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Friday, February 20, 2015

CARBANAK : BANK ROBBERY LIKE NEVER BEFORE

1.  As recent as a week back Carbanak, an APT-style campaign targeting financial institutions has been claimed to have been discovered by the Russian/UK Cyber Crime company Kaspersky Lab who said that it had been used to steal money from banks.The malware was said to have been introduced to its targets via phishing emails and is said to have stolen over 500 million dollars, or 1BN dollars in other reports, not only from the banks but from more than a thousand private customers.The criminals were able to manipulate their access to the respective banking networks in order to steal the money in a variety of ways. In some instances, ATMs were instructed to dispense cash without having to locally interact with the terminal. Money mules would collect the money and transfer it over the SWIFT network to the criminals’ accounts.The presentation brings out the executive summary of Modus Operandi of the Malware as analysed by Kaspersky.
 

2.   Carbanak is a backdoor used by the attackers to compromise the victim's machine once the exploit, either in the spear phishing email or exploit kit, successfully executes its payload.Carbanak copies itself into %system32%\com with the name svchost.exe with the file attributes: system, hidden and read-only. The original file created by the exploit payload is then deleted.

How to detect CARBANAK

One of the best methods for detecting Carbanak is to look for .bin files in the
folder:

..\All users\%AppData%\Mozilla\

The malware saves files in this location that will later be sent to the C2 server when an internet connection is detected.BAT script for detecting infections(Source : here) is given as follows :

@echo off
for /f %%a in ('hostname') do set "name=%%a" echo %name%
del /f %name%.log 2> nul
if exist "c:\Documents and settings\All users\application data\
mozilla\*.bin" echo "BIN detected" >> %name%.log
if exist %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\com\svchost.exe echo "COM
detected" >> %name%.log
if exist "c:\ProgramData\mozilla\*.bin" echo "BIN2 detected"
>> %name%.log
if exist %SYSTEMROOT%\paexec* echo "Paexec detected"
>> %name%.log
if exist %SYSTEMROOT%\Syswow64\com\svchost.exe echo "COM64
detected" >> %name%.log
SC QUERY state= all | find "SERVICE_NAME" | findstr "Sys$"
if q%ERRORLEVEL% == q0 SC QUERY state= all | find
"SERVICE_NAME" | findstr "Sys$" >> %name%.log
if not exist %name%.log echo Ok > %name%.log xcopy /y %name%.log
"\\\logVirus

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Can we trace back device make-model from a MAC address?

Mac address of a Electronic device viz mobile/laptop are very critical for a investigating team dealing with a Cyber Incident.From an investigator point of view this one attribute associated with every device can give the Name of the OEM.I searched on net to find if the make and model of the device can be traced back via the Mac Address but couldn't find much...except for the name of the OEM I couldn't get much...for a Laptop I could get Dell and for a mobile device I could get samsung....nothing much....Is their anyway to identify and trace back the make/model??????


ANTHEM INC Data Breach : What is it all about?

1.   January 29, 2015,has gone down to record one of the greatest data breaches in the history of breaches and will be long a case study for students to learn of how it all happened.This particular breach relates to  Anthem Inc,the largest for-profit managed health care company in the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, that discovered that cyber attackers executed a sophisticated attack to gain unauthorized access to its IT system and obtained personal information relating to consumers who were or are currently covered by Anthem.It is believed that this suspicious activity may have occurred over a course of several weeks beginning December, 2014.

2.    Anthem disclosed that it potentially got stolen over 37.5 million records that contain personally identifiable information from its servers. According to The New York Times about 80 million company records were hacked, and there is fear that the stolen data will be used for identity theft

3.  This post brings out few key points of what ever has been discovered and revealed till now...

-   The compromised information contained names, birthdays, medical IDs, social security numbers, street addresses, e-mail addresses and employment information, including income data.

- Till now credit card ,banking information,financial,medical information  compromise has not been validated.

-   As per site...“With nearly 80 million people served by its affiliated companies including more than 37.5 million enrolled in its family of health plans, Anthem is one of the nation’s leading health benefits companies.”....shows the quantifed prone customers effected likely...and thats huge....

-   Once the attack was discovered, the company immediately made every effort to close the security vulnerability, contacted the FBI and began fully cooperating with their investigation.

-   Analysis of open source information on the cyber criminal infrastructure likely used to siphon 80 million Social Security numbers and other sensitive data from health insurance giant.

-   Less than 6 months ago a similar breach effected CHS(Community Health Systems, Inc.) of 4.5 million patient records that was attributed to “highly sophisticated malware”.

-   The Company and its forensic expert believe the attacker was an “Advanced Persistent Threat” group originating from China who used highly sophisticated malware and technology to attack the Anthem Inc Company'’s systems. 

-   According to the Associated Press, the attackers who targeted and exfiltrated more than 80 million customer records from Anthem Inc, were able to commandeer the credentials of at least five different employees.  We know from Anthem themselves that at least one admin account was compromised, as the admin himself noticed his credentials being used to query their data warehouse.


HOW IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED?

"Looking at job postings and employee LinkedIn profiles it appears that the data warehouse in use at Anthem was TeraData. By doing some quick searches on LinkedIn I was able to find more than 100 matches for TeraData in profiles of current employees at Anthem, including, CXOs, system architects and DBAs. Discovering these employees emails is trivial and would be the first step attackers could take to identify who to target for spear-phishing campaigns.

Once they are able to compromise a few high level employee systems through a phishing campaign either through malware attachments or through a browser exploit, gaining access to a user’s database credentials would be trivial. This would be where the “sophisticated malware” that is being reported would be utilized, if the malware was designed specifically for this attack it would evade most anti-virus products.

What may be a key weakness here is that it appears there were no additional authentication mechanisms in place, only a login/password or key, with administrative level access to the entire data warehouse. Anthem’s primary security sin may not have been the lack of encryption, but instead improper access controls. Although it appears the user data was not encrypted, in Anthem’s defense if the attackers had admin level credentials encryption would have been moot anyway.

I should note that TeraData provides quite a few security controls, including encryption, as well as additional data masking features, even specifically called out for protecting Social Security Numbers and related data. So odds are the actual vulnerability here is not in the software, operating system or hardware, but how the system and access controls were configured based on business and operational requirements."


Source : http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/incident-detection/how-the-anthem-breach-could-have-happened/
Another set of possibilities vide The Hacker News THN Post refers at http://thehackernews.com/2015/02/anthem-data-breach.html

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Quantifying your WEB SECURITY


This small presentation will sail through a set of questions for any web/Internet user and will mark for every question as the user decides to answer.The safety score as it ends up lets the user know of where he stands in terms of IT SECURITY on the web!!!!

Monday, February 09, 2015

Unsupported version 11 of data unit 'vga' : SOLVED

In one of my recent updates in UBUNTU 14.04 LTS,I faced an issue in the installed virtual box machines giving a message that goes as follows :

Unsupported version 11 of data unit 'vga' (instance #0, pass 0xffffffff) (VERR_SSM_UNSUPPORTED_DATA_UNIT_VERSION).

Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: Console
Interface: IConsole {1968b7d3-e3bf-4ceb-99e0-cb7c913317bb}

This was in-spite of the fact that I had saved my virtual machine in the manner it is supposed be and was not a power off.The machine as made to start vide the VB interface went showing the progress bar but was then followed by this above message.

How I solved this :

After working out many attempts to update and repair the Virtual Box,the simple way worked out like shown in the pic below : 


Yes...it is as simple as choosing the machine and selecting "DISCARD SAVED STATE"

Thursday, January 29, 2015

How to Set Up Google Chromecast : Windows 8

1.   Chromecast is a 2.83-inch (72 mm) HDMI dongle ,a digital media player developed by Google that plays audio/video content on a high-definition display by directly streaming it via Wi-Fi from the Internet or a local network. Users select the media to play using mobile apps and web apps that support the Google Cast technology. Alternatively, content can be mirrored from the Google Chrome web browser running on a personal computer, as well as from the screen of some Android devices.This post further brings you screen shots of the Chromecast setup as I set it up on one windows 8 Laptop...sadly it doesn't have a straight setup for UBUNTU OS...though I have seen few forums wherein a plugin mention in regular chrome browser would set the cast working...but alas not tried that...here it is a simply setting it up on Windows 8.

Step 1 : As you plugin the chromecast powered by USB Power in the HDMI slot ,you get a similar looking screen.
  
On your Chrome browser log onto google.com/chromecast/setup
As you click the above link you get a download setup file...around 800 kb...download that and your installation begins....
Typical Next Next.....
You get the device number as detected by the Laptop machine

Once connected a unique code is seen as below on the TV...just confirm that you see the same on your PC too as shown further below :
Unique code replicated on Laptop screen as below :
Click on That's My Code and continue as seen below :
Seen connecting to the network SSID
Setting up the Device on joining the network
and you are ready to cast :
The first time the device is ready to cast,expect recent update on the Chromecast dongle like seen below...likely to take few minutes...mine took 7-8 minutes
Updating still....12%
Updating still....61%
Updated and now applying updates
and the first look of the device on way to cast a Youtube stream as below :
What do I cast first ?...off course Rajinikanth....:-)

Few things to ponder and for info first time users :

- Why is not ready for Opensource OS?
- Works equally ready with Android devices with ease
- Does not work on a Windows OS running in Virtual Box/Machine.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Hardening your Android Device : Few Essentials

1.   Android is the most popular mobile platform in the world, with a wide variety of applications, including many applications that aid in communications security, censorship circumvention, and activist organization. Moreover, the core of the Android platform is Open Source, auditable, and modifiable by anyone. Unfortunately though, mobile devices in general and Android devices in particular have not been designed with privacy in mind. In fact, they've seemingly been designed with nearly the opposite goal: to make it easy for third parties, telecommunications companies, sophisticated state-sized adversaries, and even random hackers to extract all manner of personal information from the user. This includes the full content of personal communications with business partners and loved ones. Worse still, by default, the user is given very little in the way of control or even informed consent about what information is being collected and how.
 
2.  This presentation brings out few basic steps that every android phone user should configure to harden his/her device.Although the list is not completely exhaustive but it brings out basic necessities as expected from any smart user.

 

Saturday, January 03, 2015

USB Condoms

1.   Ever heard of this term : USB CONDOM..first as I read about this though like some tech humour but it was not...it was for real.This device prevents accidental data exchange when device is plugged into someone else’s computer or a public charging station. This is achieved by blocking the data pins on any USB cable and allowing only power to flow through. This minimizes opportunities to steal your data or install malware on your mobile device.

2.  As I read this ,the term became ok :-) to discuss around in my blog here.So the basic Juicejacking attack becomes null and void by the use of a USB Condom.

"The simple board at its core carries only the current from the outside pins on a USB connector — which pass along the 5V needed to charge. The middle pins that would normally transmit data can’t, as there’s no circuitry to do so on the Condom. You’ll be able to confidently charge in public as long as you’ve got your USB Condom handy, safe in the knowledge that no juice jacker is going to mess with your precious device." from : http://www.geek.com



FaceDancer : Security Issue Buzzing USB !!!!

1.   The typical USB protocol requires that anything with USB  declares itself as either a "device" or "host". "Host" can be a PC and other bigger machines accessible whereas "Devices" can be iPod, iPads, USB thumb drives, and other "small" accessory-like things.  If you ever want a USB "host" to pretend to be a USB "device", you need special hardware. The FaceDancer is that key.

2.   The FaceDancer allows a computer (or "host") to masquerade as a USB "device" to communicate with other USB devices or USB Hosts. The FaceDancer allows a developer to access data on the USB bus from high level languages like C, Python, and Ruby.

Details and above info from : http://int3.cc/products/facedancer21


Thursday, January 01, 2015

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015

WISHING YOU WONDERFUL GUYS A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR AHEAD....CHEERS FOR YEARS....

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