Category: Hardware

Easily spoofed traffic can crash routers, Juniper warns

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Posted by Tech Paranoia on January 7, 2010 – 10:30 am
Filed under Firewalls, Hardware
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Juniper Networks is warning customers of a critical flaw in its gateway routers that allows attackers to crash the devices by sending them small amounts of easily-spoofed traffic.

In an advisory sent Wednesday afternoon, the networking company said a variety of devices could be forced to reboot by sending them internet packets with maliciously formed TCP options. The flaw affects versions 3 through 10 of Junos, the operating system that powers devices at ISPs, backbones, and other large networks. Software releases built on or after January 28, 2009 have already fixed the issue.

“The Junos kernel will crash (i.e. core) when a specifically crafted TCP option is received on a listening TCP port,” the bulletin, which was issued by Juniper’s technical assistance center, stated. “The packet cannot be filtered with Junos’s firewall filter. A router receiving this specific TCP packet will crash and reboot.”

There are “no totally effective workarounds,” the bulletin added.

It’s unclear how many Juniper systems remain vulnerable or exactly when customers began installing patches. But the wording of the bulletin was enough to make some security watchers pay close heed, particularly since the Junos ACL, or access control list, was powerless to prevent the attacks.

“Anything that can crash the internet is a big deal,” said Daniel Kennedy, a researcher with Praetorian Security Group. “Essentially, you can send a packet to a router and the ACL in that router can’t stop this, so you can basically start bouncing routers just by sending it a crafted options field in a TCP request.”

A Juniper spokeswoman said the bulletin was one of seven security advisories the company issued under a policy designed to prevent members of the public at large from getting details of the vulnerabilities.

“Because of Juniper’s ‘Entitled Disclosure Policy,’ only our customers and partners are allowed access to the details of the Security Advisory,” the spokeswoman wrote.

While the only effective solution is to patch, the bulletin said the risk could be minimized but limiting TCP packets destined for Junos devices. Specifically, customers should employ anti-spoofing” techniques described here. If those techniques aren’t feasible for all traffic “focus on anti-spoofing for the IP addresses used for the control plane, management plane, and link addresses,” the advisory stated.

Source: The Register

NIST-certified USB Flash drives with hardware encryption cracked

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Posted by Tech Paranoia on January 5, 2010 – 4:00 pm
Filed under Hardware
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Kingston, SanDisk and Verbatim all sell quite similar USB Flash drives with AES 256-bit hardware encryption that supposedly meet the highest security standards. This is emphasised by the FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certificate issued by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which validates the USB drives for use with sensitive government data. Security firm SySS, however, has found that despite this it is relatively easy to access the unencrypted data, even without the required password.

The USB drives in question encrypt the stored data via the practically uncrackable AES 256-bit hardware encryption system. Therefore, the main point of attack for accessing the plain text data stored on the drive is the password entry mechanism. When analysing the relevant Windows program, the SySS security experts found a rather blatant flaw that has quite obviously slipped through testers’ nets. During a successful authorisation procedure the program will, irrespective of the password, always send the same character string to the drive after performing various crypto operations – and this is the case for all USB Flash drives of this type.

Cracking the drives is therefore quite simple. The SySS experts wrote a small tool for the active password entry program’s RAM which always made sure that the appropriate string was sent to the drive, irrespective of the password entered and as a result gained immediate access to all the data on the drive. The vulnerable devices include the Kingston DataTraveler BlackBox, the SanDisk Cruzer Enterprise FIPS Edition and the Verbatim Corporate Secure FIPS Edition.

When notified by SySS about this worst case security scenario, the respective vendors responded quite differently. Kingston started a recall of the affected products; SanDisk and Verbatim issued woolly security bulletins about a “potential vulnerability in the access control application” and provided a software update. When asked by heise Security, Verbatim Europe said that none of the affected drives have been sold in Europe – and that none will be shipped before the hole has been closed.

The real question, however, remains unanswered – how could USB Flash drives that exhibit such a serious security hole be given one of the highest certificates for crypto devices? Even more importantly, perhaps – what is the value of a certification that fails to detect such holes?

Source: H Online

Beware of Christmas presents with non-volatile memory

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Posted by Tech Paranoia on December 22, 2009 – 2:00 pm
Filed under Hardware
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While everyone likes Christmas presents, recipients are well advised to supplement their joy with a small measure of distrust if they receive USB flash drives, MP3 players or digital photo frames. This applies to home as well as business users. These devices may contain malware – whether this was intended by the sender or not.

Although applications on USB flash drives can normally only be started by the user, connecting any external flash memory device to a Windows PC can potentially lead to infection, for example when the product is a USB Smart Drive with Autoplay/Autorun. For protection it’s best to generally disable Autoplay in Windows.

Misleading options displayed by the Autoplay function can trick users into inadvertently infecting their systems. Plugging in a Conficker infected USB drive results in a specially crafted icon appearing in the Autoplay dialogue which appears to be a folder; clicking on this folder icon activates the worm.

This trick no longer works in Windows 7 because Microsoft has completely removed the option for starting programs from the dialogue for writeable memory such as USB flash drives, memory cards and external hard disks. This change, however, does not apply to CDs and DVDs.

The Internet Storm Center recommends that users generally format any unsolicited mobile storage device they receive, even if it’s marked “Joe’s Bachelor Party Pictures” to arouse users’ curiosity.

Source: The H Online

Two US men charged with running phony Cisco biz

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Posted by Tech Paranoia on December 4, 2009 – 2:00 pm
Filed under Hardware, Piracy
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Two Kansas men have been charged with making $1m in proceeds by buying computer networking gear in China and passing it off as products from Cisco Systems.

Christopher Myers, 40, and Timothy Weatherly, 27, obtained the networking gear from a variety of sources and then slapped phony Cisco labels on them, according to documents filed in federal court in Kansas City. To give the goods the additional air of legitimacy, they put them in purported Cisco boxes and included counterfeit Cisco manuals.

Myers also stands accused of obtaining access to a website containing Cisco’s confidential serial numbers, so the men could affix them to the gear they sold. Prosecutors said the men sold the equipment on eBay and on private websites.

They were charged with one count of conspiracy, 30 counts of trafficking in counterfeit goods and one count of trafficking in counterfeit labels. The government is seeking forfeiture of $1m in proceeds from the alleged crimes. If convicted, the men also face a maximum of fives years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Myers made an initial appearance in court on Thursday.

Security experts have warned that counterfeit networking gear could contain back doors that allow spies to conduct industrial espionage on US companies.

Source: The Register

New York voting machines hit by malware to lead to allegations of voter fraud and machine failures

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Posted by Tech Paranoia on November 22, 2009 – 1:00 pm
Filed under Hardware, Security
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Voting machines in a New York town have been hit by a virus casting doubt on the accuracy of counts retrieved from any of the machines.

According to the Gouverneur Times Cathleen Rogers, the democratic elections commissioner in Hamilton County, claimed that a problem had been found with their voting machines the week prior to the election, and the ‘virus’ had been fixed by a technical support representative from Dominion, the manufacturer.

It also claimed that despite continued assurances from the manufacturer that the system is unhackable, reliable, easy to use, private and secure; a stream of lawsuits, allegations of voter fraud and machine failures against Sequoia from other congressional districts continue to contradict their statements.

Source: SC Magazine UK

Startup Promises ‘Disruptive,’ Hardware-Based Endpoint Security Solution

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Posted by Tech Paranoia on November 18, 2009 – 2:00 pm
Filed under Hardware
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A startup company today launched a new hardware device that promises to prevent malware and viruses from ever entering the computer it protects.

The InZero Secure PC is essentially two computers in one: a standard computing module and a secure “InZero Gateway” module, the company says. The InZero Gateway module is directly connected to the Internet, isolating and hosting potentially dangerous network applications while transferring files to and from the computing module, which is permanently offline.

“Clearly, current software-based approaches to security are not working,” says General Wesley Clark, chairman of the advisory board for InZero. “We believe this hardware approach is a new, disruptive solution.”

“Essentially, it’s a hardware ’sandbox’ — a strictly-enforced, hardware isolation mechanism” that separates the computer from its primary source of infection — the Internet, says Phil Zimmerman, creator of PGP and an expert on data security and encryption, who has reviewed the technology and appeared at the announcement event.

“In effect, InZero’s approach is not trying to understand malware, but instead to create an environment where malware cannot execute,” the startup says.

Source: DarkReading

Most Security Products Fail To Perform

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Posted by Tech Paranoia on November 16, 2009 – 11:30 am
Filed under Hardware, Security, Software
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Nearly 80 percent of security products fail to perform as intended when first tested and generally require two or more cycles of testing before achieving certification, according to a new ICSA Labs report that details lessons gleaned from testing thousands of security products over 20 years. Across seven product categories core product functionality accounted for 78 percent of initial test failures. For example, an anti-virus product failing to prevent infection and for firewalls or an IPS product not filtering malicious traffic. Rounding out the top three is the startling finding that 44 percent of security products had inherent security problems. Security testing issues range from vulnerabilities that compromise the confidentiality or integrity of the system to random behavior that affects product availability.

Source: Slashdot

Intel to pay AMD $1.25 billion, settle all disputes

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Posted by Tech Paranoia on November 13, 2009 – 11:30 am
Filed under Hardware
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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Chip makers Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc said they have settled all outstanding legal disputes, including antitrust litigation and patent licensing issues.

Intel said on Thursday it will pay AMD $1.25 billion as part of the settlement, sending shares of AMD up nearly 30 percent.

The two companies also sealed a five-year cross license deal and said they would give up any claims of breach from their previous license agreement.

Competition authorities in Asia, Europe and the United States have taken action against Intel in recent years because of persistent complaints by AMD about the behavior of Intel, which makes 80 percent of the central processing units at the heart of personal computers.

Source: Wired

Latest OS X won’t work on Atom netbooks

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Posted by Tech Paranoia on November 13, 2009 – 9:02 am
Filed under Hardware, Software
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Apple’s latest build for Mac OS X has been changed to not run on Intel’s Atom processors, much to the dismay of the ‘hackintosh’ community that specialise in running the operating system on PCs.

Rumors of the change surfaced earlier in the month after the release of the developer build, and users have confirmed that this is the case.

Source: Tech Radar