Microsoft releases Sigcheck 2.0

Sigcheck is a command-line utility that shows file version number, timestamp information, and digital signature details, including certificate chains.

Version 2.0 adds integration with the VirusTotal antivirus scanner aggregation service. Sigcheck can now check the status of a file against over 40 antivirus engines and launch the associated online VirusTotal report, and even upload files for scanning that have not already been scanned by VirusTotal.

This release also reports the machine type of executable images, whether 16-, 32-, or 64-bit.

http://download.sysinternals.com/files/Sigcheck.zip

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PHP.net compromised to serve malware

On Thursday, Google’s Safe Browsing service began warning visitors to php.net that the website was discovered serving malware. Initially, most people and PHP maintainers thought that it was a false positive, but subsequent investigation confirmed that some of the project’s servers did get compromised.

The hackers succeeded in injecting malicious JavaScript code (userprefs.js) in four of the site’s pages. When visitors landed on them, the code allowed for automatic detection of vulnerable plug-ins, and the serving of malicious SWF files. It’s interesting to note that only desktop browser users were targeted – those who visited the compromised pages with a mobile browser were safe.

Barracuda Networks researchers managed to get their hands on a packet capture file, and provided it to other researchers for analysis. Kaspersky Lab’s Fabio Assolini noted that the malicious iFrame pointed to the Magnitude Exploit Kit and dropped a variant of the Tepfer information-stealing Trojan with a low AV detection rate.

The PHP team is still investigating the intrusion and has commented that they first thought the compromise was a false positive due to the offending JavaScript being only periodically injected.

In a recent update on the situation, they confirmed that the server which hosted the php.net, static.php.net and git.php.net domain, and the server hosting bugs.php.net have been compromised, but that they still don’t know have it happened.

Source:
http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=2612

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Researcher Uncovers Backdoor Vulnerability in D-Link Routers

A security researcher this weekend discovered a backdoor vulnerability with certain D-Link routers that might allow cyber criminals to alter a router’s setting without a username or password.

In a note on its website, D-Link said it is “proactively working with the sources of these reports as well as continuing to review across the complete product line to ensure that the vulnerabilities discovered are addressed.”

The glitch was discovered by Craig Heffner from Tactical Network Solutions. He charted the hack in a technical blog post published on Saturday, but what it boils down to is a vulnerability that lets scammers “access the web interface without any authentication and view/change the device settings.”

According to PC World, D-Link plans to release a firmware update for the problem by the end of the month. D-Link did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As the site noted, the discovery is problematic because an attacker could, for example, change the DNS settings on a router and redirect users to malicious websites.

Source:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2425728,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03069TX1K0001121

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How the Bible and YouTube are fueling the next frontier of password cracking

Early last year, password security researcher Kevin Young was hitting a brick wall. Over the previous few weeks, he made steady progress decoding cryptographically protected password data leaked from the then-recent hack of intelligence firm Stratfor. But with about 60 percent of the more than 860,000 password hashes cracked, his attempts to decipher the remaining 40 percent were failing.

The so-called dictionary attacks he mounted using lists of more than 20 million passwords culled from previous website hacks had worked well. Augmented with programming rules that substituted letters for numbers or combined two or more words in his lists, his attacks revealed Stratfor passwords such as “pinkyandthebrain,” “pithecanthropus,” and “moonlightshadow.” Brute-force techniques trying every possible combination of letters, numbers, and special characters had also succeeded at cracking all passwords of eight or fewer characters. So the remaining 344,000 passwords, Young concluded, must be longer words or phrases few crackers had seen before.

“I was starting to run out of word lists,” he recalled. “I was at a loss for words—literally.”

He cracked the first 60 percent of the list using the freely available Hashcat and John the Ripper password-cracking programs, which ran the guesses through the same MD5 algorithm Stratfor and many other sites used to generate the one-way hashes. When the output of a guessed word matched one of the leaked Stratfor hashes, Young would have successfully cracked another password. (Security professionals call the technique an “offline” attack because guesses are never entered directly into a webpage.) Now, with his arsenal of dictionaries exhausted and the exponential increase in the time it would take to brute force passwords greater than eight characters, Young was at a dead end. In the passwords arms race, he was losing. Young knew he needed to compile new lists of words he never tried before. The question was where to find the words.

Source:
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/how-the-bible-and-youtube-are-fueling-the-next-frontier-of-password-cracking/

Posted in Internet, Privacy, Security | 1 Comment

Secure QR Login (SQRL)

There’s a new web authentication method being proposed by Steve Gibson over at grc.com and initially it looks really good and does seem to solve most, if not all, of the current security/privacy problems we have with traditional username/password authentication.

In a nutshell, website login pages will display a QR code next to the traditional login form that the user will capture with their device’s camera, process, and then send an authentication blob back to the website (out-of-band) which will then log you into the website.  No usernames or passwords.  You are known to the website only by your unique “public key”.  Interesting, and I think it may work as long as the crypto is solid and the websites/vendors are willing to support and develop for it.

All the details can be found here:  (He’s only written 3 of the 11 pages so far)

https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm

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