Hack Naked TV - Episode 2 - Office 2007 Metadata from PaulDotCom on Vimeo.
hack nacked TV ;) - beware
Before anyone complains: oh noez, I have to install some strange stuff and build it on my strange MacOS with this strange gcc-like compiler. There's a binary. You find lots of stuff in document's metadata. I have heard whispers here and there, that those people, who successfully compromised the Pentagon's infrastructure, began with examining the website's files and its metadata. Scary! You find stuff... that really doesn't belong there. In screenshots, in you**** videos (not that I watch those, nowai). Seriously: files have identifying signatures.
Therefore Larry, who discovered lots of that stuff and put in into the video here, made a SANS paper, available in the Reading Room.
Some time ago I posted some other interesting new ways to get hands on metadata. And how to get usernames, hints for passwords, environmental information, that is the art of footprinting. Together with some magic, some security-thinking, and stuff like Maltego: voila. Social exploitation a la Web 2.0 - the more data there are, the easier it gets. And we tend to make data available, more and more. Every single second we are online.
The Nmap dude
The book is there. Amazon will make you smile ;). The dude really made it. Half the stuff is online ;). Fyodor pirates it. I think this is one of the reasons he's independently publishing. Free knowledge, good stuff. The new Lua thing - I think it's a must learn. Now.
Imagine your loved one's surprise when she (or he) finds nearly 500 pages of port scanning bliss in her stocking!
Sure, my girlfriend will love it... It's for her. She can watch "Sex and the City" during I read this book. Sounds being a very fair deal, doesn't it Santa?
You can use maps for terrorism?
Really? Woahhhhhhhr? Damn, let's forbid maps. I mean seriously: maps are dangerous. When I was in the military once I had _the_ map. I lost my way and suddenly I got some serious problems with my comrades. The introduction in GPS stuff was at the next day... Brilliant planing!
DNSsec or what?
Turns out djb has an interesting alternative for us:
Despite its extremely high level of security, DNSCurve is very easy for software authors to implement, and very easy for administrators to deploy.
And DON'T tell me dnssec is easy to deploy. I'll find you!!! ;)
Bad guys win? - Being slow on realizing change effects
I'm not impressed by the tiny little stats window. But is shocks me that the NY times sees a need to tell people:
With vast resources from stolen credit card and other financial information, the cyberattackers are handily winning a technology arms race.
Sounds interesting enough: the resources in a botnet can be enormous. It's fundamental to realize that you're not going after kids, hobby-hackers or just nerds. Here we have got organized crime. They have resources.
btw: it's very sad in Germany for example government decides to go after citizens and installs constant monitoring solutions to "oversee the internet" - at least they plan to try. But Botnets or real cyper-criminals aren't on any list. Strange, isn't it?
The biggest problem may be that people cannot tell if their computers are infected because the malware often masks its presence from antivirus software. For now, Apple’s Macintosh computers are more or less exempt from the attacks, but researchers expect Apple machines to become a larger target as their market share grows.
MacOS has some minor weaknesses, but one major one: an uninformed community.
Botnets itself are a phenomenon that seldomly is well described or understood. The counterpart, a honeypot, is to find out about a Botnet's technical strategy - as I'd describe it. It can lead to very interesting results doing so, and looking after Botmaster's abilities. Even if you think you've gained in depth knowledge about security strategy: the only thing you can do is hardending systems, raising the bar, and await how to react.
With this standard security in depth hullabaloo (firewall, IDS, IPS, policy...) you will lose, unless your defensive abilities grow into the "layer 8 - aspects". Botnets exist because of uneducated users.
Truth sometimes is sad: most people, whose data are in botnets, will not find out - before it's too late. So the security strategy has to shift to education (which is expensive, I know). I don't see any other technology being effectively able to make this phenomenon disappear. And it seems getting dangerous enough!
Sometimes I think botnets just contain a shadow, darkly showing how far society really evolved to cope with the fundamental changes we all are going through, while experiencing the quantum jumps modern technology brings to us every day. Change is fast nowadays. But it leaves behind those, who aren't following regularly and with some effort. Botnets contain a social dimension, too: they exist, maybe because progression in technology is too fast, and business is adapting too fast on it? Or maybe because there's always criminality, nevertheless how mankind explores new territory, or where it is?
Come on Santa
Please? :)
And yes, I'm an academic ;). The prices are very good! For us/me.
Have fun and a happy pre Christmas-time,
wishi
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