Hi, I’m a Pen(etration) Tester!
The first thing people think when you tell them you’re a Penetration Tester:
What people think when you tell them you’re a Pen Tester:
Protip: Go with the first one.
New Lockscreen Bypass in iOS 6.1
In a vulnerability that’s quite similar to one in iOS 4.1 a couple years ago, another lockscreen bypass has been discovered in iOS 6.1 which allows someone with physical access to your iPhone to make calls, view and modify your contacts, send an email to your contacts, listen to your voicemail, and access your photos (by attempting to add one of these to a contact).
The method for this bypass is fairly simple (see the video below for it in action):
- Swipe to unlock and then tap Emergency Call
- Make an emergency call (eg. 112/911) and immediately cancel it (please don’t unnecessarily call the emergency services ;)
- Press the power button twice
- Slide to unlock
- Hold down the power button for a couple seconds and then tap Emergency Call again.
- …
- Profit!
I should point out that this doesn’t seem to work on my iPhone 4 for some reason. Something does happen, but I just get a black screen until I press something whereupon I’m booted back to the lock screen.
BruCON 2012
I’ll be at BruCON in Ghent, Belgium next week between the 24th and 27th of Sept. Hit me up on Twitter or here if any of you are going to be there!
I know I’ve been pretty bad with posting recently, but I’m hoping to rectify that soon. It’s been a hectic year, and haven’t had as much time to blog as before. Got a couple reviews and articles in the pipeline, and will soon be updating my guide on Security Mac OS X for Mountain Lion.
Watch this space! :)
New “Lost Mode” in Find My iPhone (iCloud)
With iOS 6, Apple will be releasing an updated set of web apps on iCloud.com, including Mail, Calendar, Notes, Reminders and Find My iPhone. Find My iPhone is a useful feature that allows you to track or wipe your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch should it get lost or stolen. For more info check out my article on Protecting and Recovering Your iPhone and iPad from Loss and Theft. In this post I just want to point out the changes to Find My iPhone, in particular the new “Lost Mode”. Read more
Pwn Plug Command Execution Using USB Sticks
This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, and whilst the title may not sound all that intuitive, it’s actually referring to something pretty simple. When I got my Pwnie Express Pwn Plugs, there were several times when I wished I could run commands on them when I couldn’t connect to them over SSH, for example when I couldn’t remember the last static IP I’d set. Yes, I could use the serial connection, but somehow that didn’t fully appeal to me.
So I came up with the idea of being able to use a USB stick to carry a command ‘payload’ that would get automatically executed upon being plugged into the Pwn Plug. Now I can run commands such as ifconfig, kick off an nmap scan, whatever I need; and all the results are output back onto the USB stick.
Note that I chose to do this on my Pwn Plug, but it should work equally well on other embedded devices such as the MiniPwner with a bit of tweaking.
Flashback Malware Exploiting Unpatched Java on Macs [Updated]
There’s a piece of Mac malware, known as ‘Flashback’, that’s going around and takes advantage of a Java vulnerability in order to compromise and infect Macs online. Although the vulnerability isn’t Mac-specific, and was patched back in February, Apple has yet to distribute that update to everyone via Software Update, leaving everyone vulnerable.
Apparently the team behind this malware is quite efficient at updating it, and so they have been successful in spreading it around. Lion doesn’t come with Java by default, so unless you’ve manually installed it, you’re safe. If you have installed Java on Lion however, I don’t know yet whether Lion’s built-in anti-malware is being updated quickly enough to keep up with the new malware variants (although I highly doubt it).
If you are running Snow Leopard (or earlier), or Lion with a manually-installed Java, then the best thing to do is disable it. The majority of web users do not need Java on a regular basis. I recommend disabling Java system-wide by going to Applications > Utilities > Java Preferences and then unchecking all the checkboxes in the General tab. If you use Safari to browse, you can disable Java by going to Safari > Preferences > Security and unchecking ‘Enable Java‘.
Keep an eye out for an upcoming Java update from Apple.
[Updated] Seems all the talk about this has nudged Apple to act! They’ve released Java for OS X Lion 2012-001 and Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 7. F-Secure have released a free Flashback remover tool, and Apple have announced they are also working on software to detect and remove Flashback malware.
Source: F-Secure
There Is No Camera Lock Screen Bypass in iOS 5.1
There have been reports (and here) of iOS 5.1 containing a camera bypass tied to the new camera shortcut on the lock screen. The people who have reported this are sadly confused about the security timeout enforced by iOS’s Require Passcode setting (Settings > General > Passcode Lock > Require Passcode). If your Require Passcode setting is set to anything other than Immediately, then your device (and the camera roll from the camera shortcut) will be accessible for the entire duration of time specified (ie. 1 minute or 5 minutes).
As always, the best setting for Require Passcode is Immediately. That way you know that when you lock your device, it is actually locked, and will prevent someone from gaining access to it without the passcode within the minutes following the ‘lock’.
Sadly people seem all too eager to rush and report on iOS vulns before actually verifying them.
TDLR; There is no lock screen bypass in iOS 5.1 using the new camera shortcut. They were wrong.
My Definitive List of Must-have Free Mac Applications and Best Paid-for Counterparts
These are the apps that I will install first on pretty much any new Mac that I get. I’m a huge fan of free and open source software, and no other platform has free software of the same quality and calibre as Mac OS X. Most of these are Mac-only apps (a couple are cross-platform). I’m listing free applications wherever possible, but if there is a paid-for app that I consider best-of-breed, I mention those too. Hopefully this list will help all of the techie switchers get the apps they need quickly. This list is a work-in-progress, so I’ll be adding to this it over time.
If you’re only interested in my recommended security apps, they’re at the bottom! Feel free to post in the comments if you have any you think are worth mentioning.
Last updated: 14/04/2015
Stop SOPA, Stop PIPA, Stop Censorship
Update: Now that SOPA has been put on the back burner, the next thing to protest is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), an international treaty which could have massive repercussions on the freedom of the internet.
Update 2 (5 July 2012): ACTA rejected by EU :)
Anyone who follows Security Generation will know that I’m a big advocate of civil liberties and freedom in general. The internet is currently a multicultural and multimedia hub of information, ideas, creativity and innovation, and there is a risk this could be irrevocably changed. Granted there is also a lot of crap on the internet, but freedom works both ways. Whilst the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) intend to reduce piracy on the net, in reality they would hand vast amounts of power over to industry copyright holders, who would then have the ability to have sites blocked and content taken down, inhibit free speech and bring . For more information about all of this, check out this good summary article.
Due to the threat that these acts would pose to the open internet, many large internet companies have stated their opposition including Google, Yahoo!, Twitter, eBay, and Wikimedia, as well as civil liberties groups such as the ACLU and the EFF. On January 18, these and countless other blogs and sites, including Security Generation, will be protesting this legislation by blacking out (read: censor) parts of their sites and educating users about the danger of american censorship.
If you have a blog or website, you’re encouraged to add your voice to the cause. CloudFlare users will be able to easily participate just by enabling the new Stop Censorship app, which will black out large chunks of text on your site, and inform your users about the dangers presented by this type of legislation. WordPress users without CloudFlare can also join in by installing one of the many Stop SOPA/PIPA plugins.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/31100268 w=600]
This is my favorite anti-SOPA song so far:
Frequently Asked Questions About Find My iPhone (and iPad)
I’ve been getting a lot of hits for my article on Protecting and Recovering Your iPhone and iPad from Loss and Theft, and the search queries I’m seeing in my logs, together with the visitor comments, have raised a number of recurring questions. I’ve decided to publish this one-stop-shop of answers for all of the different queries that I see people searching for when they arrive. Although my article addresses a number of these, I wanted to put them all in one post for easy reference. I’ll update this post as new questions crop up. Here goes, in no particular order:
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