Krebs on Security

Fat Patch Tuesday

February 12, 2013

Adobe and Microsoft each have issued security updates to fix multiple critical vulnerabilities in their products. Adobe released updates for Flash Player, AIR and Shockwave; Microsoft pushed out a dozen patches addressing at least 57 security holes in Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, Exchange and .NET Framework.

Five of the 12 patches Microsoft released today earned its most dire “critical” label, meaning these updates fix vulnerabilities that attackers or malware could exploit to seize complete control over a PC with no help from users.

Thirteen of the 57 bugs squashed in Microsoft’s patch batch address issues with Internet Explorer; other critical patches fix problems in the Windows implementation of Vector Markup Language (VML), Microsoft Exchange, and flaws in the way Windows handles certain media files. The remaining critical patch fixes a flaw that is present only on Windows XP systems.

Updates are available via Windows Update or from Automatic Update. A note about applying these Windows patches: Today’s batch includes an update for .NET, which in my experience should be applied separately. In nearly every case where I’ve experienced problems updating Windows, a huge .NET patch somehow gummed up the works. Consider applying the rest of the patches first, rebooting, and then installing the .NET update, if your system requires it.

And for the second time in a week, Adobe has released an update for its Flash Player software. This one addresses at least 17 distinct vulnerabilities; unlike last week’s emergency Flash Update, this one thankfully doesn’t address flaws that are already actively being exploited, according to Adobe. Check the graphic below for the most recent version that includes the updates relevant to your operating system. This link should tell you which version of Flash your browser has installed. The most recent versions are available from the Adobe download center, but beware potentially unwanted add-ons, like McAfee Security Scan). To avoid this, uncheck the pre-checked box before downloading, or grab your OS-specific Flash download from here.

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Yahoo! Pushing Java Version Released in 2008

February 11, 2013

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At a time when Apple, Mozilla and other tech giants are taking steps to prevent users from browsing the Web with outdated versions of Java, Yahoo! is pushing many of its users in the other direction: The free tool that it offers users to help build Web sites installs a dangerously insecure version of Java that is more than four years old.

Yahoo! users who decide to build a Web site within the Internet firm’s hosting environment are steered toward using a free tool called SiteBuilder, which is designed to make building simple Web sites a point-and-click exercise. Yahoo! has offered SiteBuilder to its millions of users for years, but unfortunately the tool introduces a myriad of security vulnerabilities on host PCs.

SiteBuilder requires Java, but the version of Java that Yahoo! bundles with it is Java 6 Update 7. It’s not clear if this is just a gross oversight or if their tool really doesn’t work with more recent versions of Java. The company has yet to respond to requests for comment.

But this version of Java was first introduced in the summer of 2008 and is woefully insecure and out-of-date. Oracle just released Java 6, Update 39, meaning that SiteBuilder installs a version of Java that includes hundreds of known, critical security vulnerabilities that can be used to remotely compromise host PCs.

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Security Firm Bit9 Hacked, Used to Spread Malware

February 8, 2013

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Bit9, a company that provides software and network security services to the U.S. government and at least 30 Fortune 100 firms, has suffered an electronic compromise that cuts to the core of its business: helping clients distinguish known “safe” files from computer viruses and other malicious software.

Waltham, Massachusetts-based Bit9 is a leading provider of “application whitelisting” services, a security technology that turns the traditional approach to fighting malware on its head. Antivirus software, for example, seeks to identify and quarantine files that are known bad or strongly suspected of being malicious. In contrast, Bit9 specializes in helping companies develop custom lists of software that they want to allow employees to run, and to treat all other applications as potentially unknown and dangerous.

But earlier today, Bit9 told a source for KrebsOnSecurity that their corporate networks had been breached by a cyberattack. According to the source, Bit9 said they’d received reports that some customers had discovered malware inside of their own Bit9-protected networks, malware that was digitally signed by Bit9’s own encryption keys.

That last bit is extremely important, because Bit9 is a default trusted publisher in their software, which runs on customer PCs and networks as an “agent” that tries to intercept and block applications that are not on the approved whitelist. The upshot of the intrusion is that with a whitelist policy applied to a machine, that machine will blindly trust and run anything signed by Bit9.

An hour after being contacted by KrebsOnSecurity, Bit9 published a blog post acknowledging a break-in. The company said attackers managed to compromise some of Bit9’s systems that were not protected by the company’s own software. Once inside, the firm said, attackers were able to steal Bit9’s secret code-signing certificates.

“Due to an operational oversight within Bit9, we failed to install our own product on a handful of computers within our network,” Bit9’s Patrick Morley wrote. “As a result, a malicious third party was able to illegally gain temporary access to one of our digital code-signing certificates that they then used to illegitimately sign malware. There is no indication that this was the result of an issue with our product. Our investigation also shows that our product was not compromised.”

The company said it is still investigating the source of the breach, but said that it appears that at least three of its customers were sent malware that was digitally signed with Bit9’s certificate.

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Critical Flash Player Update Fixes 2 Zero-Days

February 7, 2013

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Adobe today pushed out an emergency update that fixes at least two zero-day vulnerabilities in its ubiquitous Flash Player software — flaws that attackers are already exploiting to break into systems. Interestingly, Adobe warns that one of the exploits in use is designed to drop malware on both Windows and Mac OS X systems.

Adobe said in an advisory that one of the vulnerabilities — CVE-2013-0634 – is being exploited in the wild in attacks delivered via malicious Flash content hosted on websites that target Flash Player in Firefox or Safari on the Macintosh platform, as well as attacks designed to trick Windows users into opening a Microsoft Word document delivered as an email attachment.

Adobe also warned that a separate flaw — CVE-2013-0633 — is being exploited in the wild in targeted attacks designed to trick the user into opening a Microsoft Word document delivered as an email attachment which contains malicious Flash content. The company said the exploit for CVE-2013-0633 targets the ActiveX version of Flash Player on Windows (i.e. Internet Explorer users).

Updates are available for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android users. The latest Windows and Mac version is v. 11.5.502.149, and is available from this link. Those who prefer a direct link to the OS-specific downloads can grab them here. To find out if you have Flash installed and what version your browser may be running, check out this page.

Flash Player installed with Google Chrome should automatically be updated to the latest Google Chrome version, which will include Adobe Flash Player v. 11.5.31.139 for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. Likewise, Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 8 also includes an auto-update feature, which should bring Flash to version 11.3.379.14 for Windows.

Adobe’s advisory notes that the vulnerability that has been used to attack both Mac and Windows users was reported with the help of the Shadowserver Foundation, the federally funded technology research center MITRE Corporation, and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin‘s computer incident response team. No doubt there are some interesting stories about how these attacks were first discovered, and against whom they were initially deployed.

Microsoft, Symantec Hijack ‘Bamital’ Botnet

February 7, 2013

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Microsoft and Symantec said Wednesday that they have teamed up to seize control over the “Bamital” botnet, a multi-million dollar crime machine that used malicious software to hijack search results. The two companies are now using that control to alert hundreds of thousands of users whose PCs remain infected with the malware.

The tech firms said their research shows that in the last two years, more than eight million computers have been attacked by Bamital, and that the botnet’s search hijacking and click fraud schemes affected many major search engines and browsers, including those offered by Microsoft, Yahoo and Google.

Users of machines infected with Bamital are likely to see a Web page like the one pictured at right the next time they search for something online. That’s because Microsoft convinced a judge at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to give it control over the infrastructure that Bamital used to coordinate the search hijacking activities of host PCs.

On Wednesday, technicians working on behalf of both Microsoft and Symantec raided data centers at Leaseweb USA in Manassas, Va., and ISPrime in Weekawken, New Jersey, accompanied by U.S. federal marshals. The two companies are now using the botnet’s control channels to communicate with infected PCs and to notify affected users.

According to Microsoft’s lawsuit, Bamital is most often installed via drive-by downloads, which use exploit kits stitched into hacked and malicious Web sites. Microsoft said the bad guys behind the botnet exclusively used the Phoenix Exploit Kit, a malware tool that uses vulnerabilities in Web browsers to silently install malware.

Bamital alters the organic search results on the host machine, redirecting victims away from sites as indexed by the major search providers toward pages that provide advertising and referral commissions to affiliate marketers. Redmond included several examples in its petition to the court, such as when a victim with Bamital searches for Microsoft Halo, and upon clicking the top link in the results is taken to a completely different set of search engine results.

Microsoft employees (left) at ISPrime, a hosting facility in New Jersey.

Microsoft said Bamital also orders infected systems to participate in “click fraud,” or to generate automated Internet traffic by instructing those computers — without the owner’s knowledge or intervention — to connect to any Web site chosen by the botmasters. Meanwhile, the owner of the infected computer – even if they were sitting at the computer – would not see the hidden browser.

It’s not hard to see why threats like Bamital are so prevalent: An estimated $12.7 billion was spent on Internet advertising in 2012, and click fraud is taking a huge bite out of the expected returns. Microsoft’s own research indicates that 22 percent of all ad-clicks are fraudulent.

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Crooks Net Millions in Coordinated ATM Heists

February 6, 2013

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Organized cyber criminals stole almost $11 million in two highly coordinated ATM heists in the final days of 2012, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. The events prompted Visa to warn U.S. payment card issuers to be on high-alert for additional ATM cash-out fraud schemes in the New Year.

According to sources in the financial industry and in law enforcement, the thieves first struck on Christmas Eve 2012. Using a small number of re-loadable prepaid debit cards tied to accounts that they controlled, scammers began pulling cash out of ATMs in at least a dozen countries. Within hours, the perpetrators had stolen approximately $9 million.

Then, just prior to New Year’s Eve, the fraudsters struck again, this time attacking a card network in India and making off with slightly less than $2 million, investigators say.

The accounts that the perpetrators used to withdraw money from ATMs were tied to re-loadable prepaid debit cards, which can be replenished with additional funds once depleted. Prepaid card networks generally enforce low-dollar limits that restrict the amounts customers can withdraw from associated accounts in a 24 hour period. But in both ATM heists, sources said, the crooks were able to increase or eliminate the withdrawal limits for the prepaid accounts they controlled.

Shortly after the second heist, Visa released a private alert to payment card issuers, warning them to be on the lookout for additional ATM mega-heists over the New Years holiday. Sources say Visa’s alert was indeed prompted by the multi-million dollar heists at the end of December.

The Visa alert (PDF), sent to card issuers at the beginning of January 2013, warns:

“Visa has been alerted to new cases where ATM Cash-Out frauds have been attempted and successfully completed by organized criminal groups across the globe. In a recently reported case, criminals used a small number of cards to conduct 1000’s of ATM withdrawals in multiple countries around the world in one weekend.”

“These attacks result from hackers gaining access to issuer authorization systems and card parameter information. Once inside, the hackers manipulate daily withdrawal amount limits, card balances and other card parameters to facilitate massive fraud on individual cards. In some instances over $500K USD has been withdrawn on a single card in less than 24 hours.”

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Flaw Flood Busts Bug Bank

February 4, 2013

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The Common Vulnerability & Exposures (CVE) index, the industry standard for cataloging software security flaws, is growing so rapidly that it will soon be adding a few more notches to its belt: The CVE said it plans to allow for up to 100 times more individual vulnerabilities to be indexed each year to accommodate an increasing number of software flaw reports.

Currently, when a vulnerability is reported or discovered, it is assigned a CVE number that corresponds to the year it was reported, followed by a unique 4-digit number. For example, a recent zero-day Java flaw discovered earlier this year was assigned the identifier CVE-2013-0422. But in a recent publication, The MITRE Corp., the organization that maintains the index, said it wanted to hear feedback on several proposed changes, such as modifying the CVE to allow for up to 999,999 vulnerabilities to be cataloged annually.

“Due to the increasing volume of public vulnerability reports, the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) project will change the syntax of its standard vulnerability identifiers so that CVE can track more than 10,000 vulnerabilities in a single year,” CVE Project announced last month. “The current syntax, CVE-YYYY-NNNN, only supports a maximum of 9,999 unique identifiers per year.”

It’s not clear if this shift means software is getting buggier or if simply more people are looking for flaws in more places (probably both), but new research released today suggests that bug finders have more incentive than ever to discover — and potentially get paid handsomely for — new security holes.

For example, one of the hottest areas of vulnerability research right now centers on the industrial control system space — the computers and networks that manage critical infrastructure systems which support everything from the power grid to water purification, manufacturing and transportation systems. In a report released today, Austin, Texas based security firm NSS Labs said the number of reported vulnerabilities in these critical systems has grown by 600 percent in 2010 and nearly doubled from 2011 to 2012 alone.

NSS’s Stefan Frei found that 2012 reversed a long running trend of decreasing vulnerability disclosures each year. At the same time, NSS tracked a decline in vulnerabilities being reported by perhaps the top two organizations that pay researchers to find bugs. For example, Frei noted, iDefense‘s Vulnerability Contributor Program (VCP) and HP Tipping Point‘s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) each reversed their five-year-long rise in vulnerability reports with a reduction of more than 50 percent in 2012.

Frei suggests one major reason for the decline in bugs reported by ZDI and the VCP: researchers looking to sell vulnerability discoveries today have many more options that at any time in the past.

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Critical Java Update Fixes 50 Security Holes

February 3, 2013

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Oracle Corp. has issued an update for its Java SE software that plugs at least 50 security holes in the software, including one the company said was actively being exploited in the wild.

The original Critical Patch Update for Java SE – February 2013 had been scheduled to be released on February 19th, but Oracle said it decided to accelerate the release of this update because of active exploitation in the wild of one of the vulnerabilities.

“Due to the threat posed by a successful attack, Oracle strongly recommends that customers apply…fixes as soon as possible,” the company wrote in an advisory.

I couldn’t find a definitive account of which zero-day vulnerability in Java had caused Oracle to move up its patch schedule, but recently researchers have uncovered flaws in a mechanism that the company shipped with the previous version of Java that was designed to thwart attacks on the program. With Java 7 Update 10, Oracle introduced a mechanism that would require users to manually allow the execution of Java code not digitally signed by a trusted authority. Some security experts praised Oracle for adding the feature because it promised to drastically reduce the success of attacks that exploit security bugs in Java, but researchers have shown that the new feature can be easily bypassed.

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Source: Washington Post Also Broadly Infiltrated By Chinese Hackers in 2012

February 1, 2013

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The Washington Post was among several major U.S. newspapers that spent much of 2012 trying to untangle its newsroom computer networks from a Web of malicious software thought to have been planted by Chinese cyberspies, according to a former information technology employee at the paper.

On Jan. 30, The New York Times disclosed that Chinese hackers had persistently attacked the Gray Lady, infiltrating its computer systems and getting passwords for its reporters and other employees. The Times said that the timing of the attacks coincided with the reporting for a Times investigation, published online on Oct. 25, that found that the relatives of Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, had accumulated a fortune worth several billion dollars through business dealings.

The following day, The Wall Street Journal ran a story documenting similar incursions on their network. Now, a former Post employee is coming forward with information suggesting that Chinese hacker groups had broadly compromised computer systems within the Post’s newsroom and other operations throughout 2012.

According to a former Washington Post information technology employee who helped respond to the break-in, attackers compromised at least three servers and a multitude of desktops, installing malicious software that allowed the perpetrators to maintain access to the machines and the network.

“They transmitted all domain information (usernames and passwords),” the former Post employee said on condition of anonymity. ” We spent the better half of 2012 chasing down compromised PCs and servers. [It] all pointed to being hacked by the Chinese. They had the ability to get around to different servers and hide their tracks. They seemed to have the ability to do anything they wanted on the network.”

The Post has declined to comment on the source’s claims, saying through a spokesman that “we have nothing to share at this time.” But according to my source, the paper brought in several computer forensics firms – led by Alexandria, Va. based Mandiant – to help diagnose the extent of the compromises and to evict the intruders from the network. Mandiant declined to comment for this story.

Update, Feb. 2, 7:42 a.m. ET: The Post has published its own story confirming my source’s claims.

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Pro-Grade Point-of-Sale Skimmer

February 1, 2013

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Every so often, the sophistication of the technology being built into credit card skimmers amazes even the experts who are accustomed to studying such crimeware. This post focuses on one such example — images from one of several compromised point-of-sale devices that used Bluetooth technology to send the stolen data to the fraudsters wirelessly.

This point-of-sale device was one of several found in an as-yet undisclosed merchant breach.

In October 2012, forensics experts with Trustwave Spiderlabs were called in to examine the handiwork of several Bluetooth based point-of-sale skimmers found at a major U.S. retailer. The skimmers described and pictured in this blog post were retrieved from a retail breach that has not yet been disclosed, said Jonathan Spruill, a security consultant at Trustwave.

Spruill said the card-skimming devices that had been added to the small point-of-sale machines was beyond anything he’d encountered in skimmer technology to date.

“The stuff we’ve been seeing lately is a leap forward in these types of crimes,” said Spruill, a former special agent with the U.S. Secret Service. “You hate to say you admire the work, but at some point you say, ‘Wow, that’s pretty clever.’ From a technical and hardware standpoint, this was really well thought-out.”

Spruill declined to name the breached merchant, and said it was unclear how long the devices had been in place prior to their discovery, or how they were introduced into the stores. But the incident is the latest in a string of breaches involving bricks-and-mortar merchants discovering compromised point-of-sale devices at their retail stores. Late last year, bookseller Barnes & Noble disclosed that it had found modified point-of-sale devices at 60 locations nationwide.

The picture below shows the card skimmer in more detail. The entire green square circuit board with the grey square heat shield and the blue element to the left are the brains of the device. The eight-legged black component in the upper right is the memory module that stored stolen credit and debit card and PIN data from unwitting store customers.

Beneath the large grey heat shield in the center of the circuit board are the chips that control the Bluetooth radio. That entire component is soldered to the base of the board. The blue and white wires leading from the skimming device connect the skimming module to the card reader on the point-of-sale device, while the group of eight orange wires that come out of the bottom connect directly to the device’s PIN pad.

The Bluetooth point-of-sale skimmer, up close.

The image below shows the eight orange wires from the skimmer soldered to the POS device. Spruill said the quality of the soldering job indicates this was not made by some kid in his mom’s basement.

“One of the reasons suggesting that the attacker was fairly accomplished is the quality of the solder done with those very small connections to the PIN pad,” he said.

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