For a period of several months, Lenovo shipped numerous laptop models with a piece of adware that broke HTTPS browsing and put users at risk. Now, the company has apologized to customers and provided them with instructions on how to remove the application.

Lenovo preloaded the WindowShopper browser add-on from Superfish thinking that customers would enjoy its features. However, many users were annoyed by it and started complaining on the Chinese manufacturer’s forums. After security researchers analyzed the software, they realized that it poses serious risks.

The adware injects ads into web pages by using a local proxy and a self-signed root certificate. Superfish actually replaces legitimate certificates with its own, making connections that should be secure untrusted.

Even more worrying is the fact that researchers have managed to extract the certificate’s private key. The private key can be used to sign potentially malicious websites and software that would be trusted on affected Lenovo notebooks.

Industry professionals pointed out that Lenovo should have known better not to install such software on its computers. Experts also noted that while this is a common practice, they hope that manufacturers will learn from the Superfish incident.

And the feedback begins…

Martijn Grooten, Editor at Virus Bulletin:

“Like most people working in security, I’m not very keen on the idea of ads in general and running third-party code on your computer or inside your browser in particular. But then, I accept that ads are part of the ecosystem and that pre-installing software that, as it is euphemistically called, “enhances user experience” makes laptops significantly cheaper.

Now injecting ads into a browser is bad enough, doing so by running an HTTPS proxy on the machine is a lot worse. HTTPS shouldn’t be touched unless it is for a very good reason – inserting ads is never a good reason.

But what makes it still orders of magnitude worse than that, is that their proxy uses the same certificate on all affected (or, perhaps more accurate, infected) PCs. Hence anyone can obtain the private key of the certificate – which, as people have already showed, isn’t rocket science – and use this to man-in-the-middle HTTPS traffic without the Lenovo user being aware.

The industry of bundled apps and programs is a complicated one and finding out what all the programs installed on the PCs you sell are up to might not be as easy as security researchers may suggest. But Lenovo should have been able to detect Superfish adding a SSL root certificate to the computer, as well as it running an HTTPS proxy on the local machine.”

George Baker, Director of Professional Services at Foreground Security:

“This was clearly a questionable design decision by Lenovo. Trusted manufacturers should know that building in a ‘man-in-the-middle’ feature is just that… highly questionable, regardless of the claimed benefit. And weak protection on the Superfish software’s own private key further undermines the system’s root of trust. If the software is present and trusted by the operating system, a knowledgeable attacker can exploit it at will.

That said, it’s good that it was caught early, after four months of production, and that Lenovo is taking some action. That should at least limit the number of users – and the amount of their private data – who are exposed.”

ThreatStream CTO Greg Martin:

“The latest Superfish debacle highlights the current strategy for device manufacturers across the electronics ecosystem looking to get their slice of the billion-dollar advertising revenue market that has made Google and others so successful. Unfortunately, like the case with Lenovo and many others, users’ privacy and security are compromised – often in secret – leaving them extremely vulnerable to malicious hackers who leverage the this type of tracking technology against them.

Unfortunately this won’t be the last we see of this type of story, but hopefully the publicity from Superfish will be enough to warn other like-minded manufacturers to take a more transparent approach and offer their users opt-out capabilities on future products that include embedded ad-tracking tech. Because Superfish was developed and licensed to Lenovo, it will be interesting to find out which other manufacturers are leveraging the Superfish technology in their products.”

Patrick Belcher, Director of Security Analytics, Invincea:

“The Lenovo and Superfish unwanted software debacle should serve as notice that there are dozens of ad companies that push spyware and toolbars, many of which exhibit rootkit-like properties and siphon off local user information to sell to advertising companies.

These programs are delivered like Trojan horses, bundled into innocuous applications with the sole intent of spying on and generating revenue at the expense of the user’s privacy. The ad companies purchase this siphoned data to deliver targeted advertising, and sometimes, malvertising to specific groups of users of the Internet.”

Ian Amit, Vice President at ZeroFOX:

“The Lenovo laptops that shipped with “Superfish” adware capable of snooping through the user’s encrypted web traffic are a very tangible threat to consumers and companies. People posting about their new Lenovo laptop on social media makes it easy for attackers to find them. Consequently, mapping those users’ home, work, and local coffee shops enables attackers to confidently launch man-in-the-middle attacks by abusing how Superfish allows snooping of encrypted web traffic (i.e. online banking, shopping, email, VPNs, etc).

We recommend that companies ensure their threat intelligence provide contextual data on their exposure as related to this vulnerability (employees, partners, locations, etc).”

Simon Crosby, CTO and co-founder of Bromium:

“It is high time for PC OEMs to accept that adware and other junk software installed in consumer devices is precisely the opposite of what their customers want, and that delivering a secure, non-intrusive, high quality product is valued by consumers. The Microsoft Surface Pro 3 is perhaps the antidote to the foolish behavior of PC vendors. It delivers the best that Microsoft offers, with no hidden scams.”

Grayson Milbourne, Webroot Security Intelligence Director:

“Sadly this is common practice in the industry. Customers aren’t informed this type of software is installed, leaving many users wondering how they have an infection on their brand new laptop when an anti-virus program picks it up. Consequently, this breeds a level of mistrust between the offending company and its customer base. In this case, users have aired their frustrations over social media channels – and it’s completely distracting from the quality products Lenovo manufactures.

In the past couple weeks, Lenovo has been forced to expend valuable time and resources managing backlash from the security community and customers. Undoubtedly, this is hurting the company’s bottom line and opening the door for competitors to claim privacy superiority.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s that this story will be a wake-up call for consumers. Whether its unwanted adware from the manufacture or hackers using malicious apps, they need to take precautions to know who is watching them on their own device.”

Steve Lowing, Director of Product Development at Promisec:

“Preinstalled software, such as adware like Superfish, must go through the same scrutiny as the shipping company (in this case Lenovo) would do for their own software in order to prevent these kinds of brand impacting missteps from happening. While it’s not exactly uncommon to see adware or promotional-ware software on new laptops these days, the times have changed where these once opt-in based services are not forced on us by default.

Coupling this tactic with poorly designed software that can carry out a “man-in-the-middle” attack on what is expected to be secured data is a potential lawsuit waiting to happen. Companies like Lenovo should know better than to pre-install this kind of software in the first place.”

Mark Parker, Senior Product Manager, iSheriff:

“The practice of pre-installing 3rd party software on PCs delivered to retail establishments, and direct shipped to business customers, presents a considerable risk. Given the choice, most consumers and businesses would choose not to have the 3rd party software installed. In the case of Lenovo and Superfish, we see an indication of exactly how dangerous that can be.

The man-in-the-middle certificate used made it such that every secure session was no longer private. In a day and age where corporate breaches are increasing, we should be seeking ways to limit our exposure, not pre-installing software that can create an attack vector.”

Chris Schweigert, Security Operations Director at EiQ Networks:

“The recent discovery of the Superfish application on Lenovo PC’s brings up the old best practices of installing a known, respectable copy of an operating system on your computer when you take it out of the box. Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) applications have long been scrutinized by major enterprise environments and you simply cannot trust what you get from a manufacturer.

As a best practice, organizations should have a gold build install of all the authorized software for each new computer that comes in. You have to nuke the manufacturer installed applications and then re-install what you know to be trusted. Another advantage here is the ability to more easily identify changes to that baseline configuration on all your systems.”

Randy Abrams, Research Director at NSS Labs:

“It is disconcerting that virtually no anti-malware products were detecting Superfish, however the difference between malicious adware and acceptable adware is not ‘black and white.’ Not all behaviors are expected to be detected without a level of inspection that is not possible with the amount of malware being released daily. Vendors like Superfish employ teams of researchers to evade anti-malware products.

There are very likely many other adware products performing the exact same activities as Superfish. The primary motivation Superfish has is advertising revenue. This could have gone much worse for Lenovo if theft was the motivation for backdoors in third party software.

It is incumbent upon C-Level IT professionals to make sure there are well-defined processes and procedures for releasing third-party software on any medium. This must include tracking and auditing of third party vendors, monitoring their reputations and malware scanning with multiple products.

Coincidentally, the newly-formed Clean Software Alliance (CSA) will help in preventing this type of adware to go undetected. The CSA is a coalition of antimalware vendors, download bundlers and other members of the ‘adware’ ecosystem that are cooperating to set meaningful standards for ‘adware.’ Superfish’s conduct would preclude CSA approval.”

Muddu Sudhakar, Caspida CEO:

“U.S. computer manufacturers are getting a lot of push back from other countries for their hardware sales after scrutiny from incidents like those tied to the NSA and Snowden. Hardware vendors need to show beyond reasonable doubt that they are shipping high quality, highly secure products, eliminating backdoors in hardware and operating systems.

We need new third party certifications for hardware vendors who ship desktops/laptops or servers such as Lenovo, IBM, HP, and Apple. The third party certification should be robust and should be done independently of vendor companies and independently of government agencies.”

John Hultquist, Senior Manager, Cyber Espionage Threat Intelligence at iSIGHT Partners:

“We have noticed a trend affecting the software supply chain. The places people go to download applications or updates have been compromised on several occasions recently by cyber espionage actors who trojanize the software with their own malware. Chinese and Russian operators have swapped out everything from SCADA software to computer games, targeting very specific users as well as some opportunistic victims.”

John Pirc, Chief Strategy Office and Co-founder of Bricata:

“Based on the information surfacing about Superfish, administrators should inspect for where this application is installed and remove it. If you are using cloud based applications such as Microsoft Office 365 for Business or Google Apps for Work, enabling 2-step authentication offers additional protection in case your log-in credentials have been exposed. In the event someone is able to get your username and password they might try and log-in from another system; 2-step authentication would protect you from becoming further compromised.

This could also complicate matters for the Lenovo install base if they have a significant footprint within the U.S. government or federal contractors. My same recommendations for businesses apply in these sectors. However, I would strongly recommend that anyone in the USG and contractor community who uses a Lenovo PC and is involved with any sensitive projects should have their system checked for Superfish. Having the app installed may not mean they are compromised, but again, the main objective is reducing your risk.

Lenovo is a great company and it is unlikely they would knowingly place ‘malware’ on a system. Lenovo should have caught the Superfish issues earlier, via discussions in their user forums and I’m sure they are addressing the matter. Still, this does not discount the risk facing those who are at risk of a man-in-the-middle attack.”

Greg Hoffer, senior director of engineering, Globalscape:

“We put a lot of trust in technology, but this event is a reminder for everyone: take nothing for granted, and remain ever vigilant with the products you develop, integrate and purchase. There are ample industry standards available for security development and testing, independent security experts available to validate performance, and well-established protocols for production and operations. Assume nothing and put into action the old axiom, ‘Trust, but verify.’”

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During the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford University on Friday, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to promote cybersecurity information sharing between private sector companies and the U.S. Government.

The executive order, signed by the President on stage after addressing a large audience, outlines an information sharing framework that would help companies work together, along with the federal government, to more effectively identify and protect against cyber threats.

“This has to be a shared mission,” Obama said during his speech. “So much of our computer networks and critical infrastructure are in the private sector, which means government cannot do this alone. But the fact is that the private sector can’t do it alone either, because it’s government that often has the latest information on new threats.”

Overall, industry professionals applauded the steps by the White House, but indicated this is just a small step in addressing serious threats. An executive order can only go so far and more is needed than just information sharing to combat sophisticated cyber attacks, experts said.

And the feedback begins…

Phil Smith, SVP of Government Solutions and Special Investigations at Trustwave:

“The President’s remarks at today’s summit are a great beginning, especially when he explained today’s threat landscape as a ‘cyber arms race.’ That statement is significant because it puts organizations and individuals on notice that cybersecurity is a national security and public safety issue. Sharing threat intelligence across government agencies, law enforcement and the private sector is a critical component of strengthening data protection however it will not work without safe harbor protections for companies that participate.

An executive order can only go so far. It takes Congressional action to mandate information sharing on a national level that includes liability protection. Without that protection, we will not see the level of participation required for information sharing to be successful.

When organizations share information they produce actionable threat intelligence that helps them stay ahead of the criminals and build defenses to block their next move.”

 Ken Xie, CEO of Fortinet:

“During the White House’s Cybersecurity Summit, there was a lot of great discussion around information sharing. The biggest obstacle is that our industry is extremely shorthanded: it’s estimated we can only fulfillne in every 20 technology positions needed in the cybersecurity space. Who will mitigate the threat? Where and who are the cyber swat teams? Who will train the responders? Answers to these questions remain unanswered, though the conversation is a step in the right direction.”

Nate Fick, CEO of Endgame:

“Much of the talk in the room is about information sharing. In security, the advantage often goes to the team with better, more usable data. So any steps to encourage faster sharing are meaningful progress.”

Tomer Weingarten, CEO of SentinelOne:

“Information sharing is a good start. However, it needs to be handled in a way that preserves the privacy of affected organizations and prevents data from being “leaked”. In the wrong hands, this intelligence would let attackers know that their operation has been compromised, could reveal attack binaries that can be re-used and expose companies that have been breached which may lead to more attacks against them. Also, sharing data and intelligence will do little to mitigate carefully crafted attacks since they often do not demonstrate any previously seen indicators.”

Mike Brown, VP and GM Public Sector for RSA:

“It isn’t just information sharing that is needed. We have some valuable avenues to share information. What we need is liability relief and clarity about the type and format of information that needs to be shared. That is also critical so that information that is shared is actually actionable.”

Tal Klein, CMO for Adallom:

“The fact that the President is addressing the issues of cyber security is a good thing – we definitely need more awareness. That stated, I am less excited about specific directives that may offset the financial incentive for companies to be in the business of cyber security. Information sharing is good, but if a security company makes their money researching threats and then is expected to turn over their research to the public domain as soon as its complete, then the value of that research diminishes.

 

I don’t think the government should be in the business of regulating the information security industry. What I suspect is that we are close to the age of the “cyber lobby” (dare I say “cyber subsidies”) – and I’m not sure that will benefit anyone other than the companies that pay to influence policy. So, I would prefer the President’s agenda would begin and end with “awareness” and avoid tinkering with the economic  dynamics of the information security market.”

Ivan Shefrin, VP of Security Solutions at TaaSera:

“Voluntary sharing of cybersecurity intelligence can be an important step – provided it’s accompanied by appropriate liability and privacy constraints. The benefits are clear: last year’s United Parcel Service breach was in fact discovered as a direct result of threat intelligence sharing between the government and private sector.

 

Sharing cyber intelligence can have a positive impact if information sharing is made actionable. To accomplish this, security professionals should assume they’re already compromised, and implement policies, tools and budgets to balance breach prevention with pre-breach detection and response.”

Marc Gaffan, CEO & Co-Founder of Incapsula:

“President Obama is taking a bold stance be visiting with tech companies in silicon valley this week to talk about his proposed cybersecurity legislation, right on the heels of his cybersecurity agency announcement earlier this week. In the past, the sale and use of botnets, which have the potential to overwhelm a site or network with malicious activity, was surrounded by legal ambiguities and grey areas. Obama’s new legislation removes all ambiguity so for the first time companies can prosecute the so-called “bot-herders” that try to do them harm.”

Ron Gula, CEO, Tenable Network Security:

“It’s important to applaud this administration for its attention to cyber security. It’s been long overdue and at the rapid pace technology is evolving, we are already behind the curve. Executive orders such as this, while not a substitute for good security practices, raise awareness for the need to invest more heavily when it comes to cyber security.

Information sharing won’t solve the bigger problems we face in the industry, but it’s a good place to start. Everyone in IT is realizing the scale and saving from centralizing command and control. Once consolidated, the information shared will provide greater context, allowing for organizations to be more agile in mitigating sophisticated attacks.”

Ryan Shaw, Director of Research and Development at Foreground Security:

“The President’s intention to issue an Executive Order (EO) promoting government and private sector cybersecurity information sharing is an important acknowledgement of the current deficiencies in our country’s current cybersecurity defense capability. Unfortunately, EOs and new agencies will not be able to resolve the sharing challenges that have existed for years.  These challenges include:

· Lack of trust between the parties involved

· COTS cybersecurity tools (e.g. SIEM, NSM, Web Proxies, ID/PS, Next-gen Firewalls) that are ill-equipped to deal with large quantities of multi-source, non-normalized threat indicators

· Shortfall of skilled cyber-threat analysts or source-agnostic platforms to manage the deluge of threat indicators

· Multiple sharing vehicles and taxonomies (these are a portion of the Voluntary Standards for ISAOs that the President will speak of)”

John Dickson, principal at software security firm Denim Group:

 “There is no mention of increased liability protection for companies in the today’s briefing sheet.  Absent of increased protection, or at least clarity, for the corporate liability question will likely result in a lukewarm reception from industry.  Couple that with remaining post-Snowden doubts that remain over working with government and law enforcement, then you have a potential non-starter here.

The focus on strong privacy and civil liberty protections misses the point here – that’s not hurdle in more information sharing, liability protection is. Cooperation with the Congress is an imperative. My contacts in the US Capitol say these initiatives are coming out with little consultation with Congress, which also brings up the question of the measures’ ultimate implementation.”

Jeff Williams, CTO, Contrast Security:

 “I’m encouraged by all the talk about public-private partnerships that bring security to the forefront for government, large businesses, small businesses, and consumers. The panelists were right about the problems of speed and scale that cybersecurity involves.  I was thrilled to see that there is awareness of the complexity and importance of the problem at the highest levels of government and business.

 

However, the overwhelming theme of the summit was that the way forward is to focus on the threats and that communication will enable us to stop attacks.  I have serious doubts as to whether chasing the threat will have any effect whatsoever – the attribution problem is so significant in cyberattacks that after months we still have no resolution to the Sony attack, much less Anthem or others.

The worst part is that spending all this effort chasing our tails takes away from time we should be focused on building secure code and strong defenses. The fact that we are still producing code with SQL injection after almost two decades is embarrassing. The government can and should play a role in encouraging the software market to produce secure code. But with a confusing patchwork of agencies, agendas, and responsibilities, government has fallen far behind the financial industry in their ability to secure their own house.”

Jason Lewis, Chief Collection and Intelligence Officer of Lookingglass Cyber Solutions:

 “The White House is pushing a lot of recommendations that don’t seem to have gone through a vetting process by experienced technologists. The effort to weaken encryption will ultimately have the opposite of the desired effect. There are new rules that impact security researchers and will lead to less secure systems, because it will be illegal for researchers to test those systems.

 

The positive results will be the increased visibility and discussion about these issues. For me, if the US government really wanted to improve security they would be at the forefront of data sharing and making it easier for researchers to contribute, not harder.”

Dan Waddell, Director of Government Affairs, (ISC)2:

“It’s important that the American public put this issue into perspective.  As mentioned by Lisa Monaco, the White House’s top aide for counterterrorism and homeland security, the cyber threat is becoming more diverse, sophisticated and dangerous. The actions of cyber attackers, while seldom seen played out online, are potentially as egregious on many different levels including economically, militarily, and in regards to the public’s day-to-day safety.

Overall, I think it’s a positive sign that we’re having these discussions at the highest levels of both the public and private sectors as well as academia.  CEOs, CISOs, government leaders and educators are all saying the same thing – cybersecurity is an absolute necessity to help protect our nation’s interests. It has an impact on every aspect of our lives – from homeland security, to defense, to the economy, to energy and critical infrastructure, to health, etc.  Everyone shares a common interest: We need to secure information of the people, for the people.”

Chris Wysopal, CTO & co-founder at Veracode:

 “The challenge for the tech industry is they need to retain the trust of their users or they can’t grow their businesses which require more and more intimate data be stored and processed by them.  That is why after many years of security professionals complaining of the lack of SSL usage by majo7r tech companies it wasn’t until the Snowden revelations that it was finally enforced by the big players.  

 

“The federal government has to convince the people using Google, Yahoo, Apple, etc., not the executives from those companies, that their data is safe from wholesale snooping or the information sharing they want is going to be a struggle.” 

Ken Westin, Security Analyst Tripwire:

“This Order and the informatPion sharing initiatives are a step in the right direction, however the challenge will be in the implementation where citizens’ privacy and civil liberties are protected, as well as making any intelligence gathered through these initiatives relevant and actionable for government agencies as well as private industry. In order to make these initiatives effective, secure and manageable, will require strong oversight and properly allocated resources to implement, not just initially, but also over the next few years as the program evolves. There needs to be constant vigilance and review of processes, data collected and effectiveness of the program in order to ensure agencies do not overreach and that the program itself remains useful to industry and agencies alike.

The devil is truly in the details, although I believe the spirit and intentions of the Order is good, it will be critical that there is transparency and oversight regarding its implementation. The government is breaking new ground and it is important to tread carefully, as there is a lot to learn in the process of developing a system of this scale and depth. I sincerely hope that the government will be involving not just law makers and political thinkers, but also technologists and security experts from both private industry and the government to ensure the program is implemented efficiently, securely and meets established requirements for the program.” 

*Additional reporting by Eduard Kovacs

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In late November, Sony Pictures Entertainment was hacked by a group calling itself Guardians of the Galaxy (GOP). What initially appeared to be another hacktivist attack, later turned out to be a sophisticated operation possibly orchestrated by a state actor.

The hackers’ activities came to light on November 24, when the computers of Sony employees started displaying an image of a skull accompanied by a warning message. In the following days, the hackers started leaking large amounts of information stolen from the entertainment giant’s networks. The leaked data included unreleased movies, private emails, the personal details of actors, financial and business information, and employee records (including medical information).

North Korea was named a suspect after investigators found similarities between this attack and others believed to be carried out by Pyongyang. Shortly after, the hackers told Sony to erase all traces of The Interview, a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Sony initially called off the release of the movie because of the hackers’ threats, but later decided to go ahead with the release on Christmas Day, as planned.

Sony has avoided pointing a finger at North Korea. United States authorities, on the other hand, say they’re certain North Korea is behind the attack, but they haven’t provided any proof to back their claims, except for the fact that the attackers used IP addresses “exclusively used by the North Koreans.”

North Korea has denied being responsible, but officials admitted that it might be the work of supporters furious over The Interview. Last week, the US imposed new sanctions on North Korea in retaliation for the attack on Sony. On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper claimed that he dined with the North Korean general who Clapper says was responsible for overseeing the attack against Sony, during a secret mission to Pyongyang two months ago.

Everyone agrees that attribution is tricky. Some believe US authorities are jumping to conclusions, but others say the FBI surely has other evidence, which they might never share with the public, to back their claims.

This topic will be debated by a panel of experts and moderated by The Wall Street Journal’s Danny Yadron at the Suits and Spooks DC conference on February 4-5 at the Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City.

And the Feedback Begins…

Jeffrey Carr, President/CEO, Taia Global, Inc:

“The evidence that the FBI believes it has against the DPRK in the Sony attack stems from the data that it received on the Dark Seoul attack last year from the private sector. The FBI, the NSA, and the private security companies upon which they rely for information believe that any attack linked to a North Korean IP address must be one that is government sanctioned since North Korea maintains such tight control over its Internet and Intranet. That is the FBI’s single point of failure because while that might have been true prior to 2009, it isn’t true any longer.

 

Access to those blocks is relatively easy if you go in through China, Thailand, Japan, Germany or other countries where North Korea has strategic connections.

 

It simply isn’t enough for the FBI director to say “We know who hacked Sony. It was the North Koreans” in a protected environment where no questions were permitted. The necessity of proof always lies with the person who lays the charges. As of today, the U.S. government is in the uniquely embarrassing position of being tricked by a hacker crew into charging another foreign government with a crime it didn’t commit. I predict that these hackers, and others, will escalate their attacks until the U.S. figures out what it’s doing wrong in incident attribution and fixes it.”

Joshua Cannell, malware intelligence analyst at Malwarebytes Labs:

“Many people continue to speculate about who was really behind the cyberattack against Sony Pictures. We know the director of the F.B.I. has made it publicly clear that North Korea was to blame, and the fact that he’s pushing to declassify that information should tell the world that they have solid evidence to back it up. If we weren’t living in a time where the ability to trust a U.S. Intelligence agency hadn’t recently been questioned during the release of incriminating N.S.A. documents, most people would have likely accepted the F.B.I.’s statement as fact long ago. It seems that by releasing more information, the F.B.I. is hoping to regain the confidence placed in U.S. Intelligence.

 

You have to look at some of the details leading up to the hack in November. North Korean officials called the release of The Interview ‘an act of terrorism,’ and there was a Facebook group sending threats to Sony Pictures months before the movie’s release. When that was shut down, actors continued to use other methods to communicate their threats, like e-mail. Finally, the threats came to fruition, and simply saying ‘it wasn’t us’ at this point doesn’t do much when all of the evidence points at them. There may have been others involved, that’s true, but that doesn’t change the conclusion of a lengthy federal investigation.”

Jay Kaplan, CEO of Synack:

“The security pundits that we’ve seen in the media disagreeing with the government’s assertion of North Korean attribution are ill-informed with conclusions that I believe to be fundamentally flawed. Even with the latest revelation of details tying North Korea to the Sony breach by “slipping up”, there is much more under the covers that the public is not seeing (and will never see as a result of classified sources.) Conclusions made by security firms after reviewing methodology, technical capability, and modus operandi are flawed given their non-complete picture of the situation at hand.

 

It is especially interesting to see how just a few months ago the world thought the government had too much information — the intelligence community was running rampant, too much data was being siphoned, and the integrity of our privacy was in question. Yet today, post-Sony breach, people are questioning the same government for coming to conclusions due to a lack of knowledge and perspective.”

Ken Westin, senior security analyst, Tripwire:

“It is difficult if not impossible for those of us in the private sector to verify the FBI¹s findings without access to the information they have.

 

However, I think it is important to note that in this latest statement they are tying their attribution case to IP addresses they say were exclusively used by the North Koreans. I think it is important to point out that Comey said they were IP addresses exclusively used by the North Koreans and not IP addresses in North Korea. The IP addresses that were issued to the public in their flash advisories were IP addresses that have been seen before and used for spam and command and control by other criminal actors. This was a key reason many in the security community were skeptical of the findings, as based on the evidence provided there wasn’t exactly a smoking gun and the information was vague and inconclusive.

 

I would like to give the FBI the benefit of the doubt and assume that they have additional evidence aside from just IP addresses, which I think they must if they have the level of confidence that Comey is claiming. The difficult part of that for the security community is trusting the FBI. Trust does not come easily to this group, as by nature of their profession they are paranoid and skeptical and want to see the evidence for themselves to establish the facts.”

Suits and Spooks DC: Not Just a Conference, a Collision. Washington DC, Feb 4-5. See the Agenda & Register Today

Marc Gaffan, CEO & Co-founder of Incapsula:

“While we may never know the the motives behind the Sony Pictures attack, we’ve found that some attackers will publicly deny involvement, but leave breadcrumbs in an attempt to demonstrate prowess without taking the full brunt of public criticism. As for North Korea’s cyber espionage capabilities, despite the fact that their Internet capacity is less than half of the Falkland Islands, it would be foolhardy to equate a small Internet presence with a lack of skilled individuals working with or for their government.

 

Regardless of origin or motive, companies need to turn their focus to the blind spots in their organizations. Hackers will only continue to create more illusive and inventive ways to take down websites or steal information; our global networks see new methods every day. Sony Pictures learned their lesson, but will other companies? This remains to be seen.”

Michael Sutton, VP of Security Research, Zscaler:

“Attribution is hard. This is always the case when dealing with a cyber attack where IP addresses can be spoofed, proxies can be employed and digital weapons copied. Attribution is impossible when we don’t have all the facts. The FBI was surprisingly quick to finger the DPRK for the Sony attacks. Less than a month after the breach, the FBI confidently proclaimed that they had “enough information to conclude that the North Korean government is responsible for [the attacks]”.

 

Contrast that with the grand jury indictment of five Chinese Military officials charged last year with cyber espionage, a case which involved years of investigation. Why did the FBI move so quickly this time? Was it truly an open and shut case? Were there other political motivations for fingering North Korea? Without full transparency we’ll likely never know but we can presume that attribution was needed prior to retaliatory measures. Measures that have already publicly emerged in the form of US sanctions, but other more covert responses are no doubt also currently underway and unlikely to show up in the headlines.

 

Some have claimed that the DPRK did not have the means to conduct such a successful attack, but this is a country that has had an offensive cyber capability for many years and has shown a willingness to leverage it against foreign nations/companies. The Sony breach, while broad in terms of the damage caused, would not have required great sophistication if network admin credentials were indeed stolen and the target had poor internal controls to limit the reach of that individual’s network access. Given Sony’s poor history with previous attacks, including a 23 day DoS attack on the PlayStation Network in 2011, it’s not hard to fathom that internal security controls were lacking.”

Mike Tierney, COO at SpectorSoft:

“As the feeding frenzy around the possibility a nation was behind the Sony hack calms a bit, more and more credible experts are indicating that it is at least as likely that the hack and subsequent data dump were clearly designed to embarrass Sony. The fact that the tie between a pending movie release and the hack was originally made in news reports, and not by the hacker(s), lends some credence to the idea that there may be a more mundane, but all too common, perpetrator.

 

Very often, data leaks of this type stem from a disgruntled employee. Whether the source of their anger is specific, as in the case of a poor performance review or being passed over for a promotion, or more general, as in the case of rumored layoffs (which seem to be a possibility in the Sony case), disgruntled employees can and do present significant risk to organizations.”

Greg Martin, CTO at ThreatStream:

“The big issue with the Sony hack is that any “Security Expert” outside of the core investigation can claim an “alternate theory.”

 

This has been highly confusing to the public who have been hungry for more details which the FBI finally came out with. The FBI had clear evidence that they have some ‘smoking gun’ data showing the North Korean hackers were sloppy when setting up their social media accounts.

 

This is a common mistake made by many hackers – even the very sophisticated ones – and it’s one of the more common ways they get caught. My question to the ‘truthers’ is: why is that so hard to accept?”

Tal Klein, VP of Strategy, Adallom:

“The trouble with breach attribution is that smoking guns are hard to come by. A more concerning issue to those of us watching from the sidelines is that the initial attack vector has still not been discovered, and no breach containment announcement has been made thus far. That means we don’t know whether the attackers still have a foothold in Sony’s infrastructure or if there are more exfiltrated data dumps coming.

 

It is strange that the U.S. would rush to point fingers at North Korea, especially given that any recourse would doubtlessly punish the hapless DPRK proletariat more than government or military. Further, it seems obvious in hindsight that the FBI’s most recent revelations, as presented, would not quell detractors’ call for solid attributable evidence—so one wonders, ‘Why bother?’”

Lior Div, CEO and Co-founder of Cybereason, a MalOps protection company:

“When a company is attacked, it reduces the liability and blame of the attacked company if the public believes it is a nation state attack. This attack may have very well been done or aided by insiders, or other players, including North Koreans that are not nation state cyber attackers, but…certainly the legal and PR fallout for Sony will be less severe if it was believed the attack was state sponsored terrorism as opposed to a disgruntled insider.

 

From all that we’ve read so far, we haven’t seen significant hints for attribution to North Korea as a nation-state sponsored attack. The FBI stated that the attackers were negligent, leaving evidence that ties the attack to North Korea, but in my experience hackers with the capacity to exfiltrate the amount of data involved in the Sony attack are very far from being negligent. It is quite possible that any indicators pointing to North Korea were intentional, left or intentionally planted in order to mislead investigators.

 

So either the FBI knows things that were not shared with the media (possible) that clearly proves it in NK, or – somebody is leveraging it for his own political purposes. That includes the US government, Sony, the hackers…really, we may never know…”

Brendan Spikes, CEO, Spikes Security:

“Given the dangers of using the web today, is it not unreasonable to assume that any network can be breached by web malware trojans? This could surely include servers thought to be used exclusively by North Koreans. I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that someone intending to frame NK for the Sony attack could not intentionally leave breadcrumbs leading back to compromised NK servers.”

TaaSera CTO, Vice President and Founder, Srinivas Kumar:

“Attacker attribution requires reliable information to analyze how the breach was orchestrated internally, identifying the origin of the malicious code (supply chain), and finally tracking down the location of the attackers. The warrant required in a breach investigation to convict the cyber criminals must provide credible evidence as assurance that no evasion techniques were detected, including use of Tor networks, Fast flux DNS, and IP address spoofing. Further, for long duration and high volume data haul, determination of the corpus of actors by geo-location may be an authoritative assertion of the locality or distribution of the attackers.

 

Most investigations today that typically follow in the wake of high profile breaches rely on static geo-location markers for the network addresses and domain names linked to the security episode. The availability of cloud computing services, elastic IPs, Tor networks coupled with the dynamic domain name services, domain name and IP address fast flux warrant evidence beyond reasonable doubt to determine true actors (perpetrators).”

TK Keanini, CTO at Lancope:

“While attribution can be difficult in the physical world, it is incredibly tricky in the digital world. Not only are there effective tools to remain anonymous but there are equally as many tools to make it look like it is attributed to a certain source when it is actually another.

 

Conflict in simpler times was very symmetrical in that the red team versus the blue team but these days in the digital realm of the Internet, it is almost never that simple. an orange team can make it look like the red team is to blame for the attack on the blue team and from there it can grow even more complex. This asymmetrical pattern is the new pattern of cyber conflict and the sooner we all recognize it the better.

 

Ultimately there is an information layer that is adjacent to the physical world meaning at some point you do get back to a person or set of people who are behind the attacks. The synthesis and analysis that lead up to this is complex and not well understood by everyone. Those that understand the dynamics of information spaces are slow and cautious to point fingers as we have seen in the controversy around attribution the Sony Pictures attacks. Even when the culprit stands up, makes themselves known as the Guardian of Peace (GOP), law enforcement still struggles to ties it all back to the physical world where laws can be enforced.”

Ian Amit, Vice President of ZeroFOX:

“Attribution is always a dangerous game. Attackers leave plenty of red herrings to cover their footsteps and make following their trail next to impossible. This is exactly the case with Sony – a few lines of code or IP addresses indicate North Korea, making for a great story, but the actual attack could have come from anywhere.

 

In short, attribution is not a technology game, and trying to deduce attribution based on technical indicators is inherently flawed. If a hacker has deep access in the system, it is extremely easy to change the evidence in order to throw off the trail. What you find from a forensic perspective can mean a thousand different things all at once, based on little fragments of code here or there or the geographic location where an attack was routed though. All these red herrings mean is that attribution becomes political very quickly: any party can conduct their own analysis and come to a conclusion that suits their purposes, all supported by some pieces of incomplete technical evidence.”

Jason Lewis, Chief Collection and Intelligence Officer of Lookingglass Cyber Solutions:

“Attribution is an extremely complex challenge that requires the support of all forms of intelligence to include network, signals, physical, human, etc. In this case, let’s assume the attacker is highly skilled. A highly skilled attacker would understand that leaving false evidence would confuse investigators and lead them to conclusions that point away from themselves.

 

I view this scenario based on how I would compromise a target. First, I would be sure to have multiple launch points between my clandestine Internet connection and my target. That means I would chain multiple compromised hosts through a series of VPNs that encrypt all my traffic. If an investigator was able to trace from the target to my last launch point, they would only find evidence of my tunnel termination. All of my traffic would be passing through the host, never leaving a trace of my activity. If I was determined to frame a person or entity for my activity, I would certainly attempt to compromise a host on their network that was used by many other users, a proxy for example. My malicious traffic would be lost in the noise of thousands of other users.

 

Tracing activity back to me through my tunneled infrastructure may not be impossible, but it would be extremely difficult given that I’m focused on not being caught. If I accessed this network on multiple occasions, I would change the compromised hosts I used for my tunnels and never use the same combination twice. Every comment referencing attribution in the SONY attack introduces more questions.”

Don’t miss the upcoming panel “Sony and the DPRK: A Question of Attribution” at Suits and Spooks DC moderated by The Wall Street Journal’s Danny Yadron.

Until Next Friday…Have a Great Weekend!

Tags:

• NEWS & INDUSTRY
• Tracking & Law Enforcement

Kaspersky Lab recently analyzed the activities of a threat group that has been targeting executive business travelers in the Asia-Pacific region.

The actors behind the cyber espionage campaign dubbed “<a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.securityweek.com%2Fdarkhotel-attackers-target-business-travelers-hotel-networks%22%3EDarkhotel%3C%2Fa%3E" use various techniques to distribute their sophisticated pieces of malware, such as highly customized spear-phishing, malicious Wi-Fi networks, and P2P sharing websites.

The attackers, which appear to speak Korean, have been compromising the networks of luxury hotels for the past four or five years, attempting to trick chief executives, senior vice presidents, sales and marketing directors, and researchers into downloading a backdoor disguised as software updates. Some of the pieces of malware used in these attacks date back to 2007, Kaspersky said.

Thousands of Darkhotel victims have been spotted all over the world, but most of them appear to be located in Japan, Taiwan, China, Russia and Korea. 

Security experts shared their thoughts on this campaign and provided some important recommendations for executives who travel often and don’t want sensitive corporate information to end up in the hands of cyber spies.

And the Feedback Begins…

Carl Wright, General Manager for TrapX Security:

“Organizations must understand that hackers are always looking for the path of least resistance. While enterprises today are generally doing a better job of securing their networks against intrusions from outsiders, they’re falling short when it comes to securing devices outside the corporate network.

As a result of this and an ever-increasing mobile workforce, we’re seeing hackers shifting their attention from attacking organizations head-on through their network and instead concentrate their efforts on individuals outside the corporate firewall. And what a better place to reach them than at the hotels they’re staying at while they’re on the road.

Executives must begin to treat every hotel, plane, bus, cab, cafe etc. as an extension of their corporate office and as such, they need to subject themselves to the same level of security and best practices imposed by their organization’s IT teams. This includes not clicking on suspicious links and making sure their communications to corporate HQ are secured through a proper VPN tunnel.”

Jack Daniel, Strategist at Tenable Network Security:

“Recent stories including the Darkhotel attacks have made it clear that travelers need to assess their information security risks and take reasonable precautions to protect their systems and information. As always, context is critical in deciding what is reasonable in your situation- for some travelers a little extra caution may be all that is needed, for others more aggressive actions such as dedicated (and possibly even disposable) hardware may be required.

A few universal basics can help everyone. Start with strong authentication, including using two-factor authentication everywhere possible and keeping your second factor devices (tokens, phones, cards, etc.) under your control at all times. Use VPNs any time you connect to any network not under your (or your organization¹s) control. Since different networks sometimes interfere with different VPN technologies it is a good idea to have more than one VPN endpoint to connect to, and ideally use more than one VPN technology (IPsec, SSL, etc.) to improve your chances of establishing a secure connection. Other fundamentals include taking no more information than you need for the trip, and limiting the systems and information you access while traveling.

Depending on the type and amount of technology you travel with, it may be best to simply keep all of your digital equipment with you at all times. For more advanced tips, such as the use of Wi-Fi firewalls, consult a trusted security professional.”

Idan Tendler, Fortscale CEO:

“The DarkHotel malware is just more evidence of the troubling vulnerability of networks when it comes to phishing campaigns and credentials theft. It is one of the reasons that networks will need turn their focus internally and adopt a more aggressive approach to security that includes analyzing users.

If a user’s behavior is thoroughly analyzed and profiled, an attacker could steal the user credentials but can’t imitate his historic behavior, which can immediately trigger red flags to the security team for deeper investigation.”

Jared DeMott, security researcher at Bromium:

“Wi-Fi attacks are a real threat, and not just in hotels. At most free Wi-Fi spots there is usually no guidance on secure connection: the user is left to figure it out, and hope it just works. Traveling business people typically are not technical experts either. So, using a device that prefers a VPN is helpful in preventing snooping once connected.  But, if initial connection pages attack with 0-day exploits, the browser is, as usual, a potential weak link without a way to isolate attacks.

I’d advise people to stay off Wi-Fi, in favor of a mobile hotspot. Understandably that can be difficult while in planes, or overseas where mobile devices may not function or be prohibitively expensive.” 

Alex Cox, Senior Manager, RSA-FirstWatch:

“My advice to travelers wishing to stay secure is to opt for the “overly paranoid” approach.

When executives travel they should assume that any open wifi access point has the potential to be malicious, especially in “convenience” areas, where Internet access is provided as a service, probably without a lot of security forethought. They should consider using an Internet access service through a portable wifi device via a cellular network (a MiFi is a popular version). This gives the user a self-contained source of internet access that is for their use only, and this method of connectivity has proven to be one of the more secure as far as eavesdropping and manipulation. That said, it must be configured and used correctly.

If an executive is travelling in a high-risk area, they should consider that any time their device is out of their direct physical control (airport, hotel room, vehicle, etc.) it has the potential to be tampered with. With that in mind, the traveler should keep physical control of the device as much as possible. It’s also a good idea for a high-risk traveler to bring a “clean” laptop and/or smartphone or tablet that doesn’t involve any of their work outside of what is currently needed. While traveling users should have increased suspicion of update notifications, emails with attachments and unknown links, or the request to install “helper” apps in order to access something.

It’s important to adopt an intelligence-focused mindset, to help understand the threat vectors and attackers that may be targeting the traveler.”

John Dickson, Principal at The Denim Group:

“I think the pressure from clients, shareholders or deadlines puts executives in a situation where they rarely think twice about hopping on a hotel Wi-Fi to conduct business. Couple that with the trust in brands – executives would assume Hilton, Hyatt, and others provide information security in addition to physical security and a clean room – and you have a dangerous mix.

Connecting [to Wi-Fi] itself is not completely terrible, but users should VPN-in as soon as they connect to the network for both e-mail and browsing purposes. Also, they should make sure their laptops and mobile devices have the most recent software updates, to make their computing devices less vulnerable to known, often exploited vulnerabilities. The thing to remember is that most security issues occur when two things happens: (1.) A user-initiated action, like clicking on an attachment or link or visiting a site hosting malware; and (2.) a latent vulnerability exists on the computing devices from which the user is browsing.

This was a well thought-out attack, and like most great attacks, is less about the technology and more about exploiting a known trust mechanism, in this case the strength of hotel chains’ brands.”

Oliver Tavakoli, CTO of Vectra Networks:

“There are two lessons that can be learned from the DarkHotel issue. The first is security architectures must be able to protect against attacks that exploit mobile users on guest Wi-Fi networks. The second is in the fast evolving threat landscape, “what the malware is doing” is more important than “what the malware is.

The BYOD Mobile Security Report published by the LinkedIn InfoSec Community revealed that exploits entering organizations via mobile devices is a top security concern in 2014. It is not possible to completely protect users from exploits when they travel and use public-access Wi-Fi networks at coffee shops or hotels. However, it is possible to detect the activities of an attacker who has breached the network perimeter through a traveling employee’s laptop. In a targeted attack, the attacker will use the infected laptop to perform reconnaissance, spread laterally, acquire data, and ultimately exfiltrate it in as stealthy a manner as possible. Real-time breach detection uses machine learning to detect these behaviors among the chatter in the network, even when the exploit or malware “walks” into an organization on a user’s laptop.

 

Just like there were multiple iterations of Conficker and the malware that was used to attack Target was “tweaked,” there could one day be a “DarkHotel 2.” Naming malware may satisfy a human need or assist in knowing whether the right detection signatures are deployed, but it is not relevant in advanced threat defense. Advanced threats, even when they start with simple tactics like spear phishing, are stealthy by nature and will use malware and C&C channels that slip past perimeter and endpoint security that use signatures and reputation lists. Detecting what the malware is doing will always have a higher likelihood – and multiple opportunities – of detecting a targeted attack than knowing what the malware is. Think of it this way, if you can name it, then it is no longer an advanced threat or a targeted attack. Ignoring the malware may only relegate you to being one of its first victims, and that is no fun.”

Ian Amit, ZeroFOX Vice President:

“First things first – nothing is revolutionary about Darkhotel. It uses the same tactics that penetration testers have been using at red team engagements for years. The only surprise is that the attack was found, albeit with a delay of 7 years.

Darkhotel leverages publicly available information and past behaviors to predict where and when an executive is traveling. Having that information at hand is critical for launching a pinpoint attack, and in most cases can be derived from a simple social media search. Once the target is located, the attack comes via the hotel wireless network. As usual, the human factor plays a lead role in enabling such attacks, and unfortunately, most of the information needed can be found on social media.

When traveling, follow the rule “no changes allowed” – no updates, no downloads, no new software or hardware installations. This will prevent almost every malware attack. For the extremely security-conscious traveler, a freshly installed laptop and phone are recommended, both of which should be disposed of at the end of the trip.”

Anup Ghosh, Founder and CEO, Invincea:

“The DarkHotel campaign sheds light on risks business travelers face when leaving the four walls of their enterprise networks. Business travelers need access to the Internet, of course, and the hotel networks is usually the gateway. Even if they are employing VPNs, the access point is the local hotel wireless net prior to being able to login via VPN. At this juncture, we have seen not only rogue Flash updates, but also drive-by exploits hosted on these hotel network pages that silently infect the traveller’s machine.

This isn’t confined to hotel networks, of course, as any public network with a network access login (coffee shops, airports) can be compromised accordingly. Airports would be particularly rich for business travelers and many incorporate advertising that can be subverted via third party ad networks.

Bottomline is business travelers need end point protection that stops targeted attacks and novel malware without requiring the corporate network.”

Tal Klein, VP of Strategy for Adallom:

“Captive portals are basically dressed up Men-in-the-Middle. I don’t particularly understand the hype around DarkHotel given that tools like Hak5’s Pineapple have demonstrated the ease with which people can be compromised by trusting captive portals, especially in hotel settings. My advice: Invest in a mobile carrier Mi-Fi. Most hotel internet connections are unbearably slower and more expensive than a Mi-Fi anyway.”

Ian Pratt, Co-founder & EVP, Products at Bromium:

“Attacks using Wi-Fi captive portals are certainly on the rise. The networks at hotels are particular attractive as information about the user’s name and the organization they work for is frequently available, enabling very targeted attacks. It is common for hotels to outsource provision of networking services, and hence these third parties become attractive targets to attackers to target visitors staying at many hotels. In some parts of the world state security services specifically take advantage of this.

 

A VPN is unable to help protect against many of these attacks. Most Wi-Fi networks require you to successfully sign-in to a captive portal page before they will allow you external access. In many cases it is the sign-in page itself that is malicious, and by the time the user has entered their surname and room number they will have been delivered an exploit tailored to their machine and compromised. Bringing a VPN up at this point plays directly into the attackers hands, bringing the infection onto the enterprise network.”

Paul Lipman, CEO of iSheriff:

“Darkhotel illustrates a fundamental hole in the typical approach to corporate cybersecurity. Organizations spend many millions of dollars to protect their networks against outside threats, investing in ever more sophisticated ways to defend their network infrastructure, applications, and data from attack. Despite all of this investment, roaming users are typically protected with nothing more than endpoint anti-virus, a technology that is woefully inadequate to protect against advanced persistent threats such as Darkhotel. Even worse, when an infected user later comes back into the office, any malware infection picked up “on the road” can instantly spider out across the network, multiplying the risk by orders of magnitude.

 

A cloud-based Web security solution provides a persistent layer of protection for roaming users, wherever or however they are connecting to the Internet. These services are constantly updated to cover the latest advanced threats, identifying them in the cloud in real-time, and blocking them before they can ever reach an end user’s device. In the case of Darkhotel, a user connecting through a cloud security layer would be fully protected through a “secure tunnel” from the device to the cloud security provider.”

Chris Messer, vice president of technology at Coretelligent:

“DarkHotel is a moderate threat for unsuspecting and non-technical users, and for users and organizations that have lax security safeguards present on traveling employee or executive devices.

 

This type of attack requires the potential victim to download a compromised update such as Adobe Flash or Google Toolbar from a compromised link or pop-up browser window. The user is then tricked into installing these updates as the attacker uses bogus digital certificates to “sign & validate” the compromised software to lead the user to believe they came from a trusted source. This compromised application then installs additional malicious software (Trojan, keylogger, etc.) on the victim’s machine, and then allows the attacker to track and collect data from their machine at will.

 

The good news is that this type of attack can be prevented if users follow good security practices and have reasonable security software and precautions put in place by IT:

 

• Individuals should avoid hotel wired and wireless Internet services all together, and instead rely on a company-provided mobile hotspot device, or tether via their mobile device. When individuals are required to leverage a hotel’s wired or wireless Internet, they should avoid performing any system administrative tasks or updates.

 

• Users should only transact business over a secure VPN connection and HTTPS secured sites. They should avoid sensitive sites such as banking sites for the duration of the hotel stay, if at all possible.

 

• Users should never click on any advertisements via the hotel Wi-Fi, and after logging into the wireless, make it a point to close and re-open their browsers to avoid re-using a questionable session.

 

• Individuals should ensure that they have a robust antivirus suite installed on their machine that has some sort of web filtering component. 

 Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below, and until Next Friday…Have a Great Weekend!

Tags:

• Network Security
• NEWS & INDUSTRY
• Incident Management
• Risk Management
• Malware
• Management & Strategy

Researchers at Palo Alto Networks identified a new piece of malware designed to target Mac OS X and iOS users. The threat, called WireLurker, has potentially affected hundreds of thousands of users, almost all of them located in China. 

Cybercriminals are distributing the threat by trojanizing OS X apps hosted on third party app stores. The 467 malicious apps uploaded to the Maiyadi App Store have been downloaded more than 350,000 times.

Once it infects a Mac, the malware downloads other malicious iOS application to the infected machine. When victims connect their iPads, iPhones or iPods via USB to the infected device, WireLurker installs the downloaded iOS applications onto them. The mobile component of WireLurker is capable of stealing information from infected devices.

The latest version of WireLurker is interesting because it can infect not only jailbroken devices, but also ones that haven’t been jailbroken. The threat can install the malicious iOS apps on non-jailbroken devices by signing them with a stolen code signing certificate.

Shortly after Palo Alto Networks disclosed details on WireLurker, researchers identified an older variant of the threat apparently designed to target computers running Microsoft Windows. 

The command and control servers used by the malware are currently offline and Apple has revoked the certificate used by the malware authors. However, experts believe WireLurker once again shows that Apple devices are not immune to malware.

And the Feedback Begins…

Ian Amit, Vice President of ZeroFOX:

“It’s interesting to see how malware is getting more holistic from an attack vector approach, utilizing technical vulnerabilities and elements, as well as human ones. This isn’t the first malicious code that is designed to “hop” between connected platforms, examples date back to variants such as Stuxnet that infected Windows based computers, which in turn affected Siemens PLCs. This is an interesting turn of events, as Apple’s iPhone is commonly considered a safe platform as long as it isn’t jailbroken.

Beyond the already familiar abuse of social interactions that allow the malware to run in the first place – essentially, having the victim ‘knowingly’ install it, WireLurker also abuses the trust between the victim’s PC and the iPhone connected to it, which grants it full access to the phone and it’s applications – apps can be backed up over USB, then restored to the phone, after the malware has modified them and inserted a backdoor.”

Greg Martin, CTO of ThreatStream:

“Wirelurker is being distributed via a 3rd party app-store called Maiyadi that is out of control of Apple.

The danger with third-party app stores such as Maiyadi is that Apple and Google have no vetting control of what gets added to 3rd party app stores, severely limiting their ability to protect end-users from running malicious apps. In-fact nearly all cases of known malware for the iPhones have originated from 3rd party app stores such as Cydia (App store for jailbroken iPhones) and now new ones like Maiyadi.

Monitoring these 3rd party app stores for malicious apps will become an opportunity for cyber security companies to help provide intelligence back to Apple and Google on what’s happening outside of their control.”

Steve Bell, security consultant, BullGuard:

“The really interesting thing about the WireLurker malware is the scale of the infection and how it is promulgated.  Because of the proprietary nature of Apple devices and the fact that apps are checked for malware before they go into the Apple store users have generally been protected in the past.

However, with an estimated 350,000 downloads of infected apps and the fact that the malware can also transfer via a USB port signals a serious notching up of hacker’s endeavours to hit Apple devices. In the US Apple users tend to stick to the Apple store which is wise. WireLurker shows precisely the danger of downloading apps from unregulated third party stores.

However, the use of a USB port to also transfer malware, while obvious and simple, could be potentially devastating. Without wishing to be alarmist, USB ports are an obvious vulnerability, and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that hackers might use this to insert Trojans designed to lie dormant for a period. With Apple now putting its considerable weight behind Apple Pay, hackers have serious motivation.”

Carl Wright, General Manager for TrapX Security:

“What has enabled the success of the creators of WireLurker is the concept of transitive trust. This two-way approved relationship automatically created between parties has long been an Achilles heel to security professionals trying to ensure the validity of transactions on a more or less case by case bases.

This recent hack continues to illustrate the trade-off the end users must consider between that of maintaining security of the end point device and innovative new applications that may not be developed or certified by Apple.

In the end, the price may indeed be too extreme for corporations who desire to take advantage of end user BYOD.”

Jared DeMott, Security Researcher with Bromium Labs:

 “People still seem to think malware on the Mac is less likely than on Windows.  If this is true, it’s simply because attackers are less interested in Mac.  The relative attack surface is just as big (similar chance to find and exploit bugs) as on Windows or any other modern operating system.

In fact, my suspicion is that Macs really are exploited more than people realize.  But it’s either typically by better funded attackers, who know how to stay hidden, or because Apple in general does a better job at managing bad security press when compared to Windows.

This particular malware is distributed not in the form of an exploit, but in the form of pirated software.  China in particular, is known to run a lot of illegal software.  Thus, it’s not surprising the Chinese took the brunt of this round, considering the deployment mechanism.”

Mark Parker, Senior Product Manager, iSheriff:

“Wirelurker introduces a new threat vector in a place that was thought to be secure. The concept of using trojan software to download new threats is not new, that is something that has been in practice for many years. However, up to this point the software on iOS devices has been considered secure since the only software on the device would come through the heavily vetted Apple App Store.

By using the workstation’s USB connection as an avenue to surreptitiously install the Trojan applications, the protection afforded by the App Store is leap frogged in an effective manner. Since it has shown success, there is sure to be more advancement and copycats. The introduction of the mobile phone as a method of payment will increase the potential for attacks. Wherever there is money, there is always going to be Malware built to try to get access to that money.

This approach of using the workstation USB connection to another device could also be used in other “closed system” environments. Examples of this could be physical security system maintenance, or point-of-sale terminals that can only be maintained via a workstation USB connection, or similar method. It is always important to ensure that all workstations, even those of workers off-site, are protected from endpoint, web, and email based attacks at all times. The need for security doesn’t stop when the device leaves the network, especially in cases of workers that will be connecting to these types of devices.”

Kenneth Bechtel, Malware Research Analyst, Tenable Network Security:

 “With a resurgent BlackEnergy now targeting network routers and WireLurker spreading like wildfire across China’s iOS devices, this has been an interesting week to be in the malware business. But the thing to keep in mind is that despite the hype, neither of these threats herald an impending Internet apocalypse, though both deserve to be taken seriously.

WireLurker infects iOS through compromised OS X machines. Following successful malware trends, it is modular and updateable, having 467 applications hosted on the Maiyadi App Store (a third-party store hosted in China). This threat can now infect non-jail broken iOS devices simply by connecting an iPhone/ iPad/ iPod to a computer to sync the calendar or contacts list. This concept is very frightening to many users, and means it won’t be long before it spreads to countries outside of China.”

Michael Sutton, VP of Security Research for Zscaler:

 “We keep waiting for mobile malware to eclipse traditional PC malware but it turns out that we’re waiting for the wrong thing. We’ll never see the drive by downloads and fast spreading device to device malware that we’ve become accustomed to in the Windows world, due to the differing architectures of Windows vs Mobile operating systems. That doesn’t however mean that malware on mobile devices isn’t a concern, it just means that malware is being forced to evolve and adapt to a more restrictive environment.

This is especially true for iOS devices and WireLurker represents a new advance on that front. Whether or not Apple designed their Walled Garden for security purposes or not, the fact that iOS apps must primarily be installed only from the iOS App Store, where they can first be vetted by Apple, has made malicious apps on non-jailbroken devices a rare commodity. WireLurker took advantage of an exception to this rule.

WireLurker abuses the fact that there is another way to get apps onto non-jailbroken devices. Apple allows enterprise development teams to leverage Enterprise Provisioning as a means to push homegrown apps to employees without the hassle of hosting them in the App Store. The process is still restricted and requires the use of an Apple supplied code signing certificate and provisioning profiles pushed to devices, but it does provide an alternative. The authors of WireLurker appear to have stolen a legitimate code signing certificate from Hunan Langxiong Advertising Decoration Engineering Co. Ltd., in order to pushed apps to non-jailbroken devices via provisioning profiles.”

Steve Hultquist, chief evangelist at RedSeal:

“Trust. It’s the first requirement for security, but seldom considered by consumers. In the case of WireLurker, existing trust between an iOS device and a Mac becomes the surrogate for malware to infect the devices. When the Mac user mistakenly places trust in a third-party app site to only offer uninfected applications for download, it opens the door to infection of the Mac and then the iOS devices.

This is another example of the sophistication and automation of attacks that are growing inexorably into the future. Attackers are both more subtle and more capable than ever before. This attack resulted in over a quarter of a million infected downloads, in all likelihood impacting thousands of people and devices, all because of misplaced trust.

This attack and others that will follow underscore the need for proactive security efforts, from application design-for-security to trust architectures and automated analysis of potential access paths. Without automated proactive prevention, attacks will continue to grow in volume and impact. Enterprises need to take notice, since these consumer attacks are merely the ice above the water. The enterprise and governmental attacks are the bulk under the sea.”

Until Next Friday…Have a Great Weekend!

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Welcome back to Feedback Friday! An unclassified computer network at the White House was breached recently and the main suspects are hackers allegedly working for the Russian government.

The incident came to light earlier this week when an official said they had identified “activity of concern” on the unclassified network of the Executive Office of the President (EOP) while assessing recent threats. The official said the attackers didn’t cause any damage, but some White House users were temporarily disconnected from the network while the breach was dealt with.

Experts have pointed out that while the attackers breached an unclassified network, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they haven’t gained access to some useful data, even if it’s not classified. They have also outlined the methods and strategies used by both the attackers and the defenders in such a scenario.

And the Feedback Begins…

Amit Yoran, President at RSA:

“The breach underscores the constant siege of attacks on our government and businesses. Fortunately — by definition — information with grave or serious impact to national security is classified and would not be found on an unclassified network. That said, there is most likely information on unclassified networks that the White House would not like public or for 3rd party consumption.

As for the profile of the adversary, the White House uses the latest security technologies making them a very challenging target to breach. Top secret clearances are required for access to networks and personnel are continuously and rigorously vetted. As such — and acknowledging that until a thorough investigation is completed, speculation can be dangerous — a standard botnet or phishing malware is a less likely scenario than a focused adversary with time and expertise in developing customized exploits, malware and campaigns.”

Mark Orlando, director of cyber operations at Foreground Security. Orlando previously worked at the EOP where he led a contract team responsible for building and managing the EOP Security Operations Center under the Office of Administration:

“Sophisticated attackers constantly alter their approach so as to evade detection and they will eventually succeed. The best a defender can do in this case is to identify and respond to the attack as quickly and effectively as possible. It isn’t at all unusual for an attack like this one to be discovered only after a malicious email has been identified, analyzed, and distilled into indicators of compromise (subject lines, source addresses, file names, and related data elements) used to hunt for related messages or attacks that were initially missed. White House defenders routinely exchange this kind of data with analysts across the Federal Government to facilitate those retrospective investigations. That may have been how this compromise was discovered and that doesn’t amount to a ‘miss’.

While the media points to outages or delays in major services like email at the White House, this is also not an unusual side effect of proper containment and eradication of a threat like this one- especially if there are remote users involved. Incidents exactly like this one occur all over the Federal government and increasingly in the private sector as well; the only thing different about this attack that makes it more newsworthy than those other incidents is that it occurred at EOP.”

Tom Kellermann, Trend Micro chief cybersecurity officer and former commissioner on The Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency:

“Geopolitical tensions are now manifested through cyberattacks. The enemies of the state conduct tremendous reconnaissance on their targets granting them situational awareness as to our defenses in real time. This reality allows for elite patriotic hackers to bypass our defenses.”

Irene Abezgauz, VP Product Management, Quotium:

“Security, cyber or physical, relies heavily on risk management. With a large operation, it is difficult to secure everything on the same level, priority is often given to the more sensitive networks. In the case of the White House hack, the breached network was unclassified, meaning it probably has slightly different security measures than classified networks.

Government systems are prime targets for hackers. Even if the breached network is unclassified and no sensitive information was exposed, all government network breaches draw attention. In public opinion, attackers gaining access to government computer systems, no matter whether classified or not, reflects badly on the ability of the US to defend itself, especially when foreign nationals are suspected. In addition, availability and integrity must be maintained in systems that involve any kind of government decision making, more than in most other systems.

The bottom line is that high profile targets must maintain a high level of security on all networks. Hackers, private and state-funded, are continuously attempting attacks on these systems. Such attacks must be blocked in order to protect data within as well as assure the public of the ability of the government to protect its cyber systems.”

John Dickson, Principal at the Denim Group:

“Although initial reports emphasize the unclassified nature of the system and networks, security experts know that successful attacks against certain unclassified systems can, in fact, still be gravely serious. Given the fact this concerns perhaps the most high-visibility target in the world – the White House – and you potentially have a genuinely difficult situation.

On one hand, you have the issue of public confidence in our institutions of government. ‘If the attackers can compromise the White House, what else can the possibly get into?’ is a perfectly valid question from citizens who may not recognize the distinction between unclassified and classified systems. Also, sensitive information that is unclassified may traverse these systems and give attackers more context to allow them to put together a larger picture of what’s happening at the White House. Military folks call refer to this term as Operational Security, or OPSEC, and this is always a worry for those protecting the President, the White House, and the operations of the Executive Branch of government.

From a defensive standpoint, when you face a sophisticated attacker with substantial resources you have be constantly vigilant and assume certain systems will fail. It’s far too early to editorialize on theories of ‘what might have happened’ at the White House, but we always recommend a defense in depth approach to application and system design that ‘fails open,’ so that if an attacker compromises one type of defense, it doesn’t compromise the entire ecosystem.”

Ian Amit, Vice President at ZeroFOX:

“Much of the conversation surrounding the recent White House hack centers on the nature of the compromised network. The network is ‘unclassified,’ leading many people to believe the affected information is non-critical or innocuous. It’s important to note however that enough unclassified information, when aggregated and correlated, quickly becomes classified. Isolated data points might not mean much by themselves, but enough time spent passively listening to unclassified chatter can reveal some very sensitive intelligence.

So how much time was the hacker on the network? It’s difficult to tell. Security officials alerted on ‘suspicious activity.’ This phrase doesn’t give us much insight into how long the network was compromised. The hacker could have been active on the network for months without doing anything to sound the alarms. It’s one thing if a hacker is caught in the act of breaking in or stealing data. That kind of event information generally gives a clear indication of the attack timeline. Triggering on passive behavior makes this much more difficult.

With that said, it’s commendable that White House security officials are looking for behavioral cues rather than overt events to detect malicious activity. Soft indicators are much more difficult to detect and means the security officials are using some advanced tools to understand traffic on the network.”

Anup Ghosh, CEO of Invincea:

“The disclosure of breach from the White House this week was remarkable for its differences from a similar disclosure in 2012. It’s clear from recent press releases from security companies, that Russia is the New Black now. In fact, if you get hacked by the Chinese now, it’s almost embarrassing because they are considered less sophisticated than the Russians. So now, every breach seems to be attributed to Russians, though largely without any evidence.

A little more than two years ago in October 2012, the White House acknowledged a breach of its unclassified networks in the White House Military Office (which also manages the President’s nuclear ‘football’). The talking points at the time were: 1. Chinese threat, 2. Non-sophisticated attack method (spear-phish), 3. Unclassified network, so no harm. This week, the talking points are: 1. Russian government threat, 2. Sophisticated attack method (spear-phish), and 3. Deep concern over breach of unclassified network. The similarities between the two breaches are remarkable, but the reaction couldn’t be more different.

Before we indict the Russians for every breach now, it would be great to see some bar set for attribution to a particular group. It would also be great to not use “sophisticated” threat or Russians as a scape goat for not properly addressing spear-phishing threats with technology readily available off the shelf (and shipped with every Dell commercial device).”

Michael Sutton, VP of Security Reasearch for Zscaler:

“The breach of a compromised White House computer reported this week is simply the latest in ongoing and continual attacks on government networks. While such breaches periodically hit the headlines thanks to ‘unnamed sources’, it’s safe to assume that the general public only has visibility into the tip of the iceberg. White House officials admitted that this latest breach was discovered ‘in the course of assessing recent threats’, suggesting that following the trail of breadcrumbs for one attack led to another.

In September, there were reports of yet another successful attack, this one leveraging spear phishing and compromising a machine on an unclassified network and earlier this month, details of the Sandworm attacks emerged, which leveraged a then 0day Microsoft vulnerability to target NATO and EU government agencies. All of these recent attacks have been attributed to groups in Russia and it’s likely that they’re tied together. All Internet facing systems face constant attack, but the White House understandably presents a particularly attractive target.

While all G20 nations have advanced cyber warfare capabilities and conduct offensive operations, Russia and China have been particularly aggressive in recent years, often conducting bold campaigns that are sure to be uncovered at some point.”

Zach Lanier, Senior Security Researcher at Duo Security:

“U.S. government and defense networks are often the target of attackers — and the White House is without a doubt very high on that list, regardless of the breached network reportedly being ‘unclassified’. Everyone from hacktivists to foreign intelligence agencies have sought after access to these networks and systems, so this intrusion isn’t a huge surprise.” 

Carl Wright, General Manager of North America for TrapX Security:

“When it comes to our military, government and its supporting national defense industrial complex, the American public’s expectation is and should be significantly higher. The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) findings in September highlighted how nation-state actors were targeting contractors with relation to the federal government so it is to be expected that actual government bodies are also being targeted.

95 percent of the security market is signature based and thus will not detect a targeted zero-day. We must operate under the notion that networks are already compromised and focus defenses on monitoring lateral movements within data centers and private networks as that is how hackers escalate their attack and access. Unfortunately, existing security technologies focus from the outside in, trying to understand the entire world of cyber terrorists’ behaviors which inundate security teams with alerts and false-positives.

These breaches demonstrate how traditional security tools alone don’t do enough and both enterprises and government organizations need to constantly evaluate and improve their security posture to thwart today’s nation-states or crime syndicates whether foreign or domestic. With the United States President’s intranet being compromised, it truly shows the poor state of our national cyber defense capabilities.”

Nat Kausik, CEO at Bitglass:

“Organizations whose security models involve ‘trusted devices’ are naturally prone to breaches. Employees take their laptops on the go, get hacked at public WIFI networks, and come back to the office where the device is treated as trusted and allowed to connect to the network.

The compromised device enables the hacker to gain a broader and more permanent foothold inside the network. Government entities have long favored the ‘trusted devices’ model and are actually more prone to breaches than organizations that treat all user devices as suspect.”

Greg Martin, CTO at ThreatStream:

“It’s public knowledge that Russia has been very active in sponsored cyber espionage and attacks but have recently turned up the volume since both the Ukranian conflict and given the Snowden leaks which in my opinion have given Russian and China the open door to be even more bold in their offensive cyber programs.

Recent cyberattacks on retailers and financial institutions have been riddled with anti-US propaganda. This makes it increasingly difficult to pinpoint the backers as the activity is heavily blended threats between criminal actors, hack-tivist and state sponsored activity. As seen in the recent reports, Russia APT attacks have been prevalent in targeting U.S. interests including the financial sector.

ThreatStream believes organizations should accelerate their policy of sharing cyber threat information and look at how they currently leverage threat and adversary intelligence in their existing cyber defense strategies.”

Until Next Friday…Happy Happy Halloween and have a Great Weekend!

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• Network Security
• NEWS & INDUSTRY
• Incident Management

The existence of a highly critical vulnerability affecting the GNU Bourne Again Shell (Bash) has been brought to light this week. The security flaw is considered by some members of the industry as being worse than the notorious Heartbleed bug.

GNU Bash is a command-line shell used in many Linux, Unix and Mac OS X operating systems. The vulnerability (CVE-2014-6271) has been dubbed “Bash Bug” or “Shellshock” and it affects not only Web servers, but also Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices such as DVRs, printers, automotive entertainment systems, routers and even manufacturing systems.

By exploiting the security hole, an attacker can execute arbitrary commands and take over targeted machine. Symantec believes that the most likely route of attack is through Web servers that use CGI (Common Gateway Interface). There have already been reports of limited, targeted attacks exploiting the vulnerability.

A patch has been made available, but it’s incomplete. Until a permanent fix is rolled out, several organizations have launched Shellshock detection tools. Errata Security has started scanning the Web to find out how many systems are affected, and Symantec has published a video to demonstrate how the flaw can be exploited.

The security community warns that the vulnerability can have serious effects, and points out that it could take a long time until all systems are patched.

And the Feedback Begins…

Ian Pratt, Co-founder and EVP at Bromium:

 “The ‘shellshock’ bash vulnerability is a big deal. It’s going to impact large numbers of internet-facing Linux/Unix/OS X systems as bash has been around for many years and is frequently used as the ‘glue’ to connect software components used in building applications. Vulnerable network-facing applications can easily be remotely exploited to allow an attacker to gain access to the system, executing with the same privilege the application has. From there, an attacker would attempt to find a privilege escalation vulnerability to enable them to achieve total compromise.

Bash is a very complex and feature-rich piece of software that is intended for interactive use by power users. It does way more than is typically required for the additional role for which it is often employed in gluing components together in applications. Thus it presents an unnecessarily broad attack surface — this likely won’t be the last vulnerability found in bash. Application developers should try to avoid invoking shells unless absolutely necessary, or use minimalist shells where required.”

Mark Parker, Senior Product Manager at iSheriff:

 “This bash vulnerability is going to prove to be a much bigger headache than Heartbleed was. In addition to the general Mac OS X, Linux and Unix systems that need to be patched, there are also thousands upon thousands of Internet connected Linux and Unix based embedded devices, such as DVRs, home automation systems, automotive entertainment systems, mobile phones, home routers, manufacturing systems and printers.

Most of these devices will be susceptible because most Linux based devices run bash, it is such an integral part of the Linux OS. I anticipate that we will be continue to see the fallout from this vulnerability for a long time to come.”

Carl Wright, General Manager of TrapX Security:

“We feel that industry will take this very seriously and come out with patches for this vulnerability ASAP. It could take us years to understand how many systems were compromised and how many were used to escalate privileges into systems without this vulnerability. The transitive trust nature of directory architectures and authentications systems could mean we are living with this far beyond patching the current systems if this exploit has been taken advantage of even at a small 1% level.”

Coby Sella, CEO of Discretix:

“This is the second time over the last six months when a key infrastructure component used by billions of connected things across a variety of industries has been compromised. We see this problem only getting worse as more and more unsecured or not adequately secured things are rolled out without any comprehensive security solution that reaches all the way down to the chipset. Real solutions to this problem must cover every layer from the chipset to the cloud enabling companies to remotely insert secrets into the chipset layer via secured connections within their private or cloud infrastructure.”

Nat Kausik, CEO, Bitglass:

“Enterprises with ‘trusted endpoint’ security models for laptops and mobile devices are particularly vulnerable to this flaw.  Malware can exploit this vulnerability on unix-based laptops such as Mac and Chromebook when the user is away from the office, and then spread inside the corporate network once the user returns to the office.”

Steve Durbin, Managing Director of the Information Security Forum:

“The Bash vulnerability simply stresses the point that there is no such thing as 100% security and that we all need to take a very circumspect and practical approach to how we make use of the devices that we use to share data both within and outside the home and our businesses. I have my doubts on whether or not this will lead to a wave of cyber-attacks, but that is not to say that the vulnerability shouldn’t be taken seriously. It is incumbent upon all of us as users to guard our data and take all reasonable precautions to ensure that we are protecting our information as best as we are realistically able.”

Steve Lowing, Director of Product Management, Promisec:

 “Generally, the Bash vulnerability could be really bad for systems, such as smart devices including IP cameras, appliances, embedded web servers on routers, etc… which are not updated frequently. The exposure for most endpoints is rapidly being addressed in the form of patches to all flavors of UNIX including Redhat and OS X. Fortunately for Microsoft, they avoid much of this pain since most Windows systems do not have Bash installed on them.

For vulnerable systems, depending on how they are leveraging the Bash shell the results could be grave. For example, a webserver that uses CGI for example would likely be configured to use Bash as the shell for executing commands and compromising this system via this vulnerability is fairly straightforward. The consequences could be to delete all web content which could mean Service level agreements (SLA)s are not met because of complete outage or deface the site which tarnishes your brand or even to be a point of infiltration for a targeted attack which could mean IP and/or sensitive customer information loss.

The IoT is the likely under the biggest risk since many of these devices and appliances are not under subject to frequent software updates like a desktop or laptop or server would be. This could result in many places for an attacker to break into and lay wait for sensitive information to come their way.”

Jason Lewis, Chief Collection and Intelligence Officer, Lookingglass Cyber Solutions:

 “The original vulnerability was patched by CVE-2014-6271. Unfortunately this patch did not completely fix the problem. This means even patched systems are vulnerable.

 

Several proof of concepts have been released.  The exploit has the ability to turn into a worm, so someone could unleash an exploit to potentially infect a huge number of hosts.”

Ron Gula, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technical Officer, Tenable Network Security: 

 “Auditing systems for ShellShock will not be like scanning for Heartbleed. Heartbleed scans could be completed by anyone with network access with high accuracy. With ShellShock, the highest form of accuracy to test for this is to perform a patch audit. IT auditing shops that don’t have mature relationships with their IT administrators may not be able to audit for this.

 

Detecting the exploit of this is tricky. There are network IDS rules to detect the attack on unencrypted (non-SSL) web servers, but IDS rules to look for this attack over SSL or SSH won’t work. Instead, solutions which can monitor the commands run by servers and desktops can be used to identify commands which are new, anomalistic and suspect.”

Mike Spanbauer, Managing Director of Research, NSS Labs:

“Bash is an interpretive shell that makes a series of commands easy to implement on a Unix derivative. Linux is quite prevalent today throughout the Web, both as commerce platform and as commercial website platform. It happens to be the default script shell for Unix, Linux, well… you get the picture.

The core issue is that while initially the vulnerability highlights the ease with which an attacker might take over a Web server running CGI scripting, and ultimately, ‘get shell’ which offers the attacker the means to reconfigure the access environment, get to sensitive data or compromise the victim machine in many ways.

As we get to the bottom of this issue, it will certainly be revealed just how bad this particular discovery is – but there is a chance it’s bigger than Heartbleed, and that resulted in thousands of admin hours globally applying patches and fixes earlier this year.”

Contrast Security CTO and co-founder Jeff Williams:

 “This is a pretty bad bug. The problem happens because bash supports a little used syntax for ‘exported functions’ – basically a way to define a function and make it available in a child shell.   There’s a bug that continues to execute commands that are defined after the exported function.

So if you send an HTTP request with a referrer header that looks like this: Referer:() { :; }; ping -c 1 11.22.33.44. The exported function is defined by this crazy syntax () { :; };  And the bash interpreter will just keep executing commands after that function.  In this case, it will attempt to send a ping request home, thus revealing that the server is susceptible to the attack.

Fortunately there are some mitigating factors.  First, this only applies to systems that do the following things in order: 1) Accept some data from an untrusted source, like an HTTP request header, 2) Assign that data to an environment variable, 3) Execute a bash shell (either directly or through a system call).

If they send in the right data, the attacker will have achieved the holy grail of application security: ‘Remote Command Execution.’  An RCE basically means they have completely taken over the host.

Passing around data this way is a pretty bad idea, but it was the pattern back in the CGI days.  Unfortunately, there are still a lot of servers that work that way.  Even worse, custom applications may have been programmed this way, and they won’t be easy to scan for.  So we’re going to see instances of this problem for a long long time.”

Tal Klein, Vice President of Strategy at Adallom:

 “What I don’t like to see is people comparing Shellshock to Heartbleed. Shellshock is exponentially more dangerous because it allows remote code execution, meaning a successful attack could lead to the zombification of hosts. We’ve already seen one self-replicating Shellshock worm in the wild, and we’ve already seen one patch circumvention technique that requires patched Bash to be augmented in order to be ‘truly patched’. What I’m saying is that generally I hate people who wave the red flag about vulnerabilities, but this is a 10 out of 10 on the awful scale and poses a real threat to core infrastructure. Take it seriously.”

Michael Sutton, Vice President of Security Research at Zscaler:

 “Robert Graham has called the ‘Shellshock’ vulnerability affecting bash ‘bigger than Heartbleed.’ That’s a position we could defend or refute, it all depends upon how you define bigger. Will more systems be affected? Definitely. While both bash and OpenSSL, which was impacted by Heartbleed, are extremely common, bash can be found on virtually all *nix system, while the same can’t be said for OpenSSL as many systems simply would require SSL communication. That said, we must also consider exploitability and here is where I don’t feel that the risk posed by Shellshock will eclipse Heartbleed.

Exploiting Heartbleed was (is) trivially easy. The same simple malformed ‘heartbeat’ request would trigger data leakage on virtually any vulnerable system. This isn’t true for Shellshock as exploitation is dependent upon influencing bash environment variables. Doing so remotely will depend upon the exposed applications that interact with bash. Therefore, this won’t quite be a ‘one size fits all’ attack. Rather, the attacker will first need to probe servers to determine not only those that are vulnerable, but also how they can inject code into bash environment variables.

The difference here is that we have to take application logic into account with Shellshock and that was not required with Heartbleed. That said, we’re in very much in the same boat having potentially millions of vulnerable machines, many of which will simply never be patched. Shellshock, like Heartbleed, will live on indefinitely.”

Mamoon Yunus, CEO of Forum Systems: 

“The Bash vulnerability has the potential to be much worse than Heartbleed. Leaking sensitive data is obviously bad but the Bash vulnerability could lead to losing control of your entire system.

The Bash vulnerability is a prime example of why it’s critical to take a lockdown approach to open, free-for-all shell access, a practice that is all too common for on-premise and cloud-based servers. Mobile applications have caused an explosion in the number of services being built and deployed. Such services are hosted on vanilla Linux OS variants with little consideration given to security and are typically close to the corporate edge. Furthermore, a large number of vendors use open Linux OSes, install their proprietary functionality, and package commercial network devices that live close to the network edge at Tier 0. They do so with full shell access instead of building a locked-down CLI for configuration.

The Bash vulnerability is a wake-up call for corporations that continue to deploy business functionality at the edge without protecting their services and API with hardened devices that do not provide a shell-prompt for unfettered access to OS internals for anyone to exploit.”

Jody Brazil, CEO of FireMon:

“This is the kind of vulnerability that can be exploited by an external attacker with malicious intent. So, how do those from the Internet, partner networks or other outside connection gain access to this type of exposure?

An attack vector analysis that considers network access through firewalls and addresses translation can help identify which systems are truly exposed. Then, determine if it’s possible to mitigate the risk by blocking access, even temporarily. In those cases where this is not an option, prioritizing patching is essential. In other cases where, for example, where there is remote access to a vulnerable system that is not business-critical, access can be denied using existing firewalls.

This helps security organizations focus their immediate patching efforts and maximize staffing resources. It’s critical to identify the greatest risk and then prioritize remediation activities accordingly. Those are key best practices to address Bash or any vulnerability of this nature.”

Mark Stanislav, Security Researcher at Duo Security:

“While Heartbleed eventually became an easy vulnerability to exploit, it was ultimately time consuming, unreliable and rarely resulted in ‘useful’ data output. Shell Shock, however, effectively gives an attacker remote code execution on any impacted host with a much easier means to exploit than Heartbleed and greater potential results for criminals.

Once a web application or similarly afflicted application is found to be vulnerable, an attacker can do anything from download software, to read/write system files, to escalating privilege on the host or across internal networks. More damning, of course, is that the original patch to this issue seems to be flawed and now it’s a race to get a better patch released and deployed before attackers leverage this critical bug.”

Rob Sadowski, Director of Technology Solutions at RSA:

“This is a very challenging vulnerability to manage because the scope of potentially affected systems is very large, and can be exploited in a wide variety of forms across multiple attack surfaces. Further, there is no single obvious signature to help comprehensively detect attempts to exploit the vulnerability, as there are so many apps that access BASH in many different ways.

Because many organizations had to recently manage a vulnerability with similar broad scope in Heartbleed, they may have improved their processes to rapidly identify and remediate affected systems which they can leverage in their efforts here.” 

Joe Barrett, Senior Security Consultant, Foreground Security:

 “Right now, Shellshock is making people drop everything and scramble to fix patches. Security experts are still expanding the scope of vulnerability, finding more devices and more methods in which this vulnerability can be exploited. But no one has gotten hacked and been able to turn around and point and say ‘It was because of shellshock’ that I’ve seen.

 

If you have a Linux box, patch it. Now. Do you have a Windows box using Cygwin? Update Cygwin to patch it. And then start trying to categorize all of the ‘other’ devices on the network and determining if they might be vulnerable. Because chances are a lot of them are.

Unfortunately, vendors probably will never release patches to solve this for most appliances, because most [Internet-connected] appliances don’t even provide a way to apply such an update. But for the most part all you can do is try to identify affected boxes and move them behind firewalls and out of the way of anyone’s ability to reach them. Realistically, we’ll probably still be exploiting this bug in penetration tests in 8 years. Not to mention all of the actual bad guys who will be exploiting this.”

Until Next Friday…Have a Great Weekend!

Related Reading: What We Know About Shellshock So Far, and Why the Bash Bug Matters

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• NEWS & INDUSTRY
• Vulnerabilities