Krebs on Security

Adobe, Microsoft Push Critical Security Fixes

January 14, 2015

Microsoft on Tuesday posted eight security updates to fix serious security vulnerabilities in computers powered by its Windows operating system. Separately, Adobe pushed out a patch to plug at least nine holes in its Flash Player software.

Leading the batch of Microsoft patches for 2015 is a drama-laden update to fix a vulnerability in Windows 8.1 that Google researchers disclosed just two days ago. Google has a relatively new policy of publicly disclosing flaws 90 days after they are reported to the responsible software vendor — whether or not that vendor has fixed the bug yet. That 90-day period elapsed over the weekend, causing Google to spill the beans and potentially help attackers develop an exploit in advance of Patch Tuesday.

For its part, Microsoft issued a strongly-worded blog post chiding Google for what it called a “gotcha” policy that leaves Microsoft users in the lurch. Somehow I doubt this is the last time we’ll see this tension between these two software giants. But then again, who said patching had to be boring? For a full rundown of updates fixed in today’s release, see this link. Continue reading →

Toward Better Privacy, Data Breach Laws

January 13, 2015

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President Obama on Monday outlined a proposal that would require companies to inform their customers of a data breach within 30 days of discovering their information has been hacked. But depending on what is put in and left out of any implementing legislation, the effort could well lead to more voluminous but less useful disclosure. Here are a few thoughts about how a federal breach law could produce fewer yet more meaningful notice that may actually help prevent future breaches.

The plan is intended to unify nearly four dozen disparate state data breach disclosure laws into a single, federal standard. But as experts quoted in this story from The New York Times rightly note, much rides on whether or not any federal breach disclosure law is a baseline law that allows states to pass stronger standards.

For example, right now seven states already have so-called “shot-clock” disclosure laws, some more stringent; Connecticut requires insurance firms to notify no more than five days after discovering a breach; California has similar requirements for health providers. Also, at least 14 states and the District of Columbia have laws that permit affected consumers to sue a company for damages in the wake of a breach. What’s more, many states define “personal information” differently and hence have different triggers for what requires a company to disclose. For an excellent breakdown on the various data breach disclosure laws, see this analysis by BakerHostetler (PDF).

Leaving aside the weighty question of federal preemption, I’d like to see a discussion here and elsewhere about a requirement which mandates that companies disclose how they got breached. Naturally, we wouldn’t expect companies to disclose the specific technologies they’re using in a public breach document. Additionally, forensics firms called in to investigate aren’t always able to precisely pinpoint the cause or source of the breach.

But this information could be publicly shared in a timely way when it’s available, and appropriately anonymized. It’s unfortunate that while we’ve heard time and again about credit card breaches at retail establishments, we know very little about how those organizations were breached in the first place. A requirement to share the “how” of the hack when it’s known and anonymized by industry would be helpful. Continue reading →

KrebsOnSecurity Wins Ntl’ Journalism Award

January 12, 2015

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I put this out on Twitter last Friday but wanted to note it here in the blog as well: The National Press Foundation graciously announced last week that it plans to award me its Chairman’s Citation, which “confers recognition on individuals whose accomplishments fall outside the traditional categories of excellence.”

I’m truly honored by this award, and more than a little humbled by the pedigree of its previous winners. The NPF’s Chairman’s Citation was last awarded in 2012 to the late, great New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid, who died in Syria that same year. Shadid, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was also a former Washington Post reporter. Likewise, the award was presented in 2010 to Colbert King, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist at The Post.

This honor also gives me another opportunity and platform for proselytizing to media colleagues about the merits and rewards of being an independent journalist. Some of my reporter friends probably get sick of hearing it from me, but there has never been a more important time for reporters who are passionate about creating original, impactful content to consider going it alone. A diversity of authoritative (and accountable) voices on important topics keeps the mainstream media honest and on its toes. More crucially, it helps inspire and cultivate the next generation of the Fourth Estate.

A hearty “THANK YOU” to the NPF for this recognition, and to the faithful readers here who make this all worthwhile!

Lizard Stresser Runs on Hacked Home Routers

January 9, 2015

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The online attack service launched late last year by the same criminals who knocked Sony and Microsoft’s gaming networks offline over the holidays is powered mostly by thousands of hacked home Internet routers, KrebsOnSecurity.com has discovered.

Just days after the attacks on Sony and Microsoft, a group of young hoodlums calling themselves the Lizard Squad took responsibility for the attack and announced the whole thing was merely an elaborate commercial for their new “booter” or “stresser” site — a service designed to help paying customers knock virtually any site or person offline for hours or days at a time. As it turns out, that service draws on Internet bandwidth from hacked home Internet routers around the globe that are protected by little more than factory-default usernames and passwords.

The Lizard Stresser’s add-on plans. Despite this site’s claims, it is *not* sponsored by this author.

In the first few days of 2015, KrebsOnSecurity was taken offline by a series of large and sustained denial-of-service attacks apparently orchestrated by the Lizard Squad. As I noted in a previous story, the booter service — lizardstresser[dot]su — is hosted at an Internet provider in Bosnia that is home to a large number of malicious and hostile sites.

That provider happens to be on the same “bulletproof” hosting network advertised by “sp3c1alist,” the administrator of the cybercrime forum Darkode. Until a few days ago, Darkode and LizardStresser shared the same Internet address. Interestingly, one of the core members of the Lizard Squad is an individual who goes by the nickname “Sp3c.”

On Jan. 4, KrebsOnSecurity discovered the location of the malware that powers the botnet. Hard-coded inside of that malware was the location of the LizardStresser botnet controller, which happens to be situated in the same small swath Internet address space occupied by the LizardStresser Web site (217.71.50.x)

The malicious code that converts vulnerable systems into stresser bots is a variation on a piece of rather crude malware first documented in November by Russian security firm Dr. Web, but the malware itself appears to date back to early 2014 (Google’s Chrome browser should auto-translate that page; for others, a Google-translated copy of the Dr. Web writeup is here).

As we can see in that writeup, in addition to turning the infected host into attack zombies, the malicious code uses the infected system to scan the Internet for additional devices that also allow access via factory default credentials, such as “admin/admin,” or “root/12345”. In this way, each infected host is constantly trying to spread the infection to new home routers and other devices accepting incoming connections (via telnet) with default credentials.

The botnet is not made entirely of home routers; some of the infected hosts appear to be commercial routers at universities and companies, and there are undoubtedly other devices involved. The preponderance of routers represented in the botnet probably has to do with the way that the botnet spreads and scans for new potential hosts. But there is no reason the malware couldn’t spread to a wide range of devices powered by the Linux operating system, including desktop servers and Internet-connected cameras. Continue reading →

Thieves Jackpot ATMs With ‘Black Box’ Attack

January 6, 2015

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Previous stories on KrebsOnSecurity about ATM skimming attacks have focused on innovative fraud devices made to attach to the outside of compromised ATMs. Security experts are now warning about the emergence of a new class of skimming scams aimed at draining ATM cash deposits via a novel and complex attack.

The attackers responsible for this "black box" ATM attack relied on a mobile device and a USB-based circuit board.

The attackers responsible for this “black box” ATM hack relied on a mobile device and a USB-based circuit board.

At issue is a form of ATM fraud known as a “black box” attack. In a black box assault, the crooks gain physical access to the top of the cash machine. From there, the attackers are able to disconnect the ATM’s cash dispenser from the “core” (the computer and brains of the device), and then connect their own computer that can be used to issue commands forcing the dispenser to spit out cash.

In this particular attack, the thieves included an additional step: They plugged into the controller a USB-based circuit board that NCR believes was designed to fool the ATM’s core into thinking it was still connected to the cash dispenser.

“They didn’t have to do this [to get away with the money] but our guess is they thought this component would buy them some time,” before the ATM’s owners figured out something was wrong, said Charlie Harrow, solutions manager for global security at NCR.

NCR says the crooks then attached a smart phone (a virgin, out-of-the-box Samsung Galaxy 4), which they used as a conduit through which to send commands to the cash dispenser remotely. According to Harrow, the mobile phone was set up to relay commands through a dynamic IP service.

“Which meant that the real attacker sending the commands was somewhere remote from the ATM,” Harrow said.

Why would the ATM thieves set it up so that the dispense commands could only be issued remotely, when co-conspirators would still need to be present at the hacked cash machine to retrieve the money? Harrow believes it’s so that the boss running the crime operation can call the shots.

“There is no honor among thieves, and these guys will delegate responsibility,” Harrow observed. “That way, you have the Mr. Big back at the hideout who’s sending the commands, and the mules are the ones at the ATMs. So the mule who has the black box is unable to activate the attack unless he gets the command from the Mr. Big, and the mobile phone is the best way to do that.” Continue reading →

Who’s Attacking Whom? Realtime Attack Trackers

January 5, 2015

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It seems nearly every day we’re reading about Internet attacks aimed at knocking sites offline and breaking into networks, but it’s often difficult to visualize this type of activity. In this post, we’ll take a look at multiple ways of tracking online attacks and attackers around the globe and in real-time.

A couple of notes about these graphics. Much of the data that powers these live maps is drawn from a mix of actual targets and “honeypots,” decoy systems that security firms deploy to gather data about the sources, methods and frequency of online attacks. Also, the organizations referenced in some of these maps as “attackers” typically are compromised systems within those organizations that are being used to relay attacks launched from someplace else.

The Cyber Threat Map from FireEye recently became famous in a 60 Minutes story on cyberattacks against retailers and their credit card systems. This graphic reminds me of the ICBM monitors from NORAD, as featured in the 1984 movie War Games (I’m guessing that association is intentional). Not a lot of raw data included in this map, but it’s fun to watch.

FireEye’s “Cyber Threat Map”

My favorite — and perhaps the easiest way to lose track of half your workday (and bandwidth) comes from the folks at Norse Corp. Their map — IPViking — includes a wealth of data about each attack, such as the attacking organization name and Internet address, the target’s city and service being attacked, as well as the most popular target countries and origin countries.

Norse’s IPViking attack map is eye candy-addictive, but very resource-intensive.

Continue reading →

Lizard Kids: A Long Trail of Fail

December 31, 2014

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The Lizard Squad, a band of young hooligans that recently became Internet famous for launching crippling distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the largest online gaming networks, is now advertising its own Lizard-branded DDoS-for-hire service. Read on for a decidedly different take on this offering than what’s being portrayed in the mainstream media.

Lizard Stresser login page taunts this author.

The new service, lizardstresser[dot]su, seems a natural evolution for a group of misguided youngsters that has sought to profit from its attention-seeking activities. The Lizard kids only ceased their attack against Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s Xbox Live networks last week after MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom offered the group $300,000 worth of vouchers for his service in exchange for ending the assault. And in a development probably that shocks no one, the gang’s members cynically told Dailydot that both attacks were just elaborate commercials for and a run-up to this DDoS-for-hire offering.

The group is advertising the new “booter service” via its Twitter account, which has some 132,000+ followers. Subscriptions range from $5.99 per month for the ability to knock a target offline for 100 seconds at a time, to $129.99 monthly for DDoS attacks lasting more than eight hours.

In any case, I’m not terribly interested in turning this post into a commercial for the Lizard kids; rather, it’s a brain dump of related information I’ve gathered from various sources in the past 24 hours about the individuals and infrastructure that support the site.

In a show of just how little this group knows about actual hacking and coding, the source code for the service appears to have been lifted in its entirety from titaniumstresser, another, more established DDoS-for-hire booter service. In fact, these Lizard geniuses are so inexperienced at coding that they inadvertently exposed information about all of their 1,700+ registered users (more on this in a moment).

These two services, like most booters, are hidden behind CloudFlare, a content distribution service that lets sites obscure their true Internet address. In case anyone cares, Lizardstresser’s real Internet address currently is 217.71.50.57, at a hosting facility in Bosnia.

In any database of leaked forum or service usernames, it is usually safe to say that the usernames which show up first in the list are the administrators and/or creators of the site. The usernames exposed by the coding and authentication weaknesses in LizardStresser show that the first few registered users are “anti” and “antichrist.” As far as I can tell, these two users are the same guy: A ne’er-do-well who has previously sold access to his personal DDoS-for-hire service on Darkode — a notorious English-language cybercrime forum that I have profiled extensively on this blog.

As detailed in a recent, highly entertaining post on the blog Malwaretech, LizardSquad and Darkode are practically synonymous and indistinguishable now. Anyone curious about why the Lizard kids have picked on Yours Truly can probably find the answer in that Malwaretech story. As that post notes, the main online chat room for the Lizard kids (at lizardpatrol[dot]com) also is hidden behind CloudFlare, but careful research shows that it is actually hosted at the same Internet address as Darkode (5,38,89,132).

A suggested new banner for this blog from the jokers at black hat forum Darkode, which shares a server with the main chat forum for the Lizard kids.

In a show of just how desperate these kids are for attention, consider that the login page for LizardStresser currently says “Hosted somewhere on Brian Krebs’ forehead: Donate to the forehead reduction foundation, simply send money to krebsonsecurity@gmail.com on PayPal.” Many of you have done that in the past couple of days, although I doubt as a result of visiting the Lizard kids’ silly site. Anyway, for those generous donors, a hearty “thank you.” Continue reading →

Banks: Card Breach at Some Chick-fil-A’s

December 30, 2014

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Sources at several U.S. financial institutions say they have traced a pattern of credit card fraud back to accounts that all were used at different Chick-fil-A fast food restaurants around the country. Chick-fil-A told KrebsOnSecurity that it has received similar reports and is working with IT security firms and law enforcement in an ongoing investigation.

Photo: Robert Du Bois

KrebsOnSecurity first began hearing from banks about possible compromised payment systems at Chick-fil-A establishments in November, but the reports were spotty at best. Then, just before Christmas, one of the major credit card associations issued an alert to several financial institutions about a breach at an unnamed retailer that lasted between Dec. 2, 2013 and Sept. 30, 2014.

One financial institution that received that alert said the bank had nearly 9,000 customer cards listed in that alert, and that the only common point-of-purchase were Chick-fil-A locations.

“It’s crazy because 9,000 customer cards is more than the total number of cards we had impacted in the Target breach,” the banking source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The source said his institution saw Chick-fil-A locations across the country impacted, but that the bulk of the fraud seemed concentrated at locations in Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.

Reached for comment about the findings, Chick-fil-A issued the following statement:

“Chick-fil-A recently received reports of potential unusual activity involving payment cards used at a few of our restaurants. We take our obligation to protect customer information seriously, and we are working with leading IT security firms, law enforcement and our payment industry contacts to determine all of the facts.”

“We want to assure our customers we are working hard to investigate these events and will share additional facts as we are able to do so. If the investigation reveals that a breach has occurred, customers will not be liable for any fraudulent charges to their accounts — any fraudulent charges will be the responsibility of either Chick-fil-A or the bank that issued the card. If our customers are impacted, we will arrange for free identity protection services, including credit monitoring.”

Continue reading →

Target Hackers Hit OneStopParking.com

December 30, 2014

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Parking services have taken a beating this year at the hands of hackers bent on stealing credit and debit card data. This week’s victim — onestopparking.com — comes compliments of the same organized crime gang thought to be responsible for stealing tens of millions of card numbers from shoppers at Target and Home Depot.

Late last week, the cybercrime shop best known for being the first to sell cards stolen in the Target and Home Depot breach moved a new batch of cards taken from an unknown online merchant. Several banks contacted by KrebsOnSecurity acquired cards from this batch, and determined that all had one thing in common: They’d all been used at onestopparking.com, a Florence, Ky. based company that provides low-cost parking services at airport hotels and seaports throughout the United States.

Contacted about the suspicious activity that banks have traced back to onestopparking.com, Amer Ghanem, the site’s manager, said the company began receiving complaints from customers about a week before Christmas.

“It’s been something we have been dealing with for the past week, where some of our customers have called in and complained about fraudulent charges,” Ghanem said. He noted that the complaints stopped after the company performed several security scans and upgraded software for the Web site, but the investigation continues.

“We have been unable to identify any specific issues that has caused any credit card breach on our website,” Ghanem said in a written statement. “However, being a part of the e-commerce industry and staying up to date with the security news, we are aware of security threats that are always around, especially during the holiday season, when people tend to shop and travel more. We currently have 2 different services that are always monitoring traffic on our website, 24/7 to ensure the safety of our customers.”

Cards from the “Solidus” base at Rescator map back to One Stop Parking.

This was the second time in as many weeks that this cybercrime shop —Rescator[dot]cm — has put up for sale a batch of credit cards stolen from an online parking service: On Dec. 16, KrebsOnSecurity reported that the same shop was selling cards stolen from Park-n-Fly, a competing airport parking reservation service. Sometime over the past few days, Park-n-Fly announced it was suspending its online service. Continue reading →

Happy 5th Birthday, KrebsOnSecurity!

December 29, 2014

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It’s hard to believe, but KrebsOnSecurity turns five years old today! How time flies!

Probably the most rewarding part about being an independent reporter (for my part, anyway) is watching your readership grow and mature into a community that not only adds perspective and balance but also helps educate other readers.

I’m very proud of the community that’s sprung up around this site, and I’m extremely grateful for all of the support and encouragement from you, Dear Reader. A few dozen readers have sent PayPal or Bitcoin donations, but most have supported this site with their time, expertise and tips (keep those coming, please).

So, from the bottom of my heart, a big THANK YOU and high five to all of you! I wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2015. Here’s to another five great years!

Leaving aside the pieces in my All About Skimmers series, here are some of the most-read, exclusive posts from the past 365 days:

Lorem Ipsum: Of Good and Evil, Google and China

A Peek Inside a Professional Carding Shop

Who’s Selling Credit Cards from Target?

Are Credit Monitoring Services Worth it?

Antivirus is Dead: Long Live Antivirus

Target Hackers Broke in Via HVAC Company

A First Look at the Target Intrusion, Malware

Banks: Credit Card Breach at Home Depot

The Scrap Value of a Hacked PC, Revisited (oldie but a goodie)

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