificate is always exported to store, but without private key ownership and then cannot be used for operations like signature etc. However, when we use CryptAcquireCertificatePrivateKey indeed '50% of the times' we can save the certificate to store with private key ownership, but not always, in several case we see 0x8009200B error (CRYPT_E_NO_KEY_PROPERTY , e.g. 'Cannot find the certificate and private key for decryption.') when call CryptAcquireCertificatePrivateKey. This error may happen for example the first time we launch the addCardCertToStore.exe then if we restart addCardCertToStore.exe a second time it may work, CryptAcquireCertificatePrivateKey returns OK, and certificate is installed in the store, sometimes we have to call it three times, sometimes it seems it will never complete and sometimes it works after we reinsert the card, sometimes it fails because the certificate was installed automatically after a while in the store and by deleting this certificate CryptAcquireCertificatePrivateKey works and add again the certificate on the store. I know that the CSP is maintaining a cache and that it scans periodically the card to update that cache and that it may or may not detect a new certificate on card and add it to the store alone and that some MSCAPI operation can have the effect of having the CSP updating the store from the card certificates independently of the operation itself. At the end the question is: why such a strange behaviour of CryptAcquireCertificatePrivateKey and how can we interpret the error code 0x8009200B (access denied) in that context? And other point is that should we install the DER certificate on card not by using minidriver API but by using MSCAPI functions (if this is possible)? How can we have a steady way of adding the card certificate to the store?
My ESET Smart Security 7 detected incoming connection from an external computer, since Rundll32 can be run by any programs on my computer and I don't know which program is doing this, so I am concerned. Is there a way to check which program waiting and accepting this external connection from the Internet?
I am new at using and programming web applications, so I wanted to ask a question. Is it safe to execute os commands like copy and mv and delete from a web app that is running on an apache, or does it bring up security issues?More specific I am using django, and I want a view of mine when it is executed to be able to run os commands like copy move etc to folders that reside outside the var/www folder. I know how to use os module but I haven't found from my web search if it is safe to do it.
Is it possible to white list an IP address in mod_security? I found white ist whole domain name in mod_security. But I want to white list only the administrator IP. OS: CentOS 6 Server: Apache httpd 2.15 Mod Security: Version 2.7
In fcrackzip man they say : the more files you provide, the better. I want to know why. What's the method it uses to retrieve the password?
Several clarifying questions: Is it possible to disable the SSH encryption using options at the OpenSSH server/client or some appropriate hack? Is it possible to do this at the time of the transmission, of course with full control over the server? Are there known servers/clients (except OpenSSH), which allow you to do this? Are there any plugins for this software or patches for their code?
This question is mainly aimed at OpenID Connect, when it is fully realized. I understand the aversion to signing in with a social networking site, but from what I understand about OIDC, its supposed to finally allow developers to simply implement OIDC once and have it work with every provider. Once this happens and people have the option to sign in with a non-social-network, and see the options like Symantec and realize that 'oh, this Identity thing isn't just about sharing my email contacts and friends list with the entire planet', I believe that much of the distrust will evaporate. So ignoring the hesitation to oauth with a social network, and moving onto the question: Is BYOID as the only way to authenticate, and thus completely outsourcing authentication, a valid security practice?
Today there are news on Bruce Schneier's blog and ArsTechnica about how NY City released information about Cab/Taxi drivers, their trips, and so on. Basically, sensitive information was simply MD5 hashed. Since the input was limited (3 numbers, 3 letters, at most), it was easy to make some brute-force attack: generate all possible combinations and then do a look-back. Considering the nature of the information (very small input, to easy to generate all combinations), how could this data be properly anonymized? Some approaches that have occurred to me:: Security through obscurity (use a "secret" number of iterations) is just security through obscurity. Append a general, unique salt, would increase the brute-force by 0%: simple append the salt and done. Appending a unique salt per user, would increase the brute-force, but not too much: take the salt and calculate the 3 digit 3 letters for each salt. What could be done?
I'm on WordPress trying to keep spambots from grabbing email addresses that may be in The Content. WordPress has a nifty little function simply called antispambot() which will convert the email address into HTML Entities. no-reply@domain.com converts to: n&#111;-r&#101;&#112;&#108;&#121;&#64;d&#111;m&#97;&#105;n&#46;&#99;&#111;&#109; This function has been around for a LONG time and I'm sure the method has been around for longer so my question is: Is this still a valid way to beat spambots? Will this method still fool spambots and keep said email safe?
I have a specific IP that has been iterating through the directories on my site testing for something. Here is an example of what it keeps trying to hit: http://<site>/<path>/change._change<br> http://<site>/<path>/beforeactivate._change<br> http://<site>/<path>/click._change<br> http://<site>/<path>/propertychange._change<br> http://<site>/<path>/submit._submit<br> http://<site>/<path>/click._submit keypress._submit<br> http://<site>/<path>/Microsoft.XMLDOM<br> http://<site>/<path>/1.8.0<br> http://<site>/<path>/ul.sf-menu<br> http://<site>/<path>/AjaxControlToolkit.TextBoxWatermarkBehavior<br> http://<site>/<path>/AjaxControlToolkit.Animation.SequenceAnimation cannot be nested inside AjaxControlToolkit.Animation.ParallelAnimation<br> http://<site>/<path>/AjaxControlToolkit.AlwaysVisibleControlBehavior must have an element<br> http://<site>/<path>/AjaxControlToolkit.ControlBase<br> http://<site>/<path>/AjaxControlToolkit.BoxSide<br> http://<site>/<path>/public/rss/RssFeed.ashx?moduleId=142<br> http://<site>/<path>/fancybox/click.fb<br> http://<site>/<path>/fancybox/resize.fb<br> http://<site>/<path>/fancybox/scroll.fb<br> http://<site>/<path>/client/scroll.prettyphoto<br> There are many more, but I removed some of the similar ones. This happens over and over from the same IP and across several directories on my site. Reading IIS logs is not one of my strengths. It definitely seems like they are testing for something that can be exploited, but does this look like a familiar technique to anyone?
Working with a developer to update a login system through a web-UI: Currently, we use: Enter login ID Goes through Challenge/Step-up Based on results: Challenge/Step-up User is presented the password page to login They are wanting to change the flow to: Enter login ID User is immediately presented the password page Goes through Challenge/Step-up The second scenario appears backward and vulnerable to attacks. I need to look for something that corroborates this from an compliance/regulatory standpoint.
Bruce Schneier's blog drew my attention to algorithm substitution attacks which may leak symmetric keys through IV or padding or other covert channels, encrypted with escrow keys. The major premise is that cryptolibraries (or HSMs, or encryption chips) have been subverted by a "benevolent government agency". Does this threat warrant extra review of software used in production, including libraries such as OpenSSL/BouncyCastle etc.? Can we ensure that there are no covert channels in IV or padding by looking at the code? Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2014/438. Security of Symmetric Encryption against Mass Surveillance. Mihir Bellare, Kenneth Paterson and Phillip Rogaway. June 21, 2014.
I'm going every year at big IT conferences (3k->4k people). Everyone is connected to the internet with wifi on laptops. This wifi is open, everyone can read the traffic and analyse it... The risk is nearly the same on wifi in hotel, hotspot etc.. except you have a concentration of interesting informations and hacking competencies at the same place... I use those precautions on my mac : use SSL everywhere avoid to sent sensitive data even on encrypted link encrypt data on disk take the laptop with you everywhere antivirus update Mac OS X to the last version Is there other security measure to take on mac ? Thanks in advance
I've been inspired by a question over on Code Review, which boils down to: What is the proper way to authenticate a user without a database? Would it be the exact same process if you stored credentials in an array, or an XML file, or even just a plain ol' text file? For example, let's examine the following PHP code: $credentials = array( 'UserA' => '$2y$10$PassForA', 'UserB' => '$2y$10$PassForB' ); $username = $_POST['username']; $password = $_POST['password']; if (isset($credentials[$username]) && password_verify($password, $credentials[$username])) { // Successfully authenticated } else { // Permission denied } Is this a perfectly acceptable way to store credentials? If we were to grab the username and hashed password from an external file (XML/txt), would things need to be treated any differently?
I am nearing a point where I will deploy my Django application to the hostile environment otherwise known as "the internet" and I'm trying to better understand the ramifications of the Django SECRET_KEY. One of the standard procedures it seems is to secure the secret key in the settings.py. Fair enough. The docs go so far to say to not commit your secret key to SVN, CVS, etc... For this provides easy access to your key. However, if anyone were tempted to commit the secret key to their repo, this would indicate that the secret key is static (see question #4)? Anyway, here are my questions: How is storing the secret key as an environment variable any more secure than storing it directly in settings.py? For example, if an attacker can read settings.py, he more than likely can just type $ echo $DJANGO_SECRET_KEY! How is storing the secret key in a file any more secure than storing it directly in settings.py? If he can read settings.py, he probably can read django_secret_key.txt. If the attacker has compromised your machine, can't they simply load the python interpreter with settings.py to > print settings.SECRET_KEY? Finally, would it be a bad practice to randomly generate the secret key each time the webserver process is restarted? This could be completely random, or it could prompt for user input for the key. Obviously, the latter presents a serious weakness if the attacker himself can restart the webservice and input the key of his choice.
How can I view the Credentials stored in Windows? Is there any possible way to view the stored password? I can just export them..
I want to set up a password management system on a home machine running Debian, and for this I'm considering only non-proprietary, open source password-managers available through Debian1. I'd like to make the master password, or rather, passphrase, to the password-managing application very long2. In fact, I want to make it much longer than I'd want to have to type every single time I need access to the password database (which is usually several times per login session). Is there some way to limit the number of times I need to type the long passphrase to just once per login session? I'm thinking of an "agent" application analogous to ssh-agent, but one that talks to the password-managing application rather than to the ssh client. IOW, I want to be able to delegate to this agent application the authentication requests from the password-managing app every time I need access to its database (i.e., not only when I'm required to respond to an authentication challenge from some remote sshd). 1I know of two such packages, keepassx and pass; please let me know of any others. 2As I understand it, all password-managing applications require typing a master password to gain access to the password store. A risk inherent in such a scheme is that, if the master password gets cracked, then the attacker gains a stash of passwords with one blow. Therefore, it is essential that the master password be as secure as possible, and hence the long passphrase business.
I have been given the task of defining a process for assigning administrative access. One of the requirements for this processs is that if a subject wishes to gain adminstrative access, only the subject's manager can make the request for the client. Both the VPs of IT and Security must approve the request. How does this entire process work in general, and why? I always thought that if you required administrative access, you would probably be an administrator yourself, which would not be a problem since you already have an administrator account.
I am familiar with the basic workings of HTTP Auth, but how does it keep track of authentication between page views? I see there is no cookie created when the initial authentication takes place.
Why doesn't software automatically detect password-cracking attacks, and thwart them? Long version: Suppose that someone tries a brute-force password-cracking attack on some program XYZ that requires password authentication. My understanding is that such an attack would consist of iterating over the set of "all possible passwords", supplying each in turn to XYZ, until one of them works. For this strategy to have any probability of success, the attacker would have to be able to supply to XYZ very many candidate passwords per second. Therefore, it would be trivial to program XYZ to detect this pattern (that is, distinguish it from the case where a legitimate user mistypes the correct password a few times), and automatically escalate the authentication requirement for the next, say, 10 minutes. The idea is that the owner of XYZ would be allowed to set two "passwords": a "level 1 password" (AKA "the password") that is relatively easy to remember and easy to type, but also relatively easy to crack by brute force, and a "level 2 password" (AKA "the passphrase") that could be extremely long, impossible to crack by brute force, but also very inconvenient for (legitimate) daily use. Someone who knew the convenient-but-weak password would hardly ever need to use the uncrackable-but-inconvenient passphrase. I'm sure there's some huge flaw in this scheme, otherwise passwords would not the headache to legitimate users that it is. What is the explanation?
Rather than adopting a universal standard, many websites develop their own guidelines for how passwords should be constructed. When you consider the number of passwords the average person today has to create and track, this creates problems for those who have a method for constructing and remembering passwords. For instance, some sites actually limit the length of your password to 12 or fewer characters! There are good reasons for enforcing a minimum length, but not to stop a person from using a longer passphrase. 50 characters would be a more reasonable upper limit. I can understand that certain organizations like the government and the military might want to pursue guidelines that are more stringent than most websites need; however, wouldn't having some universal baseline be practical? Is some organization working to bring this about?
I am working on making a log file for a small application. If an error occurs in the application then I have to send a mail to a person. I've figured out the code to send a mail to a person, but I don't want to hard code the password as a string. Instead I want to encrypt it and then de-crypt it in my python code. alternatively is it okay to store the email and password in a csv file and read it from the file. How safe is this? Can someone guide me how this can be done. Any example or documentation is welcome.
I was recently reading about buffer overflows and dangling pointers. I read "Smashing the stack for fun and Profit " by Aleph1 and that paper was really clear and concise in explaination. On the contrary when I search for dangling pointers, I get some resources on what they are. I also found a BlackHat presentation about it and I understood it (not totally though). It gives a high level overview on how the exploit would work. Is there a "Smashing the stack" kind of explanation of dangling pointers using a C/C++ program? Or someone could please explain exploiting dangling pointers in a easy way which I test using some code of my own?
Right now, we might do something like password varchar(72), when defining a password column, with for example BCrypt. But there's a lot of folks that don't do this very effectively. Maybe they just put the plaintext, or a single unsalted md5 hash, or some other terrible strategy. But virtually all these offenders still use databases. So why isn't this kind of functionality baked into databases? Something like mypass password('BCrypt:10'), and accessed like INSERT INTO people(name, mypass, other_data) VALUES(?, ?, ?) which would take the plaintext password from the user and pass it to the table. But the table would store the appropriate BCrypt hash value. Then, we could do something like SELECT other_data FROM people WHERE name = ? AND mypass = ? - this again would take the plaintext from the user logging in, but load the salt and perform the analysis to determine of the the password was a success or not. When it comes to storing data, we go with databases instead of flat files or what have you because they're reliable, tested, and simple (in comparison to rolling our own). Since it's clear that in the wild there are innumerable where password storage is unreliable and untested, why is this sort of data storage not undertaken by the database itself?
I read the RFC document, it mentioned that there are some kinds of client certificate type. So I don't understand what does this type mean. For a instance, one type named rsa_fixed_ecdh, it said, the certificate must be signed with RSA. What is the ECDH used for, for the key exchange? How does it work?
I was in the middle of implementing a CSRF protection mechanism for my server when I realized that this attack only really affects web browsers. It got me wondering: why should I bother generating/validating CSRF tokens for non-browser clients? Not only would removing such checks simplify the implementation of REST clients, it would also improve scalability. I was thinking of having all HTML resources set a browserId cookie containing a cryptographically-strong pseudorandom value which identifies the client as a browser. Any calls into the REST api would check for this cookie and, if present, apply CSRF validation. Otherwise, the checks would be skipped. The value of the cookie is not as important as its existence. The value is not stored or validated by the server, but it is useful for tying CSRF tokens to a specific browser (this prevents an attacker from passing his own CSRF token to a victim). My question is as follows: Is it possible to differentiate between machine-to-machine (M2M) and human-to-machine (H2M) clients? If so, what is the best way (is the above approach reasonable)? Is it safe to differentiate between M2M and H2M clients, even if we can? Or does this open us up to possible attacks in the future? Can an attacker delete cookies, assuming that I control all sub-domains and use HTTPS?
In REF to http://threatpost.com/ipmi-protocol-bmc-vulnerabilities-expose-thousands-of-servers-to-attack and the hacks of several companies and web hosts have been hit and had their servers wiped from remote management hacking. What can one do to protect their web based remote management ports? So far I've begun isolating them on VPN connections and limiting customers to their own private VPN and VLANS and keeping the remote interfaces on local IPs. Is there anything else that can be done to improve their security?
I'm trying to help my friend understand this because he believes that since a site is very popular, that it's less likely to infect its viewers because of its security! Is a popular site less likely to infect its viewers? Please answer this question as detailed as possible so I can direct him to this site.
Consider following 2 disk wipe procedures, using only vanilla Windows installation: First do a quick-format to make the disk appear empty, then do one of these: Just do full format of the disk. Bitlocker-encrypt the entire drive (all space) using a strong key which is then thrown away, leaving disk unusable until formatted. Both are operations which can be started quickly and then left running unattended, and then the drive yanked out when it's finished. And the concern is wiping the the data that was on the disk previously. Is doing 2 more secure than doing just 1? Or to put it other way, who can recover the original contents after alternative 1, and who can recover them after alternative 2? So, the key point of this question is: is there any advantage of writing single pass of "random" data (by encrypting) instead of writing a single pass of zeros (by full format). Bonus question: Can you suggest other alternatives for Windows 7 or 8, assuming no extra software can be installed?
If I download something, such as a TV series from a filesharing site via the Tor browser - saving the file to my PC - then put it on a flash drive, will my IT department see that I am downloading this?
I have a dispute with my father about the following ... I want to make a website (with MySql database) and use the root/index - page for BOTH the log in entry for normal visitors AND log in for admins. My father does not agree as he said the following ... You should NEVER use the same page for both visitors and admins as (I repeat his words) "you want to keep the door for admins secret which is not possible if you use the same page for both". He prefers to place the admin log-in page in a separate directory which also enables him to protect it from normal user interfacing (using the HTTP server's authentication abilities), so that the user has to authenticate himself first on the HTTP server and then secondly on the log-in panel for the admin-user. He also says that if you give this sub directory some obscure name as u7Vf% instead of admin - having directory listing off - you make this admin-door almost invisible for almost everyone. Which may enhance the safety of the system. I however say that security through obscurity is not a better way of guaranteeing the integrity of the website. I would prefer one log-in panel and focus all my attention toward securing that.
I've been confused about how it is possible to compromise a Facebook user's account simply if that user clicks a link. Recently a friend of mine on Facebook posted a series of links to what appeared to be some kind of Phishing scam. "99% of people couldn't watch this for more that 1 minute!!!" etc etc. We've all seen it. Clearly their account had been compromised and some malicious software or human was posting this content on their behalf. Reading through some of the threads here I came across this : Don't understand how my mum's Gmail account was hacked This seems like a similar scenario but I've been told reliably by my friend that they didn't input any credentials recently to sites that were anything other than Facebook. Of course we all know that a good Phishing site will indeed be indistinguishable from the site it is trying to capture details of users from. So my question is two fold: How can clicking a link and browsing to a page, without inputting any credentials compromise your account. How can sites that do get control of your account by asking for credentials through what appears to be a legitimate site still appear to have the right URL. Thanks everyone! I'm very interested to hear any response.
Can someone know my IP address through Thunderbird email attachments? Can a cunning attacker manage to find my IP address through attachment 'images' in emails that I unsuspectingly open?
When an average person sees an email, he can see only part of an information enclosed in the mail. To see full information one can look at the source of an email, which shows more. Example of an email source looks like this: Received: via dmail-2008.19 for +INBOX; Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:29:12 -0600 (CST) Received: from abc.luxsci.com ([10.10.10.10]) by xyz.luxsci.com (8.13.7/8.13.7) with ESMTP id n141TCa7022588 for <user-999@xyz.luxsci.com>; Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:29:12 -0600 Return-Path: <test@sender.com> Received: from [192.168.0.3] (verizon.net [44.44.44.44]) (user=test@sender.com mech=PLAIN bits=2) by abc.luxsci.com (8.13.7/8.13.7) with ESMTP id n141SAfo021855 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT) for <test@domain.com>; Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:28:10 -0600 Message-ID: <4988EF2D.40804@domain.com> Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:28:13 -0500 From: "Test Sender" <test@sender.com> User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.19 (Windows/20081209) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Test Recipient" <test@domain.com> Subject: Example Message Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Comment: Lux Scientiae SMTP Processor Message ID - 1233710941-9110394.93984519 My question is: what kind of information can a skilled person get from an email source in two cases: a person who sends an email has no knowledge of computer except sending mails/browsing internet a person who sends an email is skilled and want to hide/change as much as possible, but does not have too much control (by too much control I mean he does not have control over big email services, but can have his own email server) P.S. I am not talking about this specific example (it is just for people who do not know about email source). I know that some of the fields can be changed by sender (but I do not know how many of them could be changed). I can read, so I see that I can find through which email provider an email was sent, at what time, through which program. But I am curious whether I can get information which can narrow down possible user (may be his OS, IP, timezone and so on)