Hacking-101.com

Have you ever heard of Security Through Obscurity?  It’s the concept of “what the enemy doesn’t know won’t hurt  you.”  Sort of like having your firewall drop all incoming ICMP packets.  They won’t know you are there…

If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you in Mexico.

Security through obscurity is like having full windows inside of your shower and pretending that since the glass is a little dirty no one can see your naughty bits and even if they could they wouldn’t want to.  You’re probably wrong on both accounts.  You can’t hide behind dirty glass and they would look at your naughty parts just because they could.

Do not pretend that security through obscurity is a part of defense in depth.  Defense in depth is a great approach to holistic security that entails operational, procedural and technical controls to protect your information.  Attempting to hide your systems will only work to a point.  Every system on the Internet is potentially vulnerable and possible to find.

What’s the good news?   The good news is that you can mitigate your risk even if someone knows that you have a juicy Oracle server hiding behind your firewall.  A properly tuned Intrusion Detection/Prevention System coupled with well documented Access Control Lists go a long way in defending your network.  Unfortunately we can no longer rely on the network perimeter as the only attack vector.  You’ll also need to ensure patches are updated, passwords are complex and that you have proper auditing enabled.

Oh the work never ends.

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t walk around naked.

I know this may seem a bit off-topic, but I was reading through CNN yesterday and I guess there’s a new fad in the UK with young women getting totally hammered and then putting pictures of themselves on Facebook. Now, we know that peacocking is something that happens across the world and no one is immune. From my opinion, women can do it too, who cares.

Here’s my concern: Does no one think that prospective employers may go search for you on the Internet?  I guarantee you that you will be Googled and Facebooked and possibly checked out on LinkedIn.

The odds of you NOT getting a job because of idiotic pictures on the Internet is probably very good.  Who wants to hire an ass-hat who doesn’t have the decency to keep their private life private.  It’s like Paris Hilton going to work in a nunnery.

If you’re going to act like an idiot just do yourself a favor and don’t document it.  You’ll only have yourself to blame in the long run.

As reported by Sunbelt, some people will stop at nothing to sell you snake oil.  Or, apparently, marijuana.  Alex makes a good point that if you’re dumb enough to try you could get a knock on the door from the authorities (at the worst) or just a bag of oregano (at the least).

Read more here.

What Happened?! 

Vetoed by the Govinator!  Who cares?  Everyone wants to report how this is such a horrible travesty.   Major media is missing an important aspect of AB 779.  The data protection sphere is self-regulating at the moment.  Credit card companies have the PCI DSS standard to follow, most of which covers a huge portion of AB 779.  Honestly, let’s pull our heads out of the sand.

It’s All Politics 

To me it appears that the media is making this a POLITICAL issue.  Sure, we can wrap it up into a pretty little identify-theft prevention bundle, but it’s a political message to attempt to make an election issue and the negative effects of a conservative Republican Governor in a largely liberal state.

The 1.1.1 update for the iPhone turns all hacked iPhones into an iBrick or iPaperWeight.  Sucky, eh?  Well, too bad.  Sure, it’s cool and hip to unlock your iPhone, not that anyone but you truly cares that you did.

Do I think that Apple should have gone with AT&T (Your world.  Delivered–To The NSA)?  Probably not the best choice to use an EDGE cellular network, but that’s their mistake.  The iPhone has generated huge amounts of income for Apple and AT&T.  Would it have generated more income if they had used a more open (or multiple) cell network?  Definitely.

If your iPhone is bricked you can find instructions on how to roll back to 1.0.2 on the Internet.  I’m not going to post them or a link here since I don’t want to  receive some sort of Gestapo take-down order.

Last Thursday the hacking group GNUCitizen announced that they found a critical flaw in Adobe PDF documents that allow an attacker to compromise any Windows operating system.  This requires the user to execute a malicious specially-crafted file.  It has been said that the flaw affects Windows XP with Service Pack 2.

There wasn’t any Proof-of-Concept code released with the announcement.  According the the founder they are not releasing the POC because it may take a while for Adobe to fix the product.

Within the last several days, Microsoft Windows Updates has started patching files on Windows XP and Windows Vista without users’ knowledge or intervention.  What is even stranger is that these updates will run even if the auto-update features have been disabled.

Many organizations opt to test software updates before distributing out to the end user.  Unauthorized patching in the background, even for the patching mechanism itself, should not happen.  If Microsoft can update their software without permission or user intervention what other changes or access to your information do they have?

When users launch the Windows Update website from their browser they may be prompted to install an update for Windows Update.  This holds true on new installations of the operating systems, which makes total sense.  At this point the user can opt to not install the update and therefore not patch the system or they can accept the change and load up all 85 updates (since Windows XP Service Pack 2 was released).  Microsoft has now decided that they will do this in the background without permission even if the user has disabled automatic updates.

Microsoft has been fairly silent about the updates.  The only information released was a snip on the Microsoft Community forums.

“Windows Update Software 7.0.6000.381 is an update to Windows Update itself. It is an update for both Windows XP and Windows Vista. Unless the update is installed, Windows Update won’t work, at least in terms of searching for further updates. Normal use of Windows Update, in other words, is blocked until this update is installed.”

Microsoft responded stating that the update is a consumer only release that addresses specific issues found after the previous release of Windows Updates.  Even so, Microsoft has yet to disclose what these issues are that the patches addressed.

Vista Files Updated:

1. wuapi.dll
2. wuapp.exe
3. wuauclt.exe
4. wuaueng.dll
5. wucltux.dll
6. wudriver.dll
7. wups.dll
8. wups2.dll
9. wuwebv.dll

Windows XP Files Updated:

1. cdm.dll
2. wuapi.dll
3. wuauclt.exe
4. wuaucpl.cpl
5. wuaueng.dll
6. wucltui.dll
7. wups.dll
8. wups2.dll
9. wuweb.dll

It’s important that we note that there’s nothign harmful about the updated files.  There’s been no reports of roll-backs beng required or issues after the update was installed.  The real issues isn’t if the patch was necessary but how Microsoft is handling the patching, without user authorization or consent.

Many people misunderstand hacking, cracking, white hat, black hat or other terms that security professionals use. So that we’re on the same foot I’m going to list several phrases and terms that get used.

• White Hat Hacker - A computer professional that is ethical and law-abiding.
• Black Hat Hacker - Someone who compromises the security of a system without permission from an authorized party with the intent of defeating security systems and gaining access to restricted areas
• Hacking - Unauthorized use, or attempts to circumvent or bypass the security mechanisms of an information system or network
• Cracking - The act of breaking into a computer system (see Hacking) to do harm
• Vulnerability - Hardware or software that leaves a network system open for possible exploitation. This weakness may be caused by weak security procedures, administrative controls, physical access or other controls
• FOSS - Free Open Source Software also known as OSS
• Fuzzing (Fuzz Testing) - A software technique used to discovery vulnerabilities in applications by sending random or unexpected data as input
• Script-Kiddie - Someone not skilled in hacking who uses freely available tools in an automated fashion without any technical know-how
• pwnd! - Hopefully something that doesn’t happen to this blog! Pwnd is analogous to ‘owned’ meaning to being beaten or dominated by an opponent.

Hacking-101.com is the product of the overactive imagination of several security professionals that have too much time on their hands. We come from all walks of life and we’re spread out across the United States. Our tools and techniques are tried and tested across all of the major operating systems.

Are we all 1337 hackers? The answer is an emphatic “NO!” Sure, some of us are incredibly skilled white-hat security professionals. Our skill sets come from years of experience in Information Technology and Information Security. We’re passionate about what we do.

What do we plan on talking about? Anything and everything that revolves around information security. That’s almost an unlimited amount of topics! With the sheer volume of attacks, cracks and hacks we’re bound to find something to discuss.

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