Pro Hack

How to Play Devil May Cry 3 SE (dmc3 se) on PC with normal controller with xpadder

2012-04-10T01:06:00.001+05:30

Well..its been a long time I am writing a gaming article, I actually got bored of playing with routers and thought to give myself a break and return to hack and slash genre. I picked up Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition (dmc3se) for my laptop, and the game is a poor port by Sourcenext which are equal culprits in porting Onimusha 3, Resident Evil 4 on PC on behalf of Capcom , its a pity that Ubisoft (which marketed the game for PC) and Capcom wasted such a brilliant opportunity for catering PC gamers. The issues which are faced by game are -

Worst control scheme ever devised, controls by which only monkeys can play
Poor graphics and shadow effects
Bad joystick detection.
Even Worse analog stick detection and camera issues.
Choppy music.

If you are reading it, I guess you have already felt the pain and googled it a lot. Well, fear not , I will counter them one all : ] just read on.

Let me divide the problem into 2 categories – control issues and other issues. Well..I divided it into these two because the solution will address them in the following manner. First, Install the game properly, choose the correct directory (or whatever you want) insert correct serial key, make sure its a clean install.

Once you have done that, head on to Ubisoft and download the latest 1.3 patch for your respective version. Its absolutely critical to download and install this patch for solving the issues.

Once done, open the patch and install it. Your Music, graphical issues shall be solved as of now.

Solving Controller Issues

With 1.3 patch, you will be getting a utility GPadCfg.exe at your game directory for configuring gamepad. Open it and click on edit, click on the buttons in the picture and press respective button on gamepad.

Once done, DOUBLE CLICK on save button to save the config. Dont click on L<->R REVERSE button.

Now, your controller is mapped to game. Now go to game directory and open DMC3SE.ini . Make sure to make a backup of it though. GO to end of DMC3SE.ini and look for the section for your gamepad config. It will look like this.

Now, edit it, such that L3 and R3 (the analog buttons) are cleared.

Now , download xpadder 5.3 from here . Once downloaded, open it . In case , you are using Windows 7 and it doesnt opens, right click on Xpadder.exe, go to compatibility and run it in Windows Vista SP2 mode.

Also, go to folder where DMC3SE is installed, and give full permissions to the user.

Now open xpadder.exe, make sure your controller is connected to your PC/Laptop. Click on controller icon to create a new profile.

Go to stickds/button/dpad tab and enable and press the respective buttons.

Once done, go to finish tab and click on close.

Once done, click on the buttons on the interface and map the LEFT ANALOG to W, A, S , D keys on the keyboard .

Your final xpadder configuration will look like this.

Save it. Now open the game and enjoy : ] , your controller will work fine.

I hope you will enjoy the game as much as I am enjoying it : ]

Emulation and Me–The gamer Side of me

2012-03-10T03:20:00.001+05:30

First of all, sorry for a late post, I have been busy in researching DDOS mitigation solutions, and have been going through a lot of data sheets, specs and devices for the same. Also, Prohack celebrated its one more year of its technological legacy and I thought why not to cover about what made me tick and started it all..Well...to be frank, it was the games, old school games.

The earliest memory of a videogame I played was at the local computer centre (Hind Computers) at my local town, it was Jordan Mechner's Prince of Persia in mid nineties, well..I remember the beautiful graphics on the monochrome monitors, elusive I must say, but I knew I was hooked to it for my life. It was also my first interaction with computers.

The 90's were a sort of a period when you can get your hands on an Atari (if you were lucky) , a PC (if your parents were either merchants and needed the machine for their financial transactions..or just hard-core geeks) or Terminator Ending Man series of NES clones that later in early 2000's flooded the market. The arcade scene boomed (provided you knew the places) and old CPS1 machines saw bouts of Street Fighter 2, Cadillac's and Dinosaurs (Fondly called as Mustafa due to the titular and strong character of the game) and if you were lucky Tekken 3 .

As time progressed home consoles, as I already said I witnessed 8 bit revolution in India when it was almost forgotten by the east and west. Well..not bad for me. I got my hands on an NES clone (Media 1000) for which I was able to get the Chinese/Taiwanese multicarts every once in a while, and witnessed the greatness of late eighties and early 90's in the form of Mario, Mario 3, Contra , Super C, Rockman , Mighty Final Fight, Metal Gear, Zen - The Intergalactic Ninja, Kage (Shadow of Ninja, Jap version) , Nekketsu series, Summer Carnival 92 - Recca , Little Ninja Bros,Disney’s Jungle Book, GIJOE, TMNT 3/ 4 Tournament Fighters and much much more..and to be frank, Capcom, Konami and Nintendo were my Gods .

I witnessed 16 bit gaming during my summer vacations at modded arcades at Dehradun (Tibet Coloney, Buddha temple, they are still there today), modded in the sense that they were home consoles of Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and SNES, which were fitted with Hori Style arcade sticks and hooked up to make shift cabinets, when for 5 Rs you can get your hands on Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 , Comix Zone, Contra Hardcorps, Street Fighter 2 , Super Mario World for 30 minutes and lots more. Players duelled there and its there I got my first taste of fatalities in UMK3, and I am still good in pulling them off without breaking a sweat. Its there I had my first contact with 3d fighters like Tekken 3, Street Fighter Ex/EX2/plus , Mortal Kombat 4 and many more and I longed for my summer vacations so that I could go to my native place and play the games .

Growing up, I had my first RPG as Little Ninja Brothers by Culture Brain, when I bought the multicart, I was perplexed by the gameplay as I wasn't used to the concept of resource mining/hogging, spells, random encounters and a chained story. Getting dragstar, beating Devillion, getting to Yokan , the 7 bells..I now realise how generic it was , but back then , the sweet taste of going into an adventure in your own way was awesome. Nevertheless, I had a record of beating each game I got and mastering to the point of flawless execution, a thing that needed time which my parents frowned upon, a lot. The second thing they hated the most was the chiptune music which I liked a lot (still have a great collection of them today :) in my cell phone ) which later hooked me to the demoscene, I am a fan of the Farbrausch, .theprodukkt, Fairlight, mfx, kewlers and used to enjoy the intros/cracktros in my pastime.

Then there was Prateek, he had a blazing fast Pentium 3 at his home and I remember him cursing Windows and playing Dinocrisis (and swooning on Regina :P) , on a side note, we also started our experiments by getting a copy of Turbo Linux, experimenting with it , then after bouts of frustration and incoherent manuals (it was a time when IT WAS HARD finding the correct Linux drivers for your box, coding them was out of question since we were kids) but that's a different story. Doom , Dangerous Dave and Wolfenstein 3d was what we had with us at that time as shooters. Then after a lot of haggling, and by scoring good marks i was able to get a Sega Genesis for me (PAL version, used, with my first carts as Contra Hardcorps and Utlimate Mortal Kombat 3) and I spent my days tinkering with Super Hang On, Monaco GP, Rambo, Aladdin and lots more. It was during those days when I got a PC and then, my life was changed.

At that time, PC for me meant 3 things -

Games
Programming
Internet

Of which Games was the primary part and programming was done at late hours of night (VB/VBS if you are curious, it was in my courseware at school , I moved on to C as I got bored of dragging and dropping and wanted some real challenge).Initial games were Project IGI, handful of Virgin interactive classics (The Lion King..anyone ?) The real twist came when I picked up a dusty copy of Street Fighter Alpha 3 from a shop, and when I ran it from CD, a DOS based interface opened , and the game ran. But there was something peculiar about it, it wasn't exactly DOS based, I later figured out, the game ran in DOS mode using an emulator, which was a new term for me, but as a rule of thumb, anything that made me play games is something to be learnt and something to get good at, I started exploring them. I am lucky it was in those days emulation scene was still kicking ass, with fresh releases of Kawaks/Nebula/Final burn Alpha and all other CPS/CPS2/PGM emulation systems lots of documentation to read, a great community to mix and great games to play. It was then I found I had an inherent taste in emulation and I had a hand on almost all emulators which ever found their way to Zophar's Domain or scene sites. I found my own configurations that worked for me (and my own box) flawlessly, debugging through 68000 debugger in Kawaks , the first taste of loading games through Callous, and playing Super Mario World using SNES 9x (without paying money again, ever :D) .I used to play “borrowed” MAME roms on early builds of MAME and the understood the full glory of arcades . I remember playing Chronotrigger (the best RPG I played..ever) on ZSNES and dumping SPC files, only to be later converted into mp3 and then playing the sweet music on Sunday mornings. Nobuo Uematsu..thanks for making my childhood sweet.

It was due to emulators , I witnessed the actual history of gaming , starting from Spacewar to Atari, the console wars between Nintendo and Sega, the ditching of Sony by Nintendo, the revenge of Sony in the form of Playstation, the Sega 32 X, Saturn and the dawn of Sega, the tryst of Nintendo in the form of N64 , the console wars of millennium starting from the iconic date of 9/9/99 , the failing of Sega as a hardware developer and Dreamcast being ousted from market despite its innovations, the PS2 and Xbox and coming to the semi-present day scenario of PS3 vs XBOX 360 and the coming next generation of consoles.

Later on when it came to PC Gaming, we formed the Project IGI club, guys who started their PC gaming careers with their first game as Codemaster’s Project IGI and finding new and innovative ways to beat it. Also, when it came to PC gaming, Prateek and my brother Vaibhav , both hated me for emulators, according to them it was lame and the latest was the best, I on the other had found anything with a configuration file worth my time and played through all the classic titles one by one. The only game we all agreed was awesome was Mario Kart 64 on Project 64, hell, who would argue it was bad :) Then there were PlayStation emulators epsxe/pcsx/adripsx/psx and the best plugin pack you could get your hands on – Aldo’s Plugin Pack, having the best drivers from one of my favourite coder Pete Bernert , his fantastic plugins were easy to tweak/compile (courtesy of his PE oPs project) and had exceptional performance.

Coming of age , I got my hands on Halo: Combat Evolved, CS 1.6 , Hitman series, Max Payne series of which I still can repeat dialogues of Max Payne line by line, I just liked the Nordic ,violent,noir setting of the game like with a great story line. It was also at that time I came across modern emulators PCSX2 , CXBX/DXBX, Potemkin, XEON, Dolphin, Chankast and found except Chankast each one of them required to have an Alienware or Origin PC to even run the games (well, I wanted to play God of War at that time, bad..but they were on nascent stage then) , in laymen terms, they needed exceptionally high configurations just to croak . I also found Doom 3 also needed an Alienware to run :| literally.

After a while, I found the emulation scene started getting stagnant with few updates and releases and I started focusing on genres I haven't tried. At this point of time, I vaguely remembered a trailer of Metal gear Solid 3 : Snake Eater in an early review at Ten Sports, and thought to give a shot to the series starting of MGS on EPSXE.

That proved to be the most exciting gaming experiences of my life.

Well..i found it alluring, awesome storyline, well developed characters, a gruff snake and the best voice acting I have ever heard on a videogame . Wow..just wow. It was time for Metal Gear Solid 2 : Substance on PC and got my copy cheap off from a retail shop. the experience ? Well..2 words – Fucking Awesome ! I will cover it in a later review some other day. Also, during those days. I saw a demo of RE4 on a gamecube machine and its still the best survival horror game ever. Speaking of which, my life had came a full circle, Capcom’s Shinji Mikami’s RE , Capcom Clover’s Killer 7,Hideki Kamiya’s Devil May Cry, Konami’s Hideo Kojima’s MGS and Shigeru Miyamato’s Mario series..Everything a gamer could want. Capcom, Konami and Nintendo..the game Gods revisited again.

Mid and late 2000’s brought me Warcraft 3, StarCraft, Farcry, Half life 2 , Prince of Persia : Warrior Within (which I only play due to the refined combo system and kickass music by Godsmack) and CPS3. A special mention to Half Life 2 for the most immersive shooter of its time, although I wished the crap about G Man was solved :X . While Warcraft 3 and Starcraft are the best RTS experience, the reverse engineering of CPS3 encryption was what caught my eye during those days. One of the first POC emulators was written by Miguel Angel 'ElSemi' Horna better known as Elsemi of Nebula fame and one of the first games which I played was Street Fighter 3. Heck, CPS3 means Street Fighter 3, the finest and most technical fighting game ever made. Don't believe me ? well..just Google “Evolution 2004 Daigo” and you will know what I mean. Its the pinnacle of fighting genre only for the dedicated. Nowadays, add GGPO to it and you get a heady mix of online play in the most competitive manner in an already highly competitive game.

Nowadays, a lot of titles are revised, repacked and innovative games are being launched, you have got staples like Street Fighter 4, Killzone, God Of War 3 , Gears, RE, MGS, Super Mario Galaxy / Galaxy 2, Halo 3, Portal/Portal 2 (however I liked Narbular Drop just as much) and the innovation bandwagon of Bastion, Tower of Goo, Limbo, Bulletstorm,Journey, Infamous and a lot more..they are online and fun, the DLC allows for replayability , but still, I prefer the old school emulation any day over the current titles. Call me a nerd, but then, thats the way I am . As i type this , i have an opponent waiting for a rematch on Third Strike.

I had a great gaming childhood, if you had one, you might share my sentiments, else, I just might have some great geeky stories to tell you.

Mikrotik Routers rock– Cheap, awesome and beats Cisco at same price

2012-02-17T20:56:00.001+05:30

Working at Tulip Telecom has his own charm, you get your hands on an array of devices and lots of research . Well, i got my hands on Mikrotik routers, i have been working on them for a considerable amount of time (more than 6 months) and they are awesome. Here’s what i like in them -

Awesome Router OS
Extensive IP accounting which can segregate and display bandwidth utilization by IP,vlan,interface,source,destination .. and even more..you name it it has it.
3G modem/VPDN support.
Extensive Queue and filter support, with ability to use burst limits and can be extended on individual interfaces, vlan etc. its a full fledged firewall provided you know how to use it.
Wi-Fi support.
Can do Email, SMS/SMS gateway..Hell..you can even run a PHP server inside Router OS
Supports MPLS , BGP, OSPF, Multicast ,DHCP
Netflow server
Packet capture, Wi-Fi snooper, packet capture can be opened using wireshark
Scripting support to insane levels
Hardware encryption
Easy to deploy
Stable..and Cheap
and much much more..

I would prefer it over a DD-WRT/Tomato enabled Linksys any day on a tight budget :) If only people knew about it..then i guess,picture would have been different for Cisco

Increasing Reliance Netconnect speed, Online Transaction failure and Customer Care woes

2012-02-01T00:37:00.001+05:30

Since my data card limit was over, so i got Reliance Netconnect from a colleague, thought it might come handy while posting “IP Subnetting - The easy way” at Prohack and some simple surfing, I was already skeptic of taking the data card actually as I previously had a very bad experience with Reliance Netconnect and doubted if their broadband services are any good. I bet my MTS Mblaze makes it eat dirt any day ,but I had no option at that moment and thought , lets give the fucker another chance.

Ah well..you can say it was more than bad. Firstly, the data card has pretty bad speeds (~30 KBps) and then connection dropping issues. Mind you, I live in Delhi NCR and get full signal bars all the time on Reliance Netconnect Broadband + but still it barely managed to load Facebook. I thought, why not to change the DNS, on experimenting, I found Open DNS and Verizon DNS to be the most stable of all and I got a speed boost of 90-100 KBps : ]]

Here is how you can Increase speed of Reliance Netconnect Broadband + datacard -

Plugin your data card, launch application, go to settings, click on edit.

Click on advanced and put DNS server IPs. I found Verizon 4.2.2.2 //4.2.2.1 and Open DNS 208.67.222.222 // 208.67.220.220 work best for me. You can also try Google DNS 8.8.8.8 // 8.8.4.4 . Experiment and pick your choice.

Once done, click OK, save it and connect. you will get improved speeds..The whole process makes me wonder why Reliance’s default DNS is so slow . Do they even use their datacards at their home ? :|

On to my story, Since, even after changing DNS, the speeds were not good enough for me, so I thought, why not to recharge my MTS Data card online and then use it. Instantly I opened MTS website and after entering required details, transferring money to MTS from my online account, the page hanged and session was timed out. Responding to my sense of deja vu, I checked the data card and found it was not sending/receiving any data. the fucker dropped the connection just I when i was about to get my transaction completed.

I guess it took its revenge :X

I immediately emailed to MTS customer care/RechargeItNow/Bank customer care and I have *yet* to receive a helpful followup message on email. I contacted MTS customer care on phone and entered 1,1,1,1,<datacard MDN number>,1 waited for 2 minutes 46 seconds (yeah..i timed it) , the automated IVR said “after several tries you have not entered any number, so we are transferring your call to our expert” . Well..it wasn't my fault, again, there is some fault in their system as I tried 3 different valid MDN numbers later on and I got the same result. Nevertheless, I was put on call with an *expert* to whom I explained my issue and asked for escalation matrix, the details of email ID and in simple words, “what to do in case of transaction failure, the MTS way ? ”

The result was flabbergasting, the CCE spoke in an english which by all means was incomprehensible to me, I politely disconnected the call and then fumed for 2-3 minutes while looking at the Reliance datacard.

Protip : If you hate someone, gift him a Reliance datacard and watch him cry tears of blood :P

In the meantime i am still waiting for a positive response from my bank/MTS/rechargeitnow.

That was last night and I guess i have been outsmarted by a pathetic Reliance Netconnect.

IP Subnetting – The easy way

2012-01-29T23:23:00.001+05:30

Is network subnetting driving you crazy ? Does binary math gives you headaches ? well..fear not, since the time i have delved into networks, i have gone through all the oohs and aaahs and the NAH’s of the logical crescendo , and I present you the easiest way to do subnetting. Generally,3 questions are being addressed when subnetting an IP-

No of subnets
No of valid hosts and
Host range/block size

We will tackle them one by one. First you need to know about IP addresses and their classes.

Class A includes 0-127 where 0 and 127 are reserved, the default subnet mask for this class is /8 .

Class B includes 128-191 in their first octet, and the default subnet mask for this class is /16

Class C deals with 192-224 in their first octet and the default subnet mask for this class is /24

Also, also, understand a simple concept, subnet masks lying between 8- 15 are A class masks, from 16- 23 are B class and 24-32 are C class masks. Furthermore, a subnet mask can be expressed as this where (N)etwork value and (H)ost values-

Class A : 255.0.0.0 = NNNNNNNN.HHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHH
Class B : 255.255.0.0 = NNNNNNNN.NNNNNNNN.HHHHHHHH.HHHHHHHH
Class C : 255.255.0.0 = NNNNNNNN.NNNNNNNN.NNNNNNNN.HHHHHHHH
Class mask value 8 16 24 32

Now once you see it, lets tackle some real life questions. Lets find the no of subnets and valid hosts for 192.168.10.10/18

See this ? its a C class IP address having a mask of B class (as the mask lies between 16-24) now, in order to find the number of subnets, use the following formulae -

2 ^ (What mask you have been provided – default mask of the IP address given)

putting the values here..

2^(18-16) –> 2^(2) –> 4 subnets

simple : )

Now for calculating the no.of hosts, use the below formulae -

2^(32- what mask you have been provided) –2

Putting values here..

2^(32-18)-2 -> 2^(14)-2 –> 16384-2 –> 16382 hosts

piece of cake ..

now to find the block size, see the provided mask lies between which next default mask value , which in this case is 24 (as 18 is greater than 16 and less than 24) . So ..

Subtract the provided mask with the class mask value which is greater than it.

2^(Next class mask value – provided mask)

which on putting values will be

2^(24-18) –> 2^6 –> 64

So, the block size will be of 64 . So, the IP addresses will be divided into 4 subnets (which we already calculated above) above as -

192.168.0.0 - 192.168.63.255

192.168.64.0 – 192.168.127.255

192.168.128.0 - 192.168.191.255

192.168.192.0 – 192.168.255.255

And the best part, its applicable to all classes : )

Happy Subnetting : ]

Chinese Hackers Trojan-ize US Access Card - The curious case of Sykipot Trojan

2012-01-14T22:27:00.001+05:30

Researchers at AlientVault have uncovered a new strain of Sykipot Trojan which has been used to compromise the Department of Defense-sanctioned smart cards used to authorise network and building access at many US government agencies, the Trojan has been adapted by Chinese hackers in order to lift credentials from compromised systems in order to access classified military networks. The Trojan inadvertently targets PCs attached to smart card readers running ActivClient, the client application of ActivIdentity, in what's been described as a 'smart card proxy' attack.

Read the full Story at the Register

WiFi Protected Standard vulnerability – Cracked, Bruteforced and Documented

2012-01-03T16:05:00.001+05:30

A new critical flaw in Wi-Fi Protected Standard (WPS) has recently been uncovered by Security researcher Stefan Viehböck that leaves wireless routers open to attack. The inherent vulnerability lies in the design protocol that splits the 8 digit PIN in two halves which reduces its complexity and henceforth the time required to crack it. Simple permutations and combinations deduce that an 8 digit pin will create 100 million possible combinations and during his testing Stefan found it takes 2 seconds to test each combination, so bruteforcing was not a feasible option.

Unfortunately, after entering the first 4 digits of a pin, the protocol used by WPS confirms if they are correct or not, which means the pairs can be attacked separately. Also, the remaining 4 digits is just a checksum, so if an attacker has the first 4 digits, he just have to try ~1000 combinations to crack it open , which brings it to a total of 11000 different combinations to the correct pin which reduces the attack time into a matter of hours. You can find the documented PDF here and read the awesomeness.

I guess router manufacturers are up for a software fix, till then , I guess we all have to go back to MAC address .

You can also read how to Hack Wifi using Backtrack , How to detect if someone is using your WiFi or how to detect WiFi hotspots . If you are having an Android, you can also read about how to use your Android for Wardriving.

Happy New Year 2012

2011-12-31T16:25:00.001+05:30

Okay folks :) Its that time of the year again when you can get high (me on red bull) and celebrate like there is no tomorrow (literally..2012 anyone ? ). Happy New Year everyone..I have taken a lot of resolutions for 2012, and I will make them true .. that's one more resolution for me.

As a roundup of 2011, I got hired at Tulip Telecom and now oversee the good, the bad and the nerdy side of security there along with network operations,ranted about the current security scene,wrote about Top Indian Hackers, I got my HTC wildfire (rooted and still kicking ass), got myself a new laptop , got interested into networking, hacked routers and did a lot of research on exotic fields if you have been following the Prohack FB page lately. I am sorry for absence of posts though, which can be attributed to me getting busy on a lot of side projects and on my Job. One of resolutions for 2012 includes giving more time to Prohack and I will see it through .
Nevertheless, stay awesome ! and Have a safe, sane and awesome 2012 .

-Rishabh Dangwal

5 software I cant live without on my laptop (Windows) – A look inside the self confessed geeks laptop and mindset

2011-11-14T22:53:00.001+05:30

Hello fellas,

I purchased a new HP DM-3210AU machine in October, an amazing piece of hardware and one of the highest rated netbook/sub notebook of all time, and yes, I am quite impressed with its performance and capabilities. I finished my share of Call of Duty 4 on it, prepared GNS3 Topologies over it with ease and the machine chomped away everything like a no brainer. In case, ou have been wondering where I had been, you might like to read about it or want to join the Facebook page where I post more frequently .

Well..continuing to my desktop,here is how it looks : ) .

Well..then out of blue (and I think it was Redbull) I decided to write an article on 5 software I cant live without on my new machine , which allows me to simultaneously multitask on it with ease and efficiency. Consider it as a follow up of Top 10 software I cant live without on my PC.

Windows Live Mail

Now here is one of the good things Microsoft has invented, the next generation of Outlook express, simple, easy to use, intuitive and FAST. Though you will argue why I don't use Mozilla Thunderbird over it , well..Mozilla thunderbird is almost takes the same amount of memory as its Windows counterpart, but is twice as slow in terms of interface, and speed matters to me much while checking emails, I do hope you will agree with me. Although I do hate the calendar feature of live (which is a pain due to various issues) but still, it does the primary job it was conceived for.

Download it from here.

Virtual Wifi Router

Again, an amazing piece of software that frees you from the headaches of Android Adhoc wifi patching and the likes of purchasing buggy paid software like Connectify for creating wifi network with ease. I was fed up of creating adhoc networks on Windows 7 and check that my HTC Wildfire (Cyanogen mod 7, version 2.3.7) was not able to properly detect it, there came Virtual Wifi Router to the rescue and trust me, its the best Wifi Network sharing software you will ever get. Highly recommended !!

Download Virtual Wifi Router

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack

Power user friendly yet easy to install , this codec pack will just blow you away, no need to install any other x-y-z player to do the job if your windows media player can play everything (i actually like to keep my laptop clean and use it with minimum software) from the most popular formats to arcane ones..and even allows for great amount of tweaking using its ffdshow interface. link it up with Virtualdub and you have a true gem. Included tools like Gspot, mediainfo and more add the cherry to the already delicious cake . Again, no need of VLC (unless you are into multicast streaming, to confess, i am not much of a VLC fan) and no need of anything else, one codec pack to rule them all : ) .

Download from here

GNS3

I dont think I need to elaborate upon it, since the time I have joined Tulip Telecom, it has been a part and parcel o my life, simulation of complex network topologies and whacky late night experiments (you know about them if you have been following the facebook page) are all possible because of this open source tool. Be it Cisco or juniper, it handles it with ease and the best part is that its hackable, configurable and programmable till the last drop. I have my custom version running over windows (self compiled :) ), pair it with putty connection manager and you are good to go. Also, you might want to look at sample GNS3 tutorials I posted at Prohack or more at the Facebook page.

Download it from here

Google Chrome

Now again..love it or hate it, yet I find chrome as indispensible as a browser, I had issues with Mozilla Firefox (old memory bastard) and Internet Explorer 9 (old bastard), Opera is a favourite but again, I had some issues with it again (opera link issues, broken plugins) , so I finally settled on chrome for general browsing and acceptable response times, but when it comes to testing some web based apps, i jump to Opera for the same for its intuitiveness. Trust me, when it comes to choose a browser, i call it as a choice between evils. So go with the lesser one . You might also want to look at Google Chrome Easter eggs

Download it from here

Well..that sums it up I will be back with some more ramblings of mine.

Till then,

Stay Gold..

Rishabh Dangwal

Diwali Celebrations and Answers to common questions (which people have been asking me)

2011-10-26T23:07:00.002+05:30

First of all..Happy Diwali to everyone :) The festival of light , may it brings the best out of you .

Happy Diwali Everyone :)

In the mean time, there have been a lot of commotion going behind the scenes .. lots of emails asking whether I have gone into some kind of digital hibernation .. So, I will be answering the most common questions here ..

Question : What are you doing these days ?

Answer : Networks..Networks..Networks..and lots of exotic research on some exotic devices..plus some thing related to android,android service codes,gns,cisco,juniper and random stuff about explosives.

Question : Explosives ?

Answer : No typo :) i am into it actually for quite a long time. Home made stuff rocks if you ask me. (and if you are careful)

Question : Okay..so, why no updates ?

Answer : Call it , lack of time (dedicated internet included) .. I am sooo busy in company work that I am not able to post some wonderful findings I have dug up.

Question : Why dont you reply to mails ?

Answer : I reply to each and every mail I get, no matter how "flabbergasting" it may seem to me and only if it gets past my "SPAM" filters.

Question : When you will be back in fulltime writing

Answer : Cant say, I write when I am free..and I will stick to it till I get on a vacation.

Stay Amazing..
Rishabh Dangwal

I too Intended to join a Security NGO (period) and I was proved wrong.

2011-09-22T00:56:00.000+05:30

I came to know about HANS when one of my friends joined it,and eventually I was interested. Hence I thought some research shall suffice before joining one.

PS : bear with me, I am on my android and my thumbs hurt :| Also, in some places, the formatting might not be correct, android blogging issues .

I actually visited their site http://www.indianhans.org had a look at it and found that it had -

A non working Facebook login api system which actually logs you out when you do try to log in, tested it on chrome 14.0.835.163 m / Windows 7 (office PC after hours). Also, a flawed login system that allows you to login inside the side without email confirmation, also PHP code is vulnerable.
Some outdated references to outdated CVE's and nothing of particular interest.
Some 0days which have been patched up long time ago
Whitepapers that on google hacking and mobiles which have been published like wildfire in late 2000's, again nothing of particular interest here
The "Team" that comprises less of experts and more of management folks. No one with any background of security here.
Link to Indian HANS youtube channel.
Pretty crap and old flash games about hacking. LAME !
Backtrack introduction (mainly) and no technical tutorials in short
Zero original research.

Disillusioned, I wrote a mail to Indian HANS team and queried Indian HANS team regarding the services they provide and what they do -

Subject : Queries for Indian Hans team from a Security Enthusiastic
Dear Indian HANS Team,

I have some queries which I would like to be answered -

What is the ultimate motive of HANS ? Are you consultants ? If YES then on what grounds ? If NO, then ,

Can you provide links to your -

Original research

ORIGINAL technical advisories/papers

Tools that you wrote

Code that you released

Configurations of exotic software

Exploits and modules

0day/0hour vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities what you found

Cases of complexity that were solved

CVE

Documentation of exploits

Original findings

Which fellow infosec researchers are working at HANS? All i found was more of management guys (seriously?) volunteers,executives,technical experts,naive girls,inexperienced folks but no security folks or self confessed hackers with known security experience and expertise.

What is the symbiotic influence of joining Indian Hans ? Or Why SHALL we join HANS ?

--
Warm Regards,

Rishabh Dangwal
Network Security Analyst
TheProhack.com | Rish.co.in
India

"0x72697368 was here, 2620796f75206172652077617374696e6720796f75722074696d65202e2e2064756d62617373"

and waited.
A day passed and the reply came.

Subject : reply to an abuse mail

Warm Greets,

First of all I would like to say thanks, for being so concerned about our organization.

Following are the thoughts I would like to share about our organization.

1) Our motive is to fill the gap between the cyber victims and the security experts, as many times we felt that in spite of availability to many security experts in market still victims are not able to get there answers.
2) Yes, we are consultants/Knowledge Sharers as we guide the common measures to cyber victims and government bodies [maharasthra/Punjab police]such that they can overcome a cyber crime rate.
3) I have written 2 International Papers :
· In response to Google Hacking
· Future Email Security

And 2 national papers:
· Mobile Security and upcoming challenges
· Acknowledgement based System for Mobile Security.
4) I have not written any security tool/configurations yet But, I write other Business applications for Accenture as an Associate Software Engineer.
5) We have solved numerous cases which deals with daily cyber problems including ATM cloning case [chandigarh], Source code theft case [Pune], Abuse email, fake profiles, email threatening and other hundreds. www.youtube.com/theindianhans
6) Ya, you are right 90% of our Organization members have managerial skills, because we strongly believe that having only technical knowledge is not enough to cease the cyber crime rate, because solving a cyber crime is thinking out of the box process.
7) Joining a HANS, shows your commitment towards our society, that you have a zeal to help others with your knowledge and skills.

I also wish to bring to your notice without hurting your ego and sentiments that,

We are not competitors of any private owned body who work only for money. Many times we get such mails which prove that really HANS is doing a greats job. These kinds of mails show our Power of being united and our influence on other private organization. It is my humble requests kindly don’t compare our NGO with other private organizations as our motto is different. we don’t believe in writing the viruses, exploits, tools and other stuff because these things wont help a common man who is not IT literate, to overcome a cyber problem. I wont ask you same the questions as I have nothing to do with same. I hope I have given your answers without hurting you and your team members feelings. I highly apologize if I did so.

Thanks

Happy Hacking

HANS TEAM.

Now that was interesting, my mail has been treated as an abuse email, well..nevermind. A rather to-the-point approach may be confused with that. Well, what they said -

1) Our motive is to fill the gap between the cyber victims and the security experts, as many times we felt that in spite of availability to many security experts in market still victims are not able to get there answers.2) Yes, we are consultants/Knowledge Sharers as we guide the common measures to cyber victims and government bodies [maharasthra/Punjab police]such that they can overcome a cyber crime rate. I actually expected that HANS shall justify itself as a for-profit/not-for-profit organisation and why it requires money to join it when the elite organisations for example Null is a self sustained, free and aimed at the very thing HANS intends to achieve. helping naive people ? Ofcourse..thats why a lot of organisations has been growing like mushrooms (kaizen ?) and making money from it by joining it. The core thing is that i am 100% sure that volunteers / infosec reserachers wont learn anything new and will waste their time here.

moving on ,

3) I have written 2 International Papers :·In response to Google Hacking·Future Email Security And 2 national papers:·Mobile Security and upcoming challenges·Acknowledgement based System for Mobile Security.Great..i disregard them as recycled content, already checked it. 4) I have not written any security tool/configurations yet But, I write other Business applications for Accenture as an Associate Software Engineer. that was fine with me. 5) We have solved numerous cases which deals with daily cyber problems including ATM cloning case [chandigarh], Source code theft case [Pune], Abuse email, fake profiles, email threatening and other hundreds. www.youtube.com/theindianhansAgain, they have solved a lot of cases and hundreds , i would regard it as weasel terms. no journal on how they were solved, the method, instrumental techniques, research employed, tools/techniquies deployed, the collaboration, nothing covered, nothing said, just distorted videos at youtube. Again..no references to it. 6) Ya, you are right 90% of our Organization members have managerial skills, because we strongly believe that having only technical knowledge is not enough to cease the cyber crime rate, because solving a cyber crime is thinking out of the box process.7) Joining a HANS, shows your commitment towards our society, that you have a zeal to help others with your knowledge and skills.

How management can help decrease cybercrime rates is beyond me unless they really have the skills to get it in their heads. All aboard the failboat here.

I also wish to bring to your notice without hurting your ego and sentiments that,

We are not competitors of any private owned body who work only for money. Many times we get such mails which prove that really HANS is doing a greats job. These kinds of mails show our Power of being united and our influence on other private organization. It is my humble requests kindly don’t compare our NGO with other private organizations as our motto is different. we don’t believe in writing the viruses, exploits, tools and other stuff because these things wont help a common man who is not IT literate, to overcome a cyber problem. I wont ask you same the questions as I have nothing to do with same. I hope I have given your answers without hurting you and your team members feelings. I highly apologize if I did so.

thats nice of you,and encouraging, but since you dont write viruses,exploits,0days or anything remotely related with it, then -

Why they are linked in your website at http://www.indianhans.org/index-4.html ?
How do you decipher complex hack jobs them when most of your team is management one with no background of security

Anyways..i fired up my android and wrote a reply.

Subject - Re: reply to an abuse mail
Dear Indian Hans,

The email was not an intended as an abuse email as indicated by your subject, I would rather pass your defenses as plain excuses for hiding underlying incompetence since it requires Money to join and still no viable, updated information/code/application (as you said you develop it as associate software engineer for organisations , yet saying that you bridge the gap) , accurate information (I studied the Google hacking and mobile whitepaper, the stuff has been published before a million times, hence I would just regard it something to enhance resume) and would consider your organization nothing but a money making enterprise run by homebrew entrepreneurs without any credible research, what you solved in cases what nothing I shall say of technical callibre or "hacking ", its in more generic sense called as tech support for those who know nothing about cyber security, while earning fame and money in the process.
I earlier thought to join it, hence inquired about it in a rather direct & to the point manner,but your response, links, references and treatment of it as an abuse email (?) makes me guess its in my best interest to stay away and convey the same to intended audience.
Stay superb

-sent from my android-

call me harsh, but that is the reality. And I am waiting for the reply. Now, I can say that I too Intended to join a Security NGO (period) and I now I am thinking otherwise.

Training on Unified Threat Management and Corporate Security

2011-09-09T15:23:00.001+05:30

A while back I gave training on UTM devices and Security Issues with Amarjit Singh at Tulip Telecom , here are the slides of the session. It was an enjoyable session with emphasis on security awareness and discussing network security as a whole, and how we can protect them by deploying UTM devices and configuring them for maximum security. You can also read my previous posts on Unified Threat management Systems if you haven't read them already -

Corporate Security Issues and countering them using Unified Threat Management Systems and SSL VPN

As usual , the presentation is uploaded at Slideshare and Scribd...Hope you enjoy it.

GNS 3 Tutorial - configuring Static VRRP over Cisco router and testing it

2011-08-24T21:38:00.000+05:30

Hi all,
I was working over 7200 routers for HSRP and VRRP implementation, and thought why not to cover an article over it. I will be covering Static VRRP over Cisco routers in GNS3 and will be showing you how to test it. you can also read my basic GNS3 tutorial over Cisco routers if you wish

GNS 3 Tutorial – Basic Router password Configuration

A bit about VRRP from Cisco Documentation.

The Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) is an election protocol that dynamically assigns responsibility for one or more virtual routers to the VRRP routers on a LAN, allowing several routers on a multiaccess link to utilize the same virtual IP address. A VRRP router is configured to run the VRRP protocol in conjunction with one or more other routers attached to a LAN. In a VRRP configuration, one router is elected as the virtual router master, with the other routers acting as backups in case the virtual router master fails.

In layman's terms, it allows for switching of routers in case a link fails or flaps. I have left some advanced parts from this tutorial, this is completely for those who have a general idea of Cisco CLI and want to learn how to configure fault tolerant VRRP over cisco routers.

Here is the GNS3 topology I will be using for this tutorial

Now, fire up your GNS3 and start by configuring all the routers. Click on the console button over titlebar to start putty terminal.the first step is to configure telnet over routers R3.

(PS: I have kept the passwords simple for the sake of simplicity, don't try this habit in an actual scenario.)

Router R3

Router>en
Router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#line vty 0
Router(config-line)#password r3
Router(config-line)#login
Router(config-line)#exit

Once done, Lets configure the R3 router and assign IP address over it.

Router(config)#int s0/0
Router(config-if)#ip add
Router(config-if)#ip address 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.252
Router(config-if)#no sh
Router(config)#int s0/1
Router(config-if)#ip address 2.1.1.1 255.255.255.252
Router(config-if)#no sh
Router(config-if)#
Router(config-if)#exit
Router(config)#

So far, router R3 has been configured. Do the same for all others. make sure to assign R4 and R5 same lan IP.

Router R4

Router>en
Router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#line vty 0
Router(config-line)#password r4
Router(config-line)#login
Router(config-line)#exit

and Interface IP's

Router(config)#int s0/0
Router(config-if)#ip add
Router(config-if)#ip address 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.252
Router(config-if)#no sh
Router(config)#int e1/0
Router(config-if)#ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0
Router(config-if)#no sh
Router(config-if)#
Router(config-if)#exit
Router(config)#

Router R5

Router>en
Router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#line vty 0
Router(config-line)#password r5
Router(config-line)#login
Router(config-line)#exit

and Interface IP's

Router(config)#int s0/0
Router(config-if)#ip add
Router(config-if)#ip address 1.1.1.1 255.255.255.252
Router(config-if)#no sh
Router(config)#int e1/0
Router(config-if)#ip address 192.168.1.2 255.255.255.0
Router(config-if)#no sh
Router(config-if)#
Router(config-if)#exit
Router(config)#

Once done, its time to add some routes to the routers. After doing it, Ping everything to every lan/wan just to be safe and sure.

Router R3

Router(config)#ip route 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 1.1.1.2
Router(config)#ip route 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 2.1.1.2 20

Router R4

Router(config)#ip route 2.1.1.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.2 20
Router(config)#ip route 2.1.1.0 255.255.255.0 1.1.1.1

Router R5

Router(config)#ip route 1.1.1.0 255.255.255.0 2.1.1.1 20
Router(config)#ip route 1.1.1.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1

If it doesnt pings, then you might have screwed up some where.

Run "sh ip route" over router to check configuration.

Router 3

Router#show ip route
Codes: C - connected, S - static, R - RIP, M - mobile, B - BGP
D - EIGRP, EX - EIGRP external, O - OSPF, IA - OSPF inter area
N1 - OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 - OSPF NSSA external type 2
E1 - OSPF external type 1, E2 - OSPF external type 2
i - IS-IS, su - IS-IS summary, L1 - IS-IS level-1, L2 - IS-IS level-2
ia - IS-IS inter area, * - candidate default, U - per-user static route
o - ODR, P - periodic downloaded static route
Gateway of last resort is not set
1.0.0.0/30 is subnetted, 1 subnets
C 1.1.1.0 is directly connected, Serial0/0
2.0.0.0/30 is subnetted, 1 subnets
C 2.1.1.0 is directly connected, Serial0/1
S 192.168.1.0/24 [1/0] via 1.1.1.2

Router R4

Router#sh ip route
Codes: C - connected, S - static, R - RIP, M - mobile, B - BGP
D - EIGRP, EX - EIGRP external, O - OSPF, IA - OSPF inter area
N1 - OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 - OSPF NSSA external type 2
E1 - OSPF external type 1, E2 - OSPF external type 2
i - IS-IS, su - IS-IS summary, L1 - IS-IS level-1, L2 - IS-IS level-2
ia - IS-IS inter area, * - candidate default, U - per-user static route
o - ODR, P - periodic downloaded static route
Gateway of last resort is not set
1.0.0.0/30 is subnetted, 1 subnets
C 1.1.1.0 is directly connected, Serial0/0
2.0.0.0/24 is subnetted, 1 subnets
S 2.1.1.0 [1/0] via 192.168.1.2
[1/0] via 1.1.1.1
C 192.168.1.0/24 is directly connected, Ethernet1/0

Router R5

Router#sh ip route
Codes: C - connected, S - static, R - RIP, M - mobile, B - BGP
D - EIGRP, EX - EIGRP external, O - OSPF, IA - OSPF inter area
N1 - OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 - OSPF NSSA external type 2
E1 - OSPF external type 1, E2 - OSPF external type 2
i - IS-IS, su - IS-IS summary, L1 - IS-IS level-1, L2 - IS-IS level-2
ia - IS-IS inter area, * - candidate default, U - per-user static route
o - ODR, P - periodic downloaded static route
Gateway of last resort is not set
1.0.0.0/24 is subnetted, 1 subnets
S 1.1.1.0 [1/0] via 192.168.1.1
2.0.0.0/30 is subnetted, 1 subnets
C 2.1.1.0 is directly connected, Serial0/0
C 192.168.1.0/24 is directly connected, Ethernet1/0

Till here, basic configuration has been done. now we will configure VRRP over R4 on ethernet interface.

Now in very very simple terms,

We will be tracking an interface (by giving it a track id) which in case if goes down the router shall switch states, in this case its the serial link from Router R3 to R4 (serial 0/0)
We will be creating a group of routers (here R4 and R5),
Assign a group ID to them (which is "1" btw) ,
After that, we will create a Virtual gateway over both routers which will be always up in case any router goes down (and thats why we gave both routers IP's from same lan) .
Then will select one of them as Master router and Rackup router (R4 in this case and R5 as Backup) and assign priority to them (higher is important, default is 100, 200 to R4, default to R5).
We will specify a decreasing value which shall be subtracted from priority which will preempt it to switch to router with higher priority, which in this case is 110. As serial link from R3 to R4 fails, 110 will be subtracted from 200 and hence R5 will have a higher priority 100 > then priority of R4 which is 90, hence it will become the Master router.
Test it :)

Router R4

Assign track id to Serial interface, which will be monitored by R4 .

Router(config)#track 1 interface serial 0/0 line-protocol
Router(config-track)#exit

Then configuring VRRP over it.

Router(config)#int e1/0
Router(config-if)#vrrp 1 ip 192.168.1.3
Router(config-if)#vrrp 1 priority 200
Router(config-if)#vrrp 1 preempt
Router(config-if)#vrrp 1 track 1 decrement 110
Router(config-if)#exit

Hence the final configuration upon "sh vrrp" will be

Ethernet1/0 - Group 1
State is Master
Virtual IP address is 192.168.1.3
Virtual MAC address is 0000.5e00.0101
Advertisement interval is 1.000 sec
Preemption enabled
Priority is 200
Track object 1 state Up decrement 110
Master Router is 192.168.1.1 (local), priority is 200
Master Advertisement interval is 1.000 sec
Master Down interval is 3.218 sec

Now we need to configure VRRP over Router 5

Router 5

Not much to do here except to enable preempt and VRRP..

Router(config)#int e1/0
Router(config-if)#vrrp 1 ip 192.168.1.3
Router(config-if)#vrrp 1 preempt
Router(config-if)#exit

hence final configuration of Router 5 will be

Ethernet1/0 - Group 1
State is Backup
Virtual IP address is 192.168.1.3
Virtual MAC address is 0000.5e00.0101
Advertisement interval is 1.000 sec
Preemption enabled
Priority is 100
Master Router is 192.168.1.1, priority is 200
Master Advertisement interval is 1.000 sec
Master Down interval is 3.609 sec (expires in 3.201 sec)

Congrats :) you have configured VRRP over your routers. Now to check , if its working or not, first traceroute your packet to 192.168.1.0 lan from Router R3

Router#traceroute 192.168.1.1
Type escape sequence to abort.
Tracing the route to 192.168.1.1
1 1.1.1.2 56 msec 88 msec *

Its going through our primary router :) now telnet from Router R3 to virtual gateway.

Router#telnet 192.168.1.3
Trying 192.168.1.3 ... Open

User Access Verification
Password:
Router>

If the password which gives you access is r4, then its configured correctly as of now. Now , lets shut unshut the primary serial interface from Router R3 .

Router#
Router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#int s0/0
Router(config-if)#sh
Router(config-if)#exit
Router(config)#
*Mar 1 00:57:27.927: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface Serial0/0, changed state to administratively down
*Mar 1 00:57:28.927: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Serial0/0, changed state to down
Router(config)#exit
Router#
*Mar 1 00:57:38.483: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console
Router#

Good, now ping virtual gateway

Router#ping 192.168.1.3
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.1.3, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 20/49/80 ms

its working fine, now traceroute the packet to 192.168.1.0 lan from Router R3

Router#traceroute 192.168.1.1
Type escape sequence to abort.
Tracing the route to 192.168.1.1
1 2.1.1.2 64 msec 68 msec 64 msec
2 192.168.1.1 44 msec 68 msec *

:)) its working too..now finally we login into virtual gateway from Router R3 and i assume we will login into Router R5, and then lets check out the VRRP configuration by running "sh vrrp" command.

Router#
Router#telnet 192.168.1.3
Trying 192.168.1.3 ... Open

User Access Verification
Password:
Router>sh vrrp
Ethernet1/0 - Group 1
State is Master
Virtual IP address is 192.168.1.3
Virtual MAC address is 0000.5e00.0101
Advertisement interval is 1.000 sec
Preemption enabled
Priority is 100
Master Router is 192.168.1.2 (local), priority is 100
Master Advertisement interval is 1.000 sec
Master Down interval is 3.609 sec

which works :) as Router R5 is the Master Router for now. Now disconnect from Router R5 and unshut the serial interface from Router R3, login into virtual gateway again and then check out the VRRP configuration by running "sh vrrp" command.

Router#exit
[Connection to 192.168.1.3 closed by foreign host]
Router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#int s0/0
Router(config-if)#no sh
Router(config-if)#exit
Router(config)#
*Mar 1 01:08:41.739: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Serial0/0, changed state to up
*Mar 1 01:08:42.743: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface Serial0/0, changed state to upexit
Router#
*Mar 1 01:08:46.955: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console
Router#telnet 192.168.1.3
Trying 192.168.1.3 ... Open

User Access Verification
Password:
Router>sh vrrp
Ethernet1/0 - Group 1
State is Master
Virtual IP address is 192.168.1.3
Virtual MAC address is 0000.5e00.0101
Advertisement interval is 1.000 sec
Preemption enabled
Priority is 200
Track object 1 state Up decrement 110
Master Router is 192.168.1.1 (local), priority is 200
Master Advertisement interval is 1.000 sec
Master Down interval is 3.218 sec
Router>

Excellent..VRRP has been fully configured as the Router R4 is again the Master Router :)

Congrats..you have successfully configured the VRRP over Static on Cisco Routers and fully tested it for fault tolerance .

till then

Stay Gold :))

BSNL router hacking and possibility of running custom code over it

2011-08-15T13:18:00.011+05:30

Hi all,

I am sorry I have been inactive due to my job, i actually got free this weekend and there we go, i was at home. At home I am having BSNL connection, and for those who dont know what BSNL is, its the AT&T of India, bad service , too much blank spots and connections which flap/drop/disconnect like there is no tomorrow. Worst, I was on my android, trying to get the latest of cyanogen nightlies . I was frustrated by the services of BSNL. Hence I decided to mess with the router itself.

BSNL router on closer inspection is manufactured by SemIndia and distributed by ITI. It follows the tracks of using firmware of different routers (Broadcom to be specific, BCM6338 stands for Broadcom router firmware version 96338, deployed in US robotics ones and some other popular routers). mine is DNA-A211-1 , one of most popular ones in India.

and then its just configured accordingly wrt ISP. This time, I left the network part, as i do it all the time in my office with Cisco, focused more on the router and firmware itself.

Warning :

I am not responsible for getting your router trashed, getting wings and trying to kill you. try on your own risk, I am not responsible for your stupidity.

I didn't had a PC (trashed due to burnt ram), so I have to do everything on my android, so pardon for small screen area, understand my plight. T-netted into Router

(PS : screencaps of android may be a bit distorted as shootme app was not working properly over nightly #120)

the first step was to know what was into it, so typed the usual help.

lots of commands :) ran swversion to get the version and see what was this upto.

With some hunting , i came to know that "sh" command runs over my router , ran it and voila, familiar interface of busybox snaps in.

great..now thats worth something. My android has it too :)) seeing the version made me tick , it was running an older version of busybox. For those who don't know hat busybox is, its a multicall binary. Tried ls, but it didnt worked, hence tried echo *, listed everything :)

bingo..tried cat /etc/passwd and there we go again.

after that, i thought why not to check what other directories have. got into CVS and got information regarding CVS and pserver, noteworthy one is the credentials of pserver

pserver:sunila@192.168.128.19:/home/cvsroot

not much of an interest as they are of a private LAN, googled to find it was configured by Sunil A, employee at SIEMIndia. Again,opened Repository

SemIndia/Engineering/Products/ADSL2Plus/Integ_Source/targets/fs.src

maybe a private repo at SIEM. neverthless..

moved on to /etc

lots of directories here..as a rule of thumb I opened default.cfg

Generic stuff, but what caught my eye was this

&amp;amp;amp;lt;ppp_conId1 userName="multiplay" password="bXVsdGlwbGF5"

This might come in handy (use your creativity :)) ) . But then I thought that why not to access the router from web interface. I did it.

Went to management and downloaded the backupsettings.conf file,

opened it and there we go,

I was not able to find the above credentials in it, hence I came to a conclusion that they must be somewhat of higher privilege level.

Moving on..I thought why not to try to create an arbitrary file . Tried

echo ‘rishrockz’ &amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;gt; rdx

on every directory (I was not able to determine the file permissions as the version of busybox doesn’t has ls or stat ) Finally came to know that /var is writable. Tried creating a file there

echo ‘rishrockz’ &amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;gt; rdx

file was created : )))))

and then

cat /var/rdx

: ))))

Congrats, you have run/done it :) )

Now I thought why not to upgrade busybox/upgrade firmware/upload scripts over the router, tried tftp

didn’t worked. Then I checked if the tftp daemon was running as a service, it was. yet somehow I was not able to run it. :(

Strange. I thought forget it (small screen keyboard and android research limitation -&amp;amp;amp;gt; frustration) . Well.. next time I will be thinking of going to compile programs (http://people.debian.org/~debacle/cross/) and copying over them using echo (once I get a PC) , I have got some nice ideas and will be deploying them .

In the mean time, for those who are wondering what this machine has, here is the bootup log.

Observation 1 # - code can be run over the router , but files must be copied using echo (-ne with append option) or tftp. Since busybox is there, we can easily insert a kernel module to be run.
Observation 2# - the webs directory has a lot of html files, maybe manipulated for xss attacks (i didnt covered it as its not my domain, some better guys can do it)
Observation 3# - private CVS credentials of Siemindia pserver. insider attack ? :D kidding. pserver is already much insecure, but since i have seen a lot of organisations using stock/easily guessable passwords for their outer router/firewalls/vpn servers, its not a tough nut to crack.
Observation 4# (most important) - BSNL SUCKS !

Till then .. Stay Gold

Rishabh Dangwal

winAUTOPWN v2.7 Released - Vulnerability Testing on Windows

2011-07-22T10:53:00.000+05:30

winAUTOPWN and bsdAUTOPWN are minimal Interactive Frameworks which act as a frontend for quick systems vulnerability exploitation. It takes inputs like IP address, Hostname, CMS Path, etc. and does a smart multi- threaded portscan for TCP ports 1 to 65535. Exploits capable of giving Remote Shells, which are released publicly over the Internet by active contributors and exploit writers are constantly added to winAUTOPWN/bsdAUTOPWN. A lot of these exploits are written in scripting languages like python, perl and php. Presence of these language interpreters is essential for successful exploitations using winAUTOPWN/bsdAUTOPWN.

Exploits written in languages like C, Delphi, ASM which can be compiled are pre-compiled and added along-with others. On successful exploitation winAUTOPWN/bsdAUTOPWN gives a remote shell and waits for the attacker to use the shell before trying other exploits. This way the attacker can count and check the number of exploits which actually worked on a Target System.

Download
Read more here

Sorry for Blog downtime - Stupid Android experiments lead to it

2011-07-21T12:25:00.003+05:30

Hi Friends
Last night I had some stupid stupid experiments with my Android, the blogger client for it and Blogger Draft. Which led to the blog open for invitations only. In the morning I found my mistake and I am sorry for the inconvenience it caused to you.
Truely sorry for that :((

It wont happen again (and next time I am going to test apps and changes on temporary blog first. Point jotted and duly taken).

Cheers and stay gold

Rishabh Dangwal
"Always outnumbered, never outgunned :P "

Angry Hacker Rant version 2.0 - Dear Corporate Infosec, You are getting Pathetic Day by Day!

2011-07-19T15:13:00.002+05:30

It didn't took me too long to realise the actual scenario at infosec, at all leading MNC's. And here I am ranting about it and mind it, everything is appropriately correct.It all started with me applying for a job at a leading MNC, and those guys instead of heeding what I had done (with some powerful references) asked me if I had my CISSP/CISA/CEH/ECSA-LPT/BULLSHIT. Read on..as I conclude these points -

Any respectably responsible guy who has passion for Infosec has no chances at doing well at corporate unless he sells his soul to Satan of commercialization of security. Those guys (the management and HR) need guys who have certifications which are purely theoretical in nature and has no or little affilitation with hands on security. Worse, once you get in,be prepared to lie, a lot.
The running gag among my security circle (dedicated guys who care about their network and do their best to save your assess) was that you can never be the security guy by researching, practicing and making your bones in the Infosec jungle. You can be one by getting certified.
The best a CISSP/CISA does is to write the mails creating security awareness among company, create pie charts for the management while making sure those looked best while presenting himself , NOTHING REMOTELY RELATED TO HANDSON SECURITY and collect the easiest pay cheque on earth. Sad, but true.
The condition is a result of HR's and guys who are what i call security illiterate, so the best they need a guy who is certified (by cramming notes,taking mocktests, bribing, praying and God knows what else) by some standard and would take the hotshot in just for the sole reason without even testing if he knows anything, and the best part is at the end of the day that guy creates bar graphs of security framework and audit infra of the MNC.
At the end of the day, these certifications are nothing but to double your salary package, doesn't matter if you know anything or not.

Bottomline :

Dear Corporate Infosec, your minions are rotting you, and its not long when someone will pwn your ass like SONY because you hired some douche'bag who had a cert but was a skid.

inspired by personal experiences and J. Oquendo's wonderful post at Infosec Island

Jugaad Se Ukhaad : The Hacking Challange 2011 Results

2011-06-28T11:23:00.002+05:30

We announced Jugaad se Ukhaad challange 1.5 Months ago and it was a good deal of joy to see the attacks come in. The server was running on a modified version of Linux patched with gresec and some custom patches. It was out in the wild, with server signature changed to Optinet, one of the UTM products we were testing at the time. So, here are our attack statistics on IP 110.235.1.130 IP are :

10 Measured attacks
2 LOIC DDos (small scale)
ZERO Success Rate

So, all in all, we havent got anyone who has successfully exploited the server. We will be back with more challanges in future with some pretty cool prizes next time.

Till Then

Stay gold..

Rishabh Dangwal & Amarjit Singh

Why Android rocks and why I like android ...

2011-06-14T23:09:00.000+05:30

Buying an Android was one of the most amazing decisions I ever made, buying and HTC android (a333, 2.2.1 modded to 2.3.4) was even better,with fantastic support by the community and the HTC hacking commmunity at the pinnacle of eveything else (though I tend to remember the original nokia/symbian hackers who dct flashed-patched-disassembled their devices to connect their patchcodes to overwrite and override the flash protection and enter into debug modes of even the most trivial handsets...always makes me nostalagic.Infinity box anyone ?)

Well..onto my android, how life has changed since I moved over it -

Always connected to social networking services and Email.
Phone call logs/SMS dumped into my gmail account for quick reference.
gesture based replys to anyone (for eg and inverted "U" will input "goodnight tc :) " to those late night sms and conversations which you want to end since the next morning you have to catch up for office..sigh..)
Calender sync in realtime , call logs sync to calender and make an entry for subsequent calls , duration and name (if available) with autorecord and dumping recording to gmail if necessary. No more life threatning calls.
Exploring the endless possiblities of application porting over the inherent Linux kernel.
Old school games using emulators. I can now play Contra:hardcorps all the time any where ..or even can listen to chiptunes of castlevania/super c. Although i am looking forward to Mame emulation (tiger arcade works super slow..) over android but CPU is a bottleneck as of now. Need to get a new android soon :|
Wifu and wardriving while i am on bus..here is a sample packet capture -

BSSID;LAT;LON;SSID;Crypt;Beacon Interval;Connection Mode;Channel;RXL;Date;Time
00:08:5C:EF:08:F0;28.56602;77.22951;Adiva;WpaPsk;-93;Infra;11;-92;2011/03/17;18:52:01
00:08:9F:81:8F:C4;28.56944;77.20531;Car0baR;WPA2;-96;Infra;6;-95;2011/03/17;18:58:30
00:0F:61:F2:D1:40;28.56866;77.21955;OZone WiFi;Open;-97;Infra;1;-95;2011/03/17;18:54:16
00:0F:61:F2:D1:4F;28.56866;77.21955;Aircel_OZone WiFi;Open;-95;Infra;1;-93;2011/03/17;18:54:16
00:14:78:EB:20:E4;28.56936;77.20624;Plutos Network;Wep;-86;Infra;6;-85;2011/03/17;18:58:05
00:17:9A:09:D1:79;28.56813;77.22440;WebunivM;Wep;-93;Infra;6;-91;2011/03/17;18:53:05
00:18:02:87:02:8F;28.56845;77.22306;RT2561_6;Wep;-94;Infra;6;-93;2011/03/17;18:53:18
00:18:02:92:A2:73;28.56955;77.20365;mtnlbb;Wep;-90;Infra;6;-89;2011/03/17;19:00:21
00:18:EB:01:4D:02;28.55103;77.24771;ICON EROS;Open;-94;Infra;1;-91;2011/03/17;18:40:44

tcpdump/shark/nmap..need i say more ? (PS: you can always install shark over your GF's phone :P)
Samba server :)
Penetration testing using the nessus client and reading reports over it when I am on bus.
Connected to like minded geeks ( who like to be pesked for technicalities ) even when I am on DTC and getting bored by the ongoing travels (i am looking at you : prateek singla, rahul sasi, prashant uniyal, chin tu/faku chand,raghu sharma and those who know I cant mention their names here :P )
Taking remote control of remote computers and network devices using vnc/rfb (wrote bit.che for my college project, interested may see a demo at my college). Hell , if all else fails, you can always move with android vnc and team viewer.
ssh to a machine having metasploit.
24x7 connectivity using openvpn...or vidalia..lemme summarise it in one image
Overclocking :) although its a matter of only installing setcpu, but then, who doesnt likes the power it brings to slower devices.
ninjamorph
and much much much more (including 2 way authentication using timed key generation)

I am androidified .. Are you ?

Modern Warfare 3 trailer | World War 3 with Call of Duty

2011-05-24T21:29:00.001+05:30

Have you fu*kin watched it ? Its World war 3 with Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 3. Infinity ward showcases amazing trailer with topnotch hallmark COD style gameplay and kickass action. Amazing I must say, I will finish it once it launches, dying to get my hands over it. In the mean time, you can watch the trailer and enjoy every moment of it…

Drooool…

Jugaad se Ukhaad 2011: The Hacking Challenge

2011-05-24T15:35:00.000+05:30

We happily invite all the hackers, n00bs, developers, 1337s, jugaadus & all those who think they are worthy for the attack based testing of our server, which is jointly developed by our valued in-house developers.

CONDITIONS:

We need root access on the server.
If you get traced by our scanners, you will be disqualified.
If successful, you need to disclose the technique used.
DDOS welcome :)
The only rule is, there are no rules except the above 4.

This challenge will be closed on 10th June, 2011 12 midnight(IST).

NOTE: What if you hacked the server successfully?

We won't lose any thing & you won't get any thing. You only will get a free target for honing your skills. C'MON, where do you get it now a days? :)

You can contact us on mail@amarjit.info & admin@theprohack.com

ROOT IF YOU CAN: An open challenge for an open community.

Keeping fingers crossed....here is the IP 110.235.1.130

Good Luck guys....

Securitybyte Conference | Information Security Conference | Securitybyte 2011

2011-05-22T16:46:00.001+05:30

And we have got one more security conference – Securitybyte 2011. This 4-day event features two days of conferences and two days of post-conference hands-on Trainings & Certifications covering every aspect of Information Security. The Securitybyte conference features some of the most respected names in the Security space and is focused around new research and innovation. The Securitybyte Conference 2011 is planned for Sept 6th through 9th, 2011 at The Sheraton Hotel in Bangalore, India.
The two-day conference (Sept 6th & 7th) will have the following three
tracks:

Basic
Deep Technical
Manager

Submission Deadline: The first round of submission of papers for conference talks and trainings should be done no later than June 15th, 2011. Please send all your submissions to cfp@securitybyte.org <mailto:mailto:cfp@securitybyte.org> , keeping subject line as "SB 2011 CFP Submission".

TOPICS

Got a new attack against any technology or device? We want to see it.Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

Technology-Focused

Application & Web Security
SOA & Cloud Security
Electronic Device Security (Cell Phones / PDA's)
Defeating Biometrics
3G/4G Cellular Network Security
WLAN, RFID and Bluetooth Security
Data Recovery and Incident Response
Virtualization Security
Satellite Hacking
Hacking Electronic Voting systems
Next-gen BOTNets
Worms & Malware
Protocol exploits
Database Security
Forensic & Cyber security
Social Engineering
Hacker media/film presentations
Firmware & Hardware hacking
Physical Security
Embedded systems hacking
Smartcard technologies
Credit card and financial instrument technologies

Regulatory & Law

Copyright infringement and anti-copyright infringement enforcement technologies
Critical infrastructure issues
Data security and privacy issues
Identity theft, identity creation & identity fraud
Corporate Espionage

Management

Enterprise Risk management framework
SOA Governance
Understanding the true value of GRC
Information Security Governance
Cloud Computing
Unified Compliance Framework
Security Metrics

National Security

Cyber forensics
Cyber warfare
Cyber Espionage
Next hyphenGen Cyber threats
Critical Infrastructure protection
Surveillance & counter-surveillance

Speaker Submission:

Please use the following submission form template to respond:

Name, title, address, email, and phone/contact number
Short biography, qualifications, occupation, achievements, and affiliations (limit 250 words.)
Summary or abstract of your presentation (limit 1250 words.)
Technical requirements (video, internet, wireless, audio, etc.)
References (Contact name, title, and email address of two
conferences you have spoken at or comparable references.)

Training Submission: (Sept 8th & 9th, 2011)

Please include the following information for your training proposal:

Name, title, address, email, and phone/contact number
Short biography, qualifications, occupation, achievements, and affiliations (limit 250 words)
Training Overview
Who should attend
Course Syllabus
Length
Proposed Pricing
Technical Requirements (Videos, internet, wireless, audio, laptop,etc.)
Hands-on/ Demo-based/ labs
References (Contact name, title, and email address of two conferences you have taught at or comparable references)

Please note, product or vendor pitches are not accepted. If your talk involves an advertisement for a new product or service your company is offering, please do not submit a proposal.

Nintendo Wii 2 | Wii 2 console demonstration leaked video

2011-05-21T18:06:00.001+05:30

A recent leak of the demonstration regarding Nintendo Wii 2 provides viewers with a glimpse of the console and a detailed diagram of the much talked about controller. The new Nintendo Wii 2 is expected to have a built-in HD touch screen and a camera.

Nintendo will officially unveil Wii 2 on June 6th at E3 2011 and in the meantime, speculation on hardware specs, features and design for the Wii 2 (codenamed ‘Project Café’) continues. You can see the video -

via gamesradar

Ruxcon Call For Papers | Ruxcon 2011

2011-05-21T15:34:00.001+05:30

The Ruxcon team is pleased to announce the call for papers for the seventh annual Ruxcon conference. This year the conference will take place over the weekend of 19th and 20th of November at the CQ Function Centre, Melbourne, Australia. The deadline for submissions is the 30th of July.

What is Ruxcon?

Ruxcon is the premier technical computer security conference in the Australia-Pacific region. The conference aims to bring together the individual talents of the best and brightest security folk in the region, through live presentations, activities and demonstrations.

The conference is held over two days in a relaxed atmosphere, allowing attendees to enjoy themselves whilst networking within the community and expanding their knowledge of security.

Live presentations and activities will cover a full range of defensive and offensive security topics, varying from previously unpublished research to required reading for the security community.

For more information, please visit

http://www.ruxcon.org.au

Presentation Information

Presentations are set to run for 50 minutes, and will be of a formal nature, with slides and a speech.

Presentation Submissions

Ruxcon would like to invite people who are interested in security to submit a presentation.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Mobile Device Security
Virtualization, Hypervisor, and Cloud Security
Malware Analysis
Reverse Engineering
Exploitation Techniques
Rootkit Development
Code Analysis
Forensics and Anti-Forensics
Embedded Device Security
Web Application Security
Network Traffic Analysis
Wireless Network Security
Cryptography and Cryptanalysis
Social Engineering
Law Enforcement Activities
Telecommunications Security (SS7, 3G/4G, GSM, VOIP, etc)

Submissions should thoroughly outline your desired presentation subject.

If you have any enquiries about submissions, or would like to make a submission, please send an e-mail to

presentations (at) ruxcon (dot)org(dot)au

The deadline for submissions is the 30th of July. If approved we will additionally require:

A brief personal biography (between 2-5 paragraphs in length).
A description on your presentation (between 2-5 paragraphs in length).

Contact Details

Presentation Submissions: presentations (at) ruxcon (dot)org(dot)au

Best Security Magazine | Top IT Security Magazine and Zines Reviewed | Best Hacking Magazines Listed

2011-05-03T13:11:00.004+05:30

Hi folks, consider this article the follow-up of the original series, this time I will be blogging about some really good magazines and zines where you can learn about computer and IT security. If you want to go through the previous articles in the series, you are welcome to give them a read -

Anyways, on to the topic, here

Phrack

Its so obvious that I dont think I need to repeat it again, and again. Phrack is an ezine written by and for hackers first published November 17, 1985. Described by Fyodor as

"the best, and by far the longest running hacker zine,"

the magazine is open for contributions by anyone who desires to publish remarkable works or express original ideas on the topics of interest. It has a wide circulation which includes both hackers and computer security professionals. The zine includes interviews of Blackhats and celebrates the most advanced security articles of the time. Stephen Wyatt or The_ut once commented that he was proud of -

“ Reading the last 5 issues of Phrack without learning anything new“

its that good :) If you are that good, I salute you teh_hax0r…for the lesser mortals, Phrack remains the wet dream of the security minded.

What you can learn here : Hacking in Pure Sense
Price : Free
you can visit phrack here

2600 & Cult of the Dead Cow

Again, two of the old school crews which are still highly active ,specializes in publishing technical information on a variety of subjects including telephone switching systems, Internet protocols and services, as well as general news concerning the computer "underground" and left wing, and sometimes (but not recently), anarchist issues. The content is focused on DIY projects for a more motivated approach.
2600 is the more sober of the two and is a must read for anyone into pure pleasure of security, Cult of the Dead Cow is more devoted to the hactivism and anarchist issues, but nevertheless, are a must read for any budding hacker or expert alike :)

What you can learn here : Hactivism, hacking at hardware level in the form of DIY projects
Price : Free
you can Visit 2600 here
you can Visit CDC zine here

Free Software Magazine (FSM), Also known as The Open Voice

Relatively new on the scene, FSM devotes itself to the FOSS, GNU, technical code and features regular technical columns. Also the magazine runs its own webcomic “the Bizzare Cathedral” which is a satire on Linux, open source and technology in particular. The magazine is the only magazine worldwide that is dedicated to the promotion of free software as a whole and has 2 primary goals -

to promote free software and its use; and
to educate the global community in the use of free software.

What you can learn here : Code, Linux , FOSS and Open Source in general
Price : Free
you can visit FSM here

Linux Journal/ Linux Format / Linux Magazine

Now we have some hardcore Linux Magazines which are highly targeted to the professional Linux User. When it comes to computer security and hacking, Linux is the heart and soul of hacking and hackerdom in general. These magazines focus on Linux on a whole and explore the OS with respect to articles on all levels of developing and using Linux and the software that runs on it, including everything from how to write device drivers to how to edit photos with GIMP.

What you can learn here : Linux Linux and More Linux
Price :

Linux Journal : 8$ (approx 354 INR)

Linux Format : 6.49£ (approx 477 INR)

Linux Magazine: 12.99$ (approx 576 INR)

you can visit

Linux Journal here

Linux Format here

Linux Magazine here

HITB Magazine

One of the best security magazines around, the HITB magazine aims to deliver their goal of giving researchers further recognition for their hard work, and to provide the security community with beneficial technical material . Born as the side project of Hack-In-The-Box community, the magazine covers exploits , loopholes, latest security insights and technical papers for the determined.

What you can learn here : Exploits, vulnerabilities, Technical articles, code and insights in the latest of
Price : Free
you can visit HITB here

Hakin9

The famed Hakin9 is a free, online, monthly publication on IT Security. The magazine is published in English and is available in the Internet as a free download.
Hakin9 is a source of advanced, practical guidelines regarding the latest hacking methods as well as the ways of securing systems, networks and applications.

What you can learn here : Securing systems, exploits, at par with HITB mag
Price : Free
you can visit hakin9 here

InfoSecurity/Chmag (India)

As a special nod to Indian security scene, these two magazines are doing a very good job in demystifying the “security” buzzword for the new and discusses corporate security and security in general . Clubhack Magazine is the venture of Clubhack which focuses on making hacking and information security a common sense for a common man. InfoSecurity is more targeted at security at corporate level and focuses on latest security trends.

What you can learn here : Beginning with security to the corporate level
Price : Free
you can visit :

InfoSecurity here

chmag here

I guess you will be more than happy to feast on the knowledge these fabulous sources above.

*update* : I will be reviewing Insecure magazine soon along with Darkread.

./EOF

Best Security Magazine | Top IT Security Magazine and Zines Reviewed | Best Hacking Magazines Listed