LastPass Security Notification

We take a close look at our logs and try to explain every anomaly we see. Tuesday morning we saw a network traffic anomaly for a few minutes from one of our non-critical machines. These happen occasionally, and we typically identify them as an employee or an automated script.

In this case, we couldn’t find that root cause. After delving into the anomaly we found a similar but smaller matching traffic anomaly from one of our databases in the opposite direction (more traffic was sent from the database compared to what was received on the server). Because we can’t account for this anomaly either, we’re going to be paranoid and assume the worst: that the data we stored in the database was somehow accessed. We know roughly the amount of data transfered and that it’s big enough to have transfered people’s email addresses, the server salt and their salted password hashes from the database. We also know that the amount of data taken isn’t remotely enough to have pulled many users encrypted data blobs.

If you have a strong, non-dictionary based password or pass phrase, this shouldn’t impact you – the potential threat here is brute forcing your master password using dictionary words, then going to LastPass with that password to get your data. Unfortunately not everyone picks a master password that’s immune to brute forcing.

Source:
http://blog.lastpass.com/2011/05/lastpass-security-notification.html

Posted in Internet, Privacy, Security, Software | No Comments

Secret Storage Hides Encrypted Data In Plain Sight

A new data storage technique provides security, as well as plausible deniability. Whereas encrypted data can be easily spotted–if not necessarily decrypted, without obtaining the decryption keys from the device owner–the new technique disguises stored data as random disk fragmentation. When implemented correctly, a digital forensic investigator might not even know that secret information was stored on the drive.

The new technique was first detailed in “Designing a cluster-based covert channel to evade disk investigation and forensics,” a recent paper written by researchers from the University of Southern California at Los Angeles and the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Islamabad, Pakistan.

“There could be a number of potential uses for this technology, but the main strength of our technique lies in its ability to conceal information in cases where encryption cannot be used–e.g., where the presence of encrypted data would appear suspicious and may be deemed an unacceptable risk to the communicating parties,” said report co-author Fauzan Mirza, a communication systems engineering professor at NUST, in an email interview. “The obvious application of these techniques would be among people or organizations that need to protect information against powerful–well-resourced–adversaries, such as spies, terrorists, whistleblowers, political groups, etc.”

This type of covert channel could also have enterprise security applications, such as creating a covert password safe. Likewise, “it could also be used to implement a software copy protection mechanism or information tracking/watermarking mechanism,” or even as part of a data leakage protection mechanism, said Mirza. “We did not go into these applications, since–as academics–we wanted to bring to light the simplicity and novelty of the idea, rather than dwell on the applications. We left that part to the readers.”

Source:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/storage/security/229402386

Posted in Hardware, Privacy, Security | No Comments

Dropbox Will Hand Over Your Files to the Feds If Asked

Popular cloud-storage service Dropbox has updated its terms of service to include a clause that states it will turn your files over to the government–if the government asks, of course.

This is nothing groundbreaking, Business Insider points out –it’s a fairly common clause that appears in other cloud services’ TOS, including Gmail, Hotmail, and Amazon cloud.

Dropbox is one of the leading cloud-storage services, and it works by installing a special “cloud” folder to your computer’s hard disk. Any files you place in this special folder are then synced with your Dropboxes around the world (you can install Dropbox on any number of computers, phones, and tablets), and can be accessed from any Dropbox-enabled device.

Source:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/225549/Dropbox_Government_Files_Turn_Over.html#tk.rss_news

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Password Strength Meter

People wonder if their password is a good password. I often come across two distinct groups of people. The first would fall into a “just use any word” category, which is a very bad practice for picking passwords. The second group will mix in a few numbers in order to make the password a lot harder to guess. But, how do you know if you have a secure passphrase?

Source:
http://rumkin.com/tools/password/passchk.php 

Posted in Internet, Security | 1 Comment

RawCap sniffer for Windows released

We are today proude to announce the release of RawCap, which is a free raw sockets sniffer for Windows.

Here are some highlights of why RawCap is a great tool to have in your toolset:

• Can sniff any interface that has got an IP address, including 127.0.0.1 (localhost/loopback)
• RawCap.exe is just 17 kB
• No external libraries or DLL’s needed
• No installation required, just download RawCap.exe and sniff
• Can sniff most interface types, including WiFi and PPP interfaces
• Minimal memory and CPU load
• Reliable and simple to use

Source:
http://www.netresec.com/?page=Blog&month=2011-04&post=RawCap-sniffer-for-Windows-released

Posted in Internet, Networking, Privacy, Security, Software, Windows | No Comments