ForSec Linkfest - 2013 DST Fallback Edition

FYI…tomorrow morning at 2 AM here in the United States of America it will be time to “fall back” from DST. One more hour of sleep and then it’s weeks of trying to get the body’s timeclock to readjust.

So as you get ready to find all the clocks you need to manually adjust (don’t forget the vehicles!), here is some linkage to distract you from that task. Please note I’ve also sprinkled in some networking items as well to keep you on your toes!

• Wireshark 1.10.3 and 1.8.11 Released - Wireshark website
• Wireshark - Official site Download
• Reviewing Wireshark's Capture Pane (by Tony Fortunato) - LoveMyTool blog
• Using PowerShell to Automate Tracing - MessageAnalyzer blog
• Nmap cheat sheet - HelpNet Security blog - From the notice:
• Counter Hack founder and SANS instructor Ed Skoudis and his team created a helpful cheat sheet for Nmap, which includes notable scripts of the Nmap Scripting Engine, script categories, instructions for scan types, probing options, and more.
• How A Wireless Issue Looks Like a Wired Issue (by Tony Fortunato) - LoveMyTool blog
• NAFT: The Movie - Didier Stevens
• New utility to quickly set the DNS servers of your Internet connection - QuickSetDNS utility from Nir Sofer's workbench.
• On getting Pineappled at Web Directions South - Troy Hunt’s blog
• Disassembling the privacy implications of LinkedIn Intro - Troy Hunt’s blog
• Command-line Forensics of hacked PHP.net - NETRESEC Blog
• iOS apps can be hijacked to show fraudulent content and intercept data - Ars Technica
• Your iPhone knows where you’ve been, puts it on a map - Chron.com’s TechBlog
• What's New in the Prefetch for Windows 8?? - Invoke-IR blog
• Re-Introducing the Vulnerability Search - Journey Into Incident Response blog
• Links - Windows Incident Response blog
• Incident Response Teams are the New (Security) Black - Speaking of Security - The RSA Blog and Podcast
• Red Alert: 10 Computer Security Blogs You Should Follow Today - MakeUseOf blog
• New Security Intelligence Report, new data, new perspectives - Microsoft Malware Protection Center blog
• Meet “badBIOS,” the mysterious Mac and PC malware that jumps airgaps - Ars Technica
• Hacking a Reporter: Writing Malware For Fun and Profit (Part 1 of 3) - SpiderLabs Anterior
• Treasure Hunting with FTK, EnCase, and SQLite Databases - Computer & Digital Forensics at Champlain blog
• Add the CAINE ISO to your E2B drive - RMPrepUSB, Easy2Boot and USB booting

Cheers,

Claus Valca

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CryptoLocker Ransomware Info & Free Prevention Solutions

I work hard to keep our home systems malware-free and safe.

That typically involves talking about good Windows end-user behavior with Alvis and Lavie, letting them know about various breaking threats, running a AV/AM product, installing advanced protection afforded by Microsoft's EMET v 4.0 on our home systems, making sure all Windows and third party browser plugins are kept updated, run backups, etc.

So generally, I don’t worry too much about viruses and malware…but this new CryptoLocker threat does have my nerves extra-edgy.

First, we don’t have 10 bitcoins sitting around to pony up for a decryption. Most home\SOHO Windows users probably don’t either. Note this price has gone up from the previous 2 bitcoin expense.

• CryptoLocker developers charge 10 bitcoins to use new Decryption Service - Bleeping Computer News

Secondly, it seems to work primarily on social-engineering and spear-fishing techniques (for now) to trick a user into opening a payload delivered by email. While I can have pretty good confidence in software defense-in-depth security practices, I never can trust the end-user (myself included) to be 100% dependable in catching this attack. I am my own weakest link.

Lastly, although CryptoLocker primarily targets local drives, it will encrypt any targeted files on a network share if the shared folder is mapped as a drive letter rather than a UNC share. So if one person on a network gets infected, and has mapped drives via drive lettering, that could hose everyone! That’s scary bad.

So the first important step you can take is to educate yourself about the threat itself:

• How To Avoid CryptoLocker Ransomware — Krebs on Security
• CryptoLocker Ransomware Information Guide and FAQ - Bleeping Computer - Probably the current de-facto resource for all technical details on this threat. Updated frequently.
• CryptoLocker Is The Nastiest Malware Ever - Here's What You Can Do - MakeUseOf blog
• Cryptolocker Ransomware: What You Need To Know - Malwarebytes Unpacked
• You’re infected—if you want to see your data again, pay us $300 in Bitcoins - Ars Technica

At home, my immediate response was to deploy a special package maintained by Foolish IT LLC on ALL our personal Windows systems (including my Windows VM’s) that protects against this threat. 

CryptoPrevent - free for personal and commercial deployment - Foolish IT LLC - current version at time of posting is 3.1 but that is certain to change. In both “portable” and installable versions.

Like any AV/AM vs. Security battle, it is a constant arms race of updates so if you go this method, check back frequently for new versions or pay the $ for the auto-updating version.

Just to illustrate the challenge, take a look at these posts from the developer to see how the tool has mutated to keep pace with the threat and customer’s needs.

• CryptoPrevent v2.0 just released with whitelisting capabilities!
• CryptoPrevent v2.1 - I just can't seem to win!
• CryptoPrevent v2.4 just released with internal update feature - please update!
• CryptoPrevent v2.5 - with a powerful new layer of protection introduced!
• CryptoPrevent v2.6 released - my life is consumed by this madness!
• CryptoPrevent v3.0 - Recycle Bin protection and a new optional AUTOMATIC UPDATE service!

For corporate locations, I learned about another solution via Brian Kreb’s post noted above. From that post:

A team of coders and administrators from enterprise consulting firm thirdtier.net have released the CryptoLocker Prevention Kit – a comprehensive set of group policies that can be used to block CryptoLocker infections across a  domain. The set of instructions that accompanies this free toolkit is comprehensive and well documented, and the group policies appear to be quite effective.

Cryptolocker Prevention Kit (updated) - Spiceworks

Get protected now if you are a Windows user. Period. 

It’s not worth dilly-dallying about.

Cheers,

Claus V.

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Microsoft Security Essentials/Defender & PowerShell

Here are some minor tidbits for MSSE I found, as well as some cool tricks you can do against it with PowerShell.

Microsoft may end antivirus updates on XP in April - ZDNet

I’m not surprised to hear this deliberation going on, XP must go and MS can’t be responsible to support an unsupported OS forever. That said, for quite some time to come many home users (particularly), SOHO’s, and corporations may continue to use XP on their systems for some time to come.

While I’m confident other third-party vendors may continue to release AV/AM software that can run and support XP systems, many folks stick with MSSE. Leaving these systems vulnerable and unprotected, particularly if on a network with other Windows systems, seems a situation ripe for exploitation and shenanigans.

I hope that Microsoft continues to provide updated and current definition signatures for at least a period of time after the XP support ends.

Download Microsoft Security Essential - Microsoft Download Center

Meanwhile, over at the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog, great fun has been reported playing around with Windows PowerShell and finding some neat things that can be done with Windows Defender. (Note: I don’t find a counterpart for the Microsoft Security Essentials application.)

• Exploring the Windows Defender Catalog - Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog
• Use PowerShell to Explore Windows Defender Preferences - Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog
• Use PowerShell to Update Windows Defender Signatures - Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog
• Use PowerShell to See What Windows Defender Detected - Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog
• Weekend Scripter: Use PowerShell to Configure Windows Defender Preferences - Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog

Have fun!

Claus Valca

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Miscellaneous TrueCrypt linkage

I have used TrueCrypt for a long time…but only with TrueCrypt container files that stand alone and are mounted.

Then I branched out and started using full-volume encryption to protect some back-up external USB drive devices.

Recently, I bit the bullet and started using TrueCrypt system-wide encryption to protect my personal home laptop…all system volumes. No worries so far.

Because of that I pay close attention to TrueCrypt news, and here is some linkage, in case you are interested.

Let's audit Truecrypt! - A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering blog by Matthew Green

New effort to fully audit TrueCrypt raises $16,000+ in a few short weeks - Ars Technica

Is TrueCrypt Audited Yet? - project homepage

How I compiled TrueCrypt 7.1a for Win32 and matched the official binaries - technically heavy-duty and most excellent article by Xavier de Carné de Carnavalet.

Windows 8.1 upgrade: be careful with TrueCrypt - GTranslated - Borns IT and Windows Blog - Basically, if you are using full-system partition encryption with TrueCrypt, the recommendation is to first fully-decrypt and remove TrueCrypt encryption…then apply the Win 8.1 upgrade…then reapply the TrueCrypt full system partition encryption. If not you might hose your system during the upgrade. That’s a bad thing.

Cheers,

Claus Valca

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Forensic News Flashes - New Projects and learning opportunities galore!

It’s late and has been a super-long weekend.

Lavie isn’t too impressed I’m still sitting at my desk working on posts.

In the meantime, I’m commited to getting this last bit of ForSec linkage collected over the past few weeks out the door so you can have fun reviewing it this week.

Those young and crazy pups over at the Computer & Digital Forensics at Champlain program have clearly caught their dean napping. In an interesting series of posts, they attempt to wreak havoc on different hard-drives and then try to put humpty-dumpty back together again.

• Destructed Data Forensics- Part 3
• Data Destruction Forensics- Part 2
• Data Destruction Forensics

MantaRay Forensics - anTech Triage & Analysis System. As far as I can tell, this is the first time I have posted any mention of MantaRay Forensics here at GSD.  Spotted in this C&DF@C post Swimming with MantaRay Forensics

MantaRay was designed to automate processing forensic images, directories and individual files with open source tools. With support for numerous image formats, this tool provides a scalable base to utilize open source and custom exploitation tools. MantaRay was developed by two forensic analysts, Doug Koster and Kevin Murphy.

ForGe Forensic test image generator v1.1 - Git Hub project page. from the Overview description:

ForGe is a tool designed to build computer forensic test images. It was done as a MSc project for the University of Westminster. Its main features include:

• Web browser user interface
• Rapid batch image creation (only NTFS supported)
• Possibility to define a scenario including trivial and hidden items on images
• Variance between images. For example, if ForGe was told to put 10-20 picture files to a directory /holiday and create 10 images, all these images would have random pictures pulled from repository.
• Variance in timestamps. Each trivial and hidden file can be timestamped to a specific time. Each scenario is given a time variance parameter in weeks. If this is set to 0, every image receives an identical timeline. If nonzero, a random amount of weeks up to the maximum set is added to each file on each image
• Can modify timestamps to simulate certain disk actions (move, copy, rename, delete)
• Implements several data hiding methods: Alternate data streams, extension change, file deletion, concatenation of files and file slack space.
• New data hiding methods can be easily implemented. Adding a new file system is also documented.

Developer Hannu Visti goes shares a great post over the features and background of this tool over at Forensic Focus. ForGe – Computer Forensic Test Image Generator.  This could be a really fresh and innovative tool to help with both simulating forensic images for training and drill purposes. Very interesting and well worth the time to check out. It’s beyond my skill set to review and comment on but if any of the ForSec pros out there have any thoughts or comments, please feel free to drop them in the comments here for our community education.

Linkz 4 Free Infosec and IT Training - Journey Into Incident Response - Corey Harrell goes above and beyond with an outstanding listing of trainings, exercises, and learning resources that are ForSec focused and absolutely-friggin-free for the taking!  Corey promises to keep the listing updated so bookmark the page and check back often. I’m particularly interested in the CSIRT-like topics and materials listed like those in the ENISA CERT linkage. I’ve downloaded most all of the PDF versions already to review this week as time allows!

Many of these trainings have supplemental videos and VM’s for download too!

Other specific courses from Corey’s post I’m listing below so I can find them quickly…

• Incident management guide - ENISA CERT
• Tools - ENISA CERT - OMG what a detailed and categorized listing.
• Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)® Common Body of Knowledge (CBK)® Review - via Open Security Training
• Flow Analysis & Network Hunting - via Open Security Training
• Introduction to Vulnerability Assessment - via Open Security Training
• Introduction to Network Forensics - via Open Security Training
• Offensive, Defensive, and Forensic Techniques for Determining Web User Identity - via Open Security Training
• Utilizing SysInternals Tools for IT Pros course - Microsoft Virtual Academy - Note I think I have already posted this one earlier!

What 'tier 2' & 'tier 3' tools do you load on your forensic workstation(s)? - ForensicKB blog - Lance Mueller has a great list of Tier 2 and Tier 3 apps he considers. I’m pleased to find more than a few in my toolkit already. Note that not all of the software listed here is necessarily free or open-source. More than a few are commercial applications. That’s not at all a bad thing, but just something to be aware of.

 Windows Incident Response: Shell Item Artifacts, Reloaded - Harlan Carvey undertakes some very methodical validation exercises on Windows shell item artifacts. Definitely worth reading.

Meanwhile, from another ForSec guy who appears to never sleep… Brett Shavers has been in a posing frenzy over at his Windows Forensic Environment blog site.

Best publicly available testing of WinFE I’ve seen to date - Windows Forensic Environment (Note post info is good but link in it has been superseded by one found in post below.

Updated link on the Mistype project - Windows Forensic Environment

WinFE - direct link to the article mentioned. I agree, it is a truly fascinating read for WinFE aficionados. I’m coming back to read this one carefully this week.

Mini-WinFE - Windows Forensic Environment - This post has tons and tons of screenshots to illustrate the new Mini-WinFE project as well as an introduction that goes over the project features. Very basically, this specific project (1 of 3 promised for alternative WinFE building) allows you to roll your own WinFE boot disk in a “minimal” configuration with FAU utilities, FTK Imager and support for X-Ways Forensics. Total build time is estimated at 10 minutes from start to media in your hand.

Mini-WinFE is out of beta! - Windows Forensic Environment - See you waited too long! The first link was requesting Beta testers. Now it is released!  Direct project link here via Reboot.pro and extensive Mini-WinFE project documentation from Misty is linked here.

Quick video on building a Mini-WinFE - Windows Forensic Environment - a very short (3:33 min) YouTube video is available on this post page for those who want to check out the building process.

Since we are on a WinFE bender, let’s shift gears slightly and use that excuse to post a link on the WinFE’s kissable cousin for sysadmins who aren’t quite as focused on disk read-only preservation, WinPE.

How to Customize Windows PE Boot Images to Use in Configuration Manager - Chris Nackers Blog. Chris links to this Microsoft TechNet resource How to Customize Windows PE Boot Images to Use in Configuration Manager

New website and project roadmap - DEFT Linux - Computer Forensics live CD - The DEFT development team has put some fresh paint on their website as well as outlined where they plan to head in the coming months. Congratulations to DEFTA President Stefano Fratepietro and all the community and project contributors who have worked hard to make DEFT Linux a premiere Forensic live CD resource! From that post..

Here follows the forthcoming milestones concerning the new versions of DEFT 8, Virtual Appliance and User Manual.

• DEFT Linux 8.1 with relevant news for Mobile Forensics – November 2013
• DEFT 8 VMware Virtual Appliance – late November 2013
• Roadmap of projects supported by donations – December 2013
• DEFT 8 User Manual – February 2014
• Third Italian National Conference DEFTCON 2014  – Polytechnic of Milano, April 11, 2014

Installing VMware Tools on Kali Linux and Some Debugging Basics - SpiderLabs Anterior - Christophe De La Fuente goes to the mat to show some advanced debugging skills in getting VMware Tools onto Kali Linux. As is pointed out in the comments, there are easier ways to do it, but the experience shared of the road taken makes us all a bit wiser. Which this post then led me to discover and add to my RSS feed pile…

Computer Howto's by Lewis Encarnacion - Lewis’s posts are great. Covering not just Windows 7 topics, but also some of the finer points in using and getting comfortable in Kali Linux.

FAU -version 1.3.0.2464 - Speaking of the Forensic Acquisition Utilities (FAU) it seems a new version came out in August 2013. I don’t think I caught that release. The link has a “what’s new” jump as well as the new binary set download link but for the lazy…from that source:

• Volume_dump and DD now recognize drives with BusTypeSata as devices supporting the ATA feature set.  ATA specific attributes are reported for these drives.
• Fixed a problem with the DD --verify option when writing an image to certain to certain drives.  Under certain circumstances the DD --verify option reported a spurious failure even though the reimaging of the target drive succeeded and the cryptographic checksum of the destination drive was in fact identical to the cryptographic checksum source image file or drive.  This problem did not affect the accuracy of the reimaged drive but required that the user to validate the target drive after the imaging process was complete.  Thanks to Suman Beros for reporting this problem.
• When acquiring a physical drive DD now drops the block size down to the device block size when approaching the putative end of the source drive.  Hard drives often misreport their capacity either by over estimating or under estimating the true size.  The only reliable way to image a hard drive is to attempt to acquire beyond the purported end of the drive and see if valid data is returned.  However, we have encountered a few drives that freeze or hang the imaging process if you attempt to read beyond the end of the drive with a block size that is greater than the device block size.  Needless to say, this can be disconcerting when you have already read 1 TiB of data only to have the whole process hang on the last few sectors.  Dropping down to the device block size when approaching the end of a drive should produce more reliable acquisitions.  A disadvantage is that drive acquisition will be slower at the end of the drive.
• Examples have been added to the DD help text which show how to acquire a physical drive.

That’s all for tonight!

Cheers my friends.

Claus Valca

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Security Tidbits

And here are some security related links that caught my fancy this week.

Vulnerabilities Discovered in Global Vessel Tracking Systems - Trend Micro’s Security Intelligence Blog - Super study that sent chills down my spine reading. We take so many critical infrastructure systems for granted. I hear the next block-buster action novel waiting to pounce on this for the storyline.

Cryptolocker Prevention - Foolish IT LLC bloc - information on a new freeware tool to lock down any Windows OS (preventively) to block infection from the Cryptolocker malware/ransomeware. When infection occurs it encrypts personal files then offers to decrypt them for a paid ransom. More details on the utility here: CryptoPrevent. And the attack details courtesy of Ars Technica: You’re infected—if you want to see your data again, pay us $300 in Bitcoins.

Tools for reviewing infected websites - ISC Diary. They listed four and there are some more suggestions in the comment thread. Back in January 2012 I posted this fairly extensive roundup: Interesting Malware in Email Attempt - URL Scanner Links. I’ve not checked recently but hopefully more than a few of these are still active.

Learn By Example - The Hacker Factor Blog - Dr. Neal Krawetz has some wise words and poor examples of a generation that doesn’t seem to see the concern with publically posting tweeted photos of their debit/credit cards online. I’m clueless how someone can be so ill-informed. This is just one example. I see the commercials showing banking apps for smartphones that let people take a photo of a check and deposit it in their account. I also wonder if this is common as well…or even health-coverage ID/Info cards perhaps?  I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg.

40 inappropriate actions to take against an unlocked PC - Troy Hunt’s blog - As a sysadmin, all I can say is that it is probably a violation of several computer usage agreements in the workplace to walk away from your computing device without first locking the screen to prevent unauthorized access. At the same time, it is probably a violation of additional computer usage agreements in the workplace to tamper with someone else’s computer -- even if they were a bonehead in the first place and left it unlocked. Instead what you need to do is take a photo of their unlocked screen and tweet it to everyone in the workplace. No wait…I just learned by example in the previous post that probably isn’t wise to do either. Never mind. Help us all out and just pull the power-cord out slightly to kill power to the system and make them call the sysadmins when it won’t power back on. No don’t do that either after further consideration. That might kill the system/drive and lead to a charge of wonton destruction of corporate resources; or at the very least prevent someone's unsaved labor of love on the critical TPS reports for the day. That would be bad too. OK…I give up.

Contrary to public claims, Apple can read your iMessages - Ars Technica

Experian Sold Consumer Data to ID Theft Service - Krebs on Security - Seriously, if you can’t trust the data broker companies who hold all your credit and personal financial data history records (and who they sell that data to) then who can you trust with it? Time go start digging out that backyard bunker again. Go read the article. Then get mad.

New effort to fully audit TrueCrypt raises $16,000+ in a few short weeks - Ars Technica

For your security, please email your credit card and driver’s license (and what PCI has to say about that) - Troy Hunt’s blog. See, it’s only a crazy idiotic thing to tweet your CC information if you don’t have a really important reason to do it. If you do it is stupidly insecure. However, if you are a big corporate entity (or govermint agency/official) then you can have something call “a policy” to require your customers to photocopy items critical to establishing and proving your identify and they can do whatever they want…oh, and by the way…please dent them to us via unencrypted email communications because like, nobody can sniff that traffic while it winds it’s way from your laptop to our desks. Sheesh. Needless to say, Troy goes to town on this one and why it is a Bad Thing™.

Please be wise, be patient, and be proactively safe.

Claus Valca

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Micro Network News linkfest

Just a small collection of network-minded links of interest this week.

Free Network Sniffers, Analyzers and Stumbers - WindowsNetworking.com - I saw some oldies-but-goodies in the list, some new ones (to me), most I was familiar with, and surprisingly missing from the list, Microsoft Message Analyzer. A lot more of the micro-sniffers/NFAT tools out there also got left off but the list seems a bit short to me and misses quite a few more worthy contenders.

Remote Capture with Message Analyzer and Windows 8.1 - MessageAnalyzer blog. Speaking of Message Analyzer, you now can remotely capture traffic with this tool (on supported target systems) without even needing a copy of Message Analyzer installed on them. Neat!  For more info see Using the Network Tracing Features over at TechNet.

Tweaking Wireshark Columns and Decodes - Packet Foo blog

We’re switching to Qt. - Sniff free or die - A development version of Wireshark 1.11.0 has been released that opens the door to using Qt for the user interface library.  The development version has some basic things working, but much of what you love about Wireshark does not. It’s a quick and interesting read.

D-Link Router backdoor vulnerability discovered - TechGeek

D-Link Router Backdoor - Schneier on Security blog

Old D-Link routers with coded backdoor - ISC Diary post

Oh my.

--Claus Valca

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Back to MS-Security Essentials for now…

In the last GSD post, I made note that I had made the change from Microsoft Security Essentials to Bitdefender Antivirus Free.

The installation process went smoothly. Once on my Win 7 x64 bit system seemed a bit “peppier” after reboots.  For the first week or two I really didn’t notice any issues at all.

Then about two-three weeks in to using it I noticed a little notification that I had 15 files quarantined.

Goodness!

A quick review of the log found that I hadn’t succumbed to an onslaught of malware and viruses due to sloppy computing habits.

No. Bitdefender finally got around to scanning my collection of Windows utilities and found it ripe with all kinds of potentially unwanted software applications. Bad stuff.  Things from NirSoft that let me recover passwords and other things from beloved family members’ systems when they forget their system and email and other account passwords -- among other things. Oh my!

Here is what a Bitdefender quarantined file looks like.

Well, we can’t have that!  So I went though the process of un-quarantining them.

And quickly I was done.

Yea!

Only when I went to use one of them, the executable file refused to run!  Blocked!

Nothing I could do could get it running. It was showing “Excluded” but I just couldn’t run it.

To complicate matters, after a reboot (troubleshooting) Bitdefender appeared to be trying to do a pre-Windows clean and file removal too. Hmm. Turns out that while I was working on that issue, it also found a USB stick I carry these tools on as well and had gone to town on the same file sets on it as well. I had removed the USB stick before reboot so it couldn’t find the files it was looking for. Fortunately the system came up no worse for wear despite some fairly scary language, but my attempts to later un-quarantine the files on the USB drive failed horribly and it refused to find/see them when I tried to exclude them.  Right-clicking the quarantined files and trying to restore them wasn’t successful on the USB drive either.

So I figured I would just re-download the handful of them from Nir Sofer’s website, delete my original files on my C: and USB drives, and put them back in.

Except I was met with a very frightening and ugly warning message in my browser that Bitdefender had identified the NirSoft website as a dodgy and dangerous location and didn’t really want me going there. In fairness, on the Bitdefender Free website, if you dig down on the page it does clearly say that the product does the following:

HTTP Scanning - Protects you from scams such as credit card phishing attempts, Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition scans all the links you access from your browser and blocks them when they prove to be unsafe.

Unfortunately for me, that was the final straw.

So I uninstalled Bitdefender and reinstalled Microsoft Security Essentials.

Then I had to delete the still not really working “excluded/quarantined” files shown above off both my local hard drive and my USB drive. Luckily I could do that once Bitdefender had been removed and the system rebooted.

Then I downloaded all the “lost” files again from their sources. MSSE caught a few of the Nir Soft downloads but they alerted immediately and I was able to restore/exclude them with no fuss and about 30 minutes later had everything put back together again.

So, I must really be unhappy with Bitdefender right?

Well, it was an inconvenience to say the least, but I’m really not bummed out. If Bitdefender were to make some minor changes to their product, it might still win me back. I really, really, really liked the fast speed and light resources it displayed; particularly in that it made my post-boot and Windows login experience must faster and responsive that when using MSSE.

What I would like to see is a better set of options for controlling and enabling/disabling/fine-tuning features in Bitdefender free.  Unless they are there and I’m totally overlooking them…

• I want to be able to disable the HTTP scanning.
• When I restore/exclude a file, I want it to return to full functionality and remain whitelisted for future downloads and execution.
• I want to exclude portable/external drives from scans when I feel like it.
• I would like to know when Bitdefender finds something with a real-time pop-up alert and ask me what I want to do then and there…not let me find out about it later.
• I really would like Bitdefender to warn me at a system shutdown if it has any “pending actions” that it plans to take on the reboot…and let me decide to follow-through with those actions or postpone or cancel that activity.

I guess I just want somewhat more advanced technical control over the operations and fewer headaches putting things back to normal.

Even “basic” MSSE allows me to…

• Disable scanning of removable drives,
• Exclude specific running processes from scans,
• Exclude specific file-types from a scan,
• Exclude specific files and locations from a scan, and,
• not fiddle with monitoring and intercepting HTTP traffic to and from my web browser.

Hopefully future versions of Bitdefender Free can incorporate these items.  If so then I’m game and open to give it another shot.

Until then, I’m sticking with MSSE and continuing to recommend it to my own family and IT-support provided friends…unless they are horribly poor with their computing activity and I have to clean their systems more than a few times in a row…only then will I recommend they go to a more powerful (and less flexible) AV/AM solution, and that would be Bitdefender Free over most of the other free AV/AM offerings for Windows systems.

At least for now….

Possibly related:

• Goodbye Microsoft Security Essentials: Microsoft Now Recommends You Use a Third-Party Antivirus - How To Geek website
• Microsoft (allegedly) Now Recommends You Use a Third-Party Antivirus - BleepingComputer news forum.
• Sensationalist Press Got it WRONG! Microsoft Does Not Recommend Two Antivirus Programs! - Security Garden
• Our commitment to Microsoft antimalware - Microsoft Malware Protection Center Blog

Cheers,

--Claus Valca

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Links of the Week

Here is a hodge-podge of links that stood out this week.

Tr3Secure Data Collection Script Reloaded - Journey Into Incident Response blog - Corey Harrell has new news and updated on the Tr3Secure Volatile Data Collection Script he developed some time ago.

Tr3Secure Data Collection Script Reloaded - Journey Into Incident Response blog - Corey then follows up with a “real-world” walkthough of the Tr3Secure Volatile Data Collection Script after purposefully a lab pc for the sake of the discussion. It’s one thing to read about what a tool and process can do, it is a real treat to have the author lead a guided walkthough of the tool in action. As always, don’t forget to follow up with a comments reading as well.

plaso - super timeline - from the website “Plaso (plaso langar að safna öllu) is the Python based back-end engine used by tools such as log2timeline for automatic creation of a super timelines. The goal of log2timeline (and thus plaso) is to provide a single tool that can parse various log files and forensic artifacts from computers and related systems, such as network equipment to produce a single correlated timeline. This timeline can then be easily analysed by forensic investigators/analysts, speeding up investigations by correlating the vast amount of information found on an average computer system.”  Spotted via this CDF at Champlain post.

Microsoft Security Essentials: Aiming low? - ZDNet - Larry Seltzer offers some thoughts on Microsoft’s free AV solution. He really doesn’t thrash MSE but does point out that there are many other free alternatives that tend to perform higher. It seems like a pretty reasonable perspective.  FYI, I have been debating making a change from Microsoft Security Essentials to Bitdefender Antivirus Free. Yesterday I uninstalled MSE and replaced it with BAF. The changeover went very smooth. The deciding factor for me was the ongoing poor post-boot performance of my system.  While I don’t have a SSD drive in my laptop, I is running an Intel i7 CPU with 8 GB RAM. After boot, MSE scans on the post boot environment seem to be leading to slower post-boot launch of a number of my applications for a while as processes and files get scanned. Now that I am on BAF, I don’t see those post-boot application hangs. That said, I will continue to primarily recommend MSE to family and friends unless repeated infections indicate a need for the advance protection BAF may provide.

Before moving on from Microsoft Secuirty Essentials and Windows Defender (for Win 8), I thought this post Windows Defender and context menu for file check? (GTranslated) at Borns IT and Windows Blog was very insightful.  Some time ago I posted a number of Windows Defender tweaking tips Advanced Tips for Windows Defender with Windows 8, one of which was how to add a scan with Windows Defender to the context menu list in Win 8.  Born’s acknowledges that is a popular request and go though how it is accomplished. However, as he points out, the way Windows Defender operates, when a file is accessed via the (File) Explorer, Windows Defender already scans it before allowing access. If it is infected then you don’t get to fiddle with it.  Same thing with downloaded files; again pre-scanned by Windows Defender.  So, you can manually scan them again if you want, but know that if you do use Windows Defender in Win 8, it has already scanned the file.

Message Analyzer has Released – A New Beginning and Message Analyzer: Why so different from Network Monitor? - MessageAnalyzer Blog - Final release now public for Microsoft’s network capture analysis tool. I’m not sure it will replace Wireshark, but the approach is a step up from their older Network Monitor capture tool and is at the very minimum a great supplemental network capture tool for packet analysis.

Plugin Activation in Firefox - Mozilla Add-ons Blog - basically in a future version of Firefox, all plugins (except Flash) will become “click-to-activate”. This may or may not be a great thing depending on your security versus convenience perspective.

Wendel's Small Hacking Tricks - Killing Processes from the Microsoft Windows Command Line interface - SpiderLabs Anterior - I’m always looking to find a way to do something without a third-party tool so this is handy information to be familiar with.

Universal USB Installer (also YUMI) USB Flash drive does not boot on EeePC - RMPrepUSB, Easy2Boot and USB booting... blog - This is a pretty esoteric technical post for most folks, however if you are into USB-based system booting, it is interesting.

When setting up Windows 8.1, Microsoft appears to do all it can to shove you to create/use an on-line Microsoft account rather than a local one.  For some folks that might be fine but others (particularly the old-school crowd) will find this process similar to a cattle chute. If you are a thinking cow, it probably isn’t a very pleasant experience. Fortunately, there seem to be a number of outs if you know the game ahead of time.

• How To Install Windows 8.1 Without Microsoft Account - Into Windows
• Use Windows 8.1 with a local account instead of a Microsoft account - 4sysops
• How to setup local account in Windows 8.1 - DeDoimedo.com
• Windows 8.1 How To Convert Windows Live Account To Local Account - Next of Windows

Group Policy Search Engine Gets Updated - Group Policy Central blog - From that post by Alan Burchill:

“The Group Policy Search Engine is a great web site that has all the different version of Microsoft Group Policy ADMX files that allows you to easily and quickly search for the policy setting. This site is one I use very frequently especially and is a must have bookmark for any Group Policy Administrator.

“Well, Stephanus from Microsoft who maintains the web site has just loaded the Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 policy setting meaning you can now look up all the new policy setting in the latest version of Windows. “

Group Policy Search - site homepage.

Google Static Map Maker: Static Maps on Steroids - noupe - Nice tool to create linkable custom static Google maps rather than using a screen-shot image or a embedded and modifiable one.

Google Static Map Maker - site homepage by Katy Decorah.

Cheers!

--Claus Valca

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PowerShell for ForSec & Incident Response: A Brief Musing

I am a PowerShell noobie and know beyond next to nothing on PowerShell usage.

Not that I’m not trying to get up to speed. 

• PowerShell Learning Grinds On - GSD Blog
• PowerShell Reference Post: The Train Cometh Near… - GSD blog

However it’s a slow climb up that learning mountain with my time being so tight at the moment.

In typical fashion, that hasn’t stopped my brain from chewing on the potential applications for PowerShell once I get more accomplished.

It struck me last week that PowerShell might be a useful tool (in some circumstances with knowledge aforethought of the impact using PowerShell on that system might have) for ForSec and Incident Response efforts. Having the “power” of PowerShell at our disposal once our enterprise goes Win7 on the desktops might allow expanded options where some third-party tools might be a challenge deploying.

So I hit the Google and here is what I found that looked worthy of investigation and additional reading and study.

Note: there were a number of additional websites I found that seemed -- in title at least -- to be applicable. However, I chose not to include them at this time as they seemed pretty new and the material on the (for now)  didn’t seem to be that useful. If they mature and grow, then I will add them in at a later time.

Live Response Using PowerShell - PDF link - SANS Institute Reading Room paper written by Sajeev Nair - August 2013.

Incident Management with PowerShell - video ~45 min - YouTube - Presentation by Matt Johnson & J. Wolfgang Goerlich of MWJ Computing - March 2013

The Power of PowerShell Remoting - SANS Computer Forensics and Incident Response blog - Mike Pilkington

Weekend Scripter: Using PowerShell to Aid in Security Forensics - Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog - Will Steele guest blogger

Use PowerShell to Aid in Security Forensics - Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog

toolsmith: Security Investigations with PowerShell - HolisticInfoSec blog post by Russ McRee

How to find running processes and their port number - Shay Levy - (added to post 09/15/2013) - Embedded in Russ McRee’s post above was a quick reference to this post which has some juicy material for you network guys.

Script Get-NetworkStatistics - netstat -ano with filtering - (added to post 09/15/2013) - Embedded in the comments of Shay Levy’s post was a link to this one as well offered by rambling cookie monster. Whew!

The rambling cookie monster’s site is darn sharp and has these tasty crumbs we can pick up and enjoy:

• PowerShell Basic Cheat Sheet
• PowerShell Cheat Sheet

Tools to Grab Locked Files - Journey Into Incident Response - Corey Harrell - Post mentions “Invoke-NinjaCopy” which is a PowerShell script. More detailed info here: Using PowerShell to Copy NTDS.dit / Registry Hives, Bypass SACL’s / DACL’s / File Locks - clymb3r

Powershell: Forensic Onliners - ldap389 blog. (added to post 09/15/2013) The post itself is great, but there is a reference to other PowerShell material near the top that you might overlook. Hit the whitepaper link below and browse to the section.

You can find a cool onliner that retrieves the events of the Account logon category in this Windows Logon Forensics whitepaper (chapter 6.4. Querying Events). The onliner fetchs the following events which occurred during the past five days:

• A Kerberos authentication ticket (TGT) was requested.
• The computer attempted to validate the credentials for an account.

Live forensics: prefetch and powershell - 8bits blog

Parsing Windows Eventlogs in Powershell - ISC Diary

PoshSec (PowerShell Security) - GitHub - (added to post 09/15/2013) - added after great comment tip from J Wolfgang Goerlich.

• PoshSec Main Repository - GitHub - PoshSec Wiki - per that page:
  

Current Release Features

This initial project release was based on SANS CSIS 20 Controls to assist an organization securing itself against digital attacks. The purpose of this release is to "baseline" an environment given the stated controls in the CSIS. The release is focused on the following controls:

• Account Monitoring
• Inventory of Authorized and Unauthorized Devices
• Network Baseline

Account Monitoring

• accounts that do not expire
• accounts that expire
• list all accounts
• disabled accounts
• locked out accounts
• passwords over expired date
• disabled account access

Inventory of Authorized and Unauthorized Devices

• DNS Logging Status
• Inventory

Network Baseline

• open ports


About

This project started by Will Steele (@pen_test) and Matt Johnson (@mwjcomputing) has several goals:

• Publish a PowerShell module to aid people in the use of PowerShell in regards to security.
• Provide some guidance on how to use PowerShell in the information security space, on both the offensive and defensive side with blog posts and articles.
• Be a location to obtain links to others using PowerShell in the information security space.
• Getting Started with PoshSec - PoshSec Wiki.

Digital Forensic Case Leads : Flame On! The most sophisticated malware since...the last one, Higher Ed data breach and PowerShell forensics - SANS Computer Forensics and Incident Response blog - (added to post 09/15/2013) - buried near the bottom are these PS gems under the “Good Reads” section:

• PowerShell to do evil: PowerSploit - A PowerShell Post-Exploitation Framework
• PowerShell to find evil:
  • Use PowerShell to Aid in Security Forensics - Technet blog
  • Offline analysis
  • Get File Hashes
  • Find Changed Files

I suspect that just because there isn’t that much (yet) material in this area, doesn’t mean that PowerShell isn’t a worthwhile supplemental tool in these areas. Powershell is primarily used for system administration tools and tasks, but I bet that with time and development, some clever out-of-the-box thinkers can expand on how it can be leveraged. Particularly if it involves collecting and parsing out registry, activity logs, and file-system data remotely from live systems.

As the Hey, Scripting Guy! Ed Wilson posted in one of the aforementioned links:

RM, the key thing to remember, whether you are doing security forensics, Exchange Server administration, Office automation, or anything between, is that Windows PowerShell is Windows PowerShell is Windows PowerShell. This means that all of the Windows PowerShell best practices still apply. One of those Windows PowerShell best practices is to preserve the object. The object-oriented nature of Windows PowerShell is one of the revolutionary features of the language, and it is a major contributor to its ease-of-use.

Note   When doing any type of computer forensics, a major principle is to avoid making any changes to the system. Therefore, as a crucial first step, you should use a tool such as the Windows Sysinternals utility tool, Disk2vhd, so you can be assured of not changing things like file access times on the original system.

Therefore, in keeping with the object-oriented nature of Windows PowerShell, you want to use techniques that preserve the object for as long as possible.

So my question is this, do any of the ForSec/Incident Response readers of this blog know of any other recommended resources that would be useful to me and others in using PowerShell in these applications?

If you do, please drop a tip/recommendation or even a “sanitized to protect the guilty” case-study example in the comments.

Cheers!

--Claus V.

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GSD Saturday Linkfest: IT Crowd and ForSec Folks welcome

News and Links For the ForSec Crowd

Kali Linux 1.0.5 and Software Defined Radio - Kali Linux - new build released with updates and some bells-and-whistles to boot!

Windows 8 / Server 2012 Memory Forensics - Forensic Methods

Inside Windows Rootkits - Forensic Methods

Links - Windows Incident Response blog - Lots of great fresh material here!

Forensic Perspective - Windows Incident Response blog

Tools to Grab Locked Files - Journey Into Incident Response blog - Cory Harrell has a simply amazing post full of tremendous resources worth taking a look into for using to grab locked files.

DOWNLOAD: Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, Volume 14 Windows Application & PDF - Kurt Shintaku's Blog - This is too good to pass up! From Kurt’s post.

The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report Windows application analyzes the threat landscape of exploits, vulnerabilities, and malware using the latest data from hundreds of millions of systems around the world and some of the Internet’s busiest online services.

Readers will find the data, insights, and guidance provided in this report useful in helping them protect their organizations, software, and users.  

Key features of the application include:

• All content, in one convenient place – includes all 800+ pages of content from Volume 14 of our latest report and is fully searchable.
• High fidelity charts – Many customers have asked us if they can obtain high resolution versions of the charts. We’ve delivered that in the application and have even included the “save as” functionality so that customers may use them in other applications, such as PowerPoint.
• Reader friendly – We’ve designed the application with you, the reader in mind. One example of this is the integration of our glossary into the body of a page which appear as mouse-over tool-tips.

Security Intelligence Report (SIR) vol.14 (Windows Application) - Microsoft.com - The installable application has 800+ pages of content while the PDF version checks in at 120 pages. Pick you medicine and pucker up.

Other useful Microsoft security and threat response links:

• Microsoft Malware Protection Center
• Microsoft Security Response Center
• Computer Security Tools & Downloads – TechNet Security
• Microsoft Security Intelligence Report

Microsoft Security Essentials Prerelease - Microsoft Download Center - new pre-release version 4.4.207.0 for interested users of MSSE. Released on 09.09.13 so it is very fresh.

(IN)SECURE Magazine issue 39 released - HelpNet Security - Download directly here (PDF link).

News and Links For the IT Crowd

I enjoy the technical and scientific articles I get in my RSS feeds over from the IEEE Spectrum website. It has great material and is terribly technical. Some sadly interesting IT news I’ve seen over there recently tag state IT departments.

• IT Hiccups of the Week: A Bad Week for U.S. State Government IT - IEEE Spectrum
• Is There a U.S. IT Worker Shortage? - IEEE Spectrum
• IT Hiccups of the Week: U.S. State Government IT System Meltdowns Galore - IEEE Spectrum

A new find this week has been the Microsoft Office Configuration Analyzer Tool

The Microsoft Office Configuration Analyzer Tool (OffCAT) is a program that provides a detailed report of your installed Office programs. This report includes many parameters about your Office program configuration and highlights known problems found when OffCAT scans your computer. For any problems that are listed in the report, you are provided with a link to a public-facing article (usually a Microsoft Knowledge Base article) on the issue so you can read about possible fixes for the problem. If you are a Help Desk professional, you can also save the report to file so that the report can be viewed in the Office Configuration Analyzer Tool on another client where the tool is installed. The Office Configuration Analyzer Tool 1.1 also includes a command-line version that can be used to collect an OffCAT scan without user intervention.

I’ve been playing with it for a while and am amazed at the depth of information and assistance it provides, particularly for many very obscure items.

Spotted over at this 4sysops post FREE: Microsoft OffCAT – Office Configuration Analyzer Tool 1.1

MBSA 2.3 Preview Release Available - Anything about IT - News about a new preview release version of Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (note link is to public version 2.2) that supports MS OS’s between XP and Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 Command Prompt or PowerShell - Anything about IT

PowerShell 4.0 – A first look - 4sysops

How to Know When an Object Was Created and Changed in Active Directory - WindowsNetworking.com

When was the Last Password Changed for a User Account in Active Directory - WindowsNetworking.com

Office 365 for Nonprofits Organizations - Microsoft.com - Microsoft recently announced that they are offering Office 365 for non-profits (including eligible churches). This could be a big deal for many, learn more here.

SysInternals Tools, Windows 8 Training - Microsoft Virtual Academy - Seven video training modules and supporting materials to assist with learning the latest in core SysInternals tools. Check it out! Hat tip to Kurt Shintaku.

Kyle Beckman has posted a great series about Folder Redirection over at 4sysops that I (re)discovered. Lots of good information and tips here.

• Folder Redirection – Part 1: Introduction - 4sysops
• Folder Redirection – Part 2: Setting up your file server
• Folder Redirection – Part 3: Explanation of folder permissions
• Folder Redirection – Part 4: Group Policy configuration
• Folder Redirection – Part 5: Best practices
• How to disable Folder Redirection

Create a new Windows Service

Moon Point Support Weblog had a helpful post: Creating a Service for a Windows System

It caught my eye as we are working with a system down in the coal-mines that requires running the core features as applications rather than services which makes security and log-in/account management more than a little bit challenging. Alas, this won’t solve those headaches but it is worth bookmarking and knowing.

How To Create a User-Defined Service - Microsoft Support

How to create a Windows service by using Sc.exe - Microsoft Support

NSSM - the Non-Sucking Service Manager

Virtualization Software Updates

Download VMware Player 6.0 - VMware

VMware woos power users and IT pros with Fusion and Workstation upgrades - Ars Technica

VMware Player 6 Released with Full Windows 8.1 Support - Next of Windows

Oracle VM VirtualBox - Version 4.2.18 released - Oracle

General Application and Utility Updates of Note

UltraVNC VNC - version release 1.1.93 now out.

PeStudio - version release 7.45 now out.

Speccy v1.23 - Piriform - new release.

HWiNFO Portable - version 4.24-2000 - PortableApps.com - in what begs another GSD LinkList post, HWiNFO is yet another system hardware info-gathering resource I’ve been playing with. I’ve got more than a few I call up from the bullpen and this one has been added to the pitching stable.

IOBit Driver Booster Free - I confess I was very skeptical when I saw this new application appear. I have a few trusted driver apps to catalog and/or back up existing drivers on a system, and some vendor-specific driver update scanning applications used to update my systems. However, I have generally distained apps that claim to scan for driver updates on Windows systems and tell me what I need. Driver updating can be a dangerous and system-harmful thing if the wrong one is applied. So when I tried with trepidation this application, I found the UI was super clean and easy to navigate, the scan was immediate and dead-on fast, it seemed very accurate (finding only one out of date driver), provides a detailed and comprehensive list of drivers checked and their status, and creates a Restore point before every driver update is installed. It’s so easy I’d recommend it to my non-techy friends and family who I support. Great job IOBit! I’ll be running this one weekly!

SoftPerfect Network Scanner - updated to version 5.5. See Changelog for details.

Wireshark - updated to Stable version 1.10.2 and Old Stable version 1.8.10.

• Wireshark 1.10.2 - Release notes
• Wireshark 1.8.10 - Release notes

For you crazy WinPE building fans who use WinBuilder, a new version has been released that is much different from the previous version you may be familiar with. At the time of this blog-posting, the Winbuilder.net site seems to be temporarily down, but here were the applicable links you need to check out. I suspect fans of WinBuilder will fall one one side of the fence or the other; love it or hate it. Particularly with the Java building components.

• WinBuilder - Development - reboot.pro
• WinBuilder - reboot.pro
• without imbedded Java RTEs - download version.

lessmsi (aka Less Msiérables) · ActiveScott at GitHub - now at version 1.1.3 The download link is a bit hard to find on the page if you aren’t used to GitHub. Look for “1 release" at the top bar just above the purple band and click it to find the compiled binaries in lessmsi-v1.1.3.zip.

d7 v10 Just Released! - Computer Technician - Foolish IT LLC.the updated change list is too expansive for me to try to list here. Check it out.

SoundVolumeView - new NirSoft utility - View/change sound levels & save/load sound level profiles on Windows Vista/7/8/2008 - More details in this NirSoft blog post.

Whew!  That post tired me out…or maybe it was the A&M/Alabama game live-streaming on my second monitor.

--Claus Valca

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What an MS Update Cycle This Month + others as well

Is it just me? Or has this been a super-challenging MS Update cycle this time ‘round?

At home on our Windows 7/8 systems I must have had scan for updates, install updates, reboot, re-scan for updates, install more updates, reboot, re-scan for updates, install final round of updates a few more times than I can previously recall.

Lots and lots of updates (though that may be partially my fault for leaving Office 2007 on when I installed Office 2010).  I do that for trouble-shooting support as not all my peeps are are on the same version of Office that I would like to be on.

And at work on our XP systems, for some reason we got bit with the MS bug where we successfully install KB2760411 and KB2760588 but after reboot, Windows Update says they still need to be installed! Wow.

Here is more linkage than  you need regarding Microsoft and third-party app updating this month.

First Up: Microsoft Patching Information

Microsoft fixes bad patch detection - ZDNet Zero Day blog

Why all the errors in Microsoft updates lately? - ZDNet Zero Day blog

Update for Outlook 2013 breaks folder pane - ZDNet Zero Day blog

Microsoft botches still more patches in latest Automatic Update - Microsoft windows - InfoWorld

Outlook 2013 Folder Pane Disappears After Installing September 2013 Public Update - Office Sustained Engineering - TechNet Blogs

I’ve actually been holding off running my monthly WSUS Offline Update build until word comes out that these have been resolved.

Microsoft Patch Tuesday, September 2013 - SpiderLabs Anterior - Amusing and helpful patch summary

Lovely tokens and the September 2013 security updates - MSRC blog - details with pretty graphs

Assessing risk for the September 2013 security update - Security Research & Defense blog

Microsoft September 2013 Black Tuesday Overview - ISC Diary post

Next in Line: Adobe (Flash, Shockwave, Air)

Adobe September 2013 Black Tuesday Overview - ISC Diary post

Update Flash, Shockwave ASAP! Adobe also patches Acrobat and Reader - ZDNet Zero Day blog

Adobe, Microsoft Push Critical Security Fixes - Krebs on Security

Chrome Releases: Flash Player Update - Chrome Releases blog

On the Tail End: Oracle’s Java

It's about time: Java update includes tool for blocking drive-by exploits - The Register

Oracle Updates Java - Threatpost

Oracle finally adds whitelisting capabilities to Java - Computerworld

Security of Java takes a dangerous turn for the worse, experts say - Ars Technica

New features aim to shore up Java’s flagging security - Ars Technica

Go Get ‘Em Cowboy!

Hopefully your system is already set to download and process your Microsoft Updates. If not, stop, drop, and roll and get them on now manually if you must.

Adobe Flash may do an auto-updating or not, depending on your installation and settings.  I've not seen Air or Shockwave self-update ever.

Java might offer the update to you…or not.

If in doubt, you should be able to find direct downloads here.

• Adobe Flash Player Distribution - Adobe
• Shockwave Player Distribution Downloads - Adobe
• Archived Adobe AIR SDK version - Adobe
• Java Downloads for All Operating Systems - Oracle

Finally, if you have any doubt at all regarding your update level for these particular applications try one of these options; or even better, run both.

• Qualys BrowserCheck - be sure to hit this link in all browsers that you use on your system!
• The Secunia Software Inspector - Online Software Inspector (OSI) - they have a PSI installable version as well worth checking out.

They are really nice and pretty and are often overlooked…like the proverbial girl next door.

However they will hold your hand just as warmly and the kisses are just as sweet!

Stay patched, my friends.

Cheers!

--Claus Valca

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iPhone Traffic - ZAP’ed, Security, and Network Tap Tap Tapping

This week brought in a very interesting post from web security/developer Troy Hunt.

 Unearthing the hidden shortcomings in Aussie mobile app security - Troy Hunt’s blog

Please go read then come back.

Interesting isn’t it?

I know most GSD readers probably wouldn’t be surprised to find some of their favorite mobile-apps leak user ids and passwords in plain-text, but for those who don’t know, some do.

Case in point (that has now been reported as fixed!):  Zscaler Research: Mobile App Wall of Shame: ESPN ScoreCenter

Naturally that got me thinking about a common mantras in the For/Sec world; “know your tools” & “verify, verify, verify”.

What I want to do is some benchmarking and analysis of the mobile apps I use on my own iPhone to have a better understanding on what is happening with their network traffic. This would be valuable information to know for general usage, and critical knowledge in case you unknowingly encounter a Wi-Fi Pineapple in the wild or a more complex man-in-the-middle Wi-Fi attack and get your network traffic captured.

One super-easy (and lazy) way I have found is to use ZAP - Zscaler Application Profiler.  From the “About” page link:

About ZAP

Zscaler Application Profiler (ZAP) is web based tool designed to streamline the capture and analysis of HTTP(S) traffic from mobile applications. ZAP is capable of analyzing traffic from both iOS and Android applications and includes the following functionality:

• Search: View summarized historical results for past scans.
• Scan: Proxy traffic from a mobile device through the ZAP proxy and the mobile app traffic will be automatically captured and analyzed
• iPCU: Upload your iOS device configuration file(.deviceinfo) to check risk score of installed application. It will give you overall risk score of your device. The information provided is based on out knowledge base.

ZAP classifies traffic into the following buckets and calculates an overall risk score for the application:

• Authentication: Username/password sent in clear text or using weak encoding methods.
• Device Metadata Leakage: Data that can identify an individual device, such as the Unique Device Identifier (UDID).
• Personally Identifiable Information Leakage: Data that can identify an individual user, such as an email address, phone number or mailing address.
• Exposed content: Communication with third parties such as advertising or analytics sites.

Zscaler also has a detailed video on this service on their blog: Zscaler Research: Introducing ZAP.

So you can either check their historical report data on apps already researched, you can connect your device to their proxy to do a scan on a new app/version not already captured historically, or even upload your own iOS device config file.

Wow.  Bookmark this resource link now!

However, there may be cases you want to do your own local network traffic capture and analysis…because you like pain and frustration (and hands-on learning perhaps).

Part I - In Which Hardware TAP Options are narrowed down

At work (when & where authorized) we can set up network packet captures either on a specific system or on the LAN using port-SPAN.

At home, I don’t have a managed switch (or dumb hub) that can do that.  I suppose I could buy a USB-NIC (so I can have two wired network ports on my laptop) and then capture traffic temporarily though one of these messy devices (home-built or purchased) but that isn’t quite as elegant as I would prefer.

Or (as the TinyApps bloggist kindly just reminded me) use Cain & Abel.

• Capturing Packets on a Broadcom Card - The Flying Frank
• Configuration - OXID.I

Instead I decided I'll pick up a specialized device that support a network TAP.  This way I can just hook it in line between my Wi-Fi router and the cable modem and capture everything that passes though. It may not be 100% on packet captures, but I think it will be good enough for my home testing.

So the next question is what device?

I’ve settled on the following options:

• Dualcomm DCSW-1005 USB Powered 5-Port 10/100 Fast Ethernet Switch TAP (Port Mirroring) - Amazon.com link
  • Dualcomm DCSW-1000/1005PT - Dualcomm product page
• Dualcomm DCGS-2005L 5-Port 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Switch Network TAP (Plastic Case) - Amazon.com link
• Dualcomm DCGS-2005 5-Port 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Switch Network TAP (USB Powered, Port Mirroring, PoE Pass-Through) - Amazon.com link
  • Dualcomm DCGS-2005/DCGS-2005L - Dualcomm product page

The DCSW-1005 model is an attractive basic option. It supports port-mirroring, is USB powered, and has 5-ports. (note only port #1 is mirrored to port #5).  The price is good.  The only “drawback” I see is that it only supports 10/100 speed on the network.  While I seriously doubt I would ever approach over 100 Mbps and cause a bottleneck on my home network…most all my other network equipment is 1000 Mbps capable.  So thinking forward, this could be slightly limiting down the road, or if I am asked by family/friends/associates to do some network troubleshooting on a “true” 1000 Mbps network, or tapping in between two network devices actually running at 1000 Mbps.  So there is that. Also, the buffer memory used by the device in the mirroring process is 256 KB. So if that gets saturated, there is the possibility of dropped packet captures.

The only difference between the DCGS-2005/2005L seems to be the “L” model has a metal cabinet while the other doesn’t. Of course, that option comes with a $20 markup as well.  I’m pretty sure the plastic cabinet would be just fine, but the vanity in me just likes the metal cabinet appearance a bit more. Probably just a bit more durable when tossed around in a go-bag and maybe it might dissipate heat a bit better? This model does support up to 1000 Mbps so there is that benefit since it is (at least $100 more expensive) but the buffer memory is just 104 KB. Hmmm. 

Should I be concerned about overloading either of the devices’ memory buffer when capturing home-network traffic? Probably not but what say you pros?

I did find these pretty basic and older reviews, including one from the guru of network security Richard Bejtlich.  I really didn’t find any more recent reviews of the device so if/when I get my hands on one, you can be assured I’ll have a write-up review.

• DualComm Port Mirroring Switch - TaoSecurity - (Sept. 2010)
• Review of Dualcomm 5-Port Pass-Through Port Mirroring Switch - LoveMyTool - Betty DuBois - (April 2010)
• Network Security Monitoring with Dualcomm DCSW-1005PT - CyberArms - D.Dieterle - (Nov. 2010)

Part II - In Which Other Alternatives are discovered

So let’s assume that you are already comfortable with network packet captures, installing network software, and making network configuration changes to Wi-Fi devices.

Are there any options to capture iPhone network traffic without going to the trouble and expense of picking up TAP hardware just for that task?

Yep.

First option is a tool called Paros. It is Java based (I know, I know..) and can assess web application vulnerabilities. The link has a Windows binary that appears back from August 2008.

Here is a nice walkthough on using Paros Sniff Your iPhone's Network Traffic by Jerod Santofrom to give you some introduction to it.

There was a comment on the Paros page providing information to a very current “fork” of Paros: ZAP

(Note: Not to be confused with the Zscaler ZAP service)

OWASP Zed Attack Proxy Project - OWASP - OWASP.org

There are tons of information on that page on this tool:

• Screenshots
• wiki videos page
• project pamphlet - a very quick intro
• project presentation - longer presentation

And here are some quick links on ZAP usage:

• Owasp ZAP - InfoSec Institute post
• Debugging SSL on Both iOS Devices and Simulators with Man-in-the-middle Proxies - CodeProject
• Intercepting iPhone traffic with your MacBook - Shaun Zinck’s blog

Next up, we have Fiddler, a free web debugging proxy from Telerik

• Capturing HTTP traffic on an iPhone with Fiddler - Scott Wojan’s DotRant blog
• Configuring Fiddler to Capture Web Traffic from an iPhone/iPad Device - ESRI Support Services blog
• How To Sniff iPhone Network Traffic - Matt McClure’s blog

Finally, if you are hard-core, just go use Wireshark.

• iPhone Meets Wireshark – Capture Wireless Network Traffic from Mobile Devices - EtherLook

Part III - Resources, References, & Pineapples

Here are some additional links related to all of the above discussions including the Dualcomm products, SPAN/TAP considerations, and the next network device I’m interested in picking up to play with; the Wi-Fi Pineapple.

SPAN Out of the Box (PDF Link) - John He’s Dualcomm Technology PowerPoint presentation at SharkFest 2010. Goes into details about SPAN/TAP considerations and specifics on what DualComm feels makes their product super special. SPAN out of the Box (Blip video)

B-7 (Battaglia) TAPS Demystified (PPT Link) - Samuel Battaglia’s Network Critical PowerPoint presentation at SharkFest 2010.

SPAN Port vs TAP (Video) - Betty DuBois- SharkFest 2009 presentation. PowerPoint presentation here (ZIP).

SPAN Port or TAP? CSO Beware - LoveMyTool blog - Tim O’Neill

Network Monitoring Madness: Poor Man’s Resource Linkfest - GSD blog post from 2010.

Let’s Get For/Sec-Motivated! - GSD blog post from 2011.

The beginners guide to breaking website security with nothing more than a Pineapple - Troy Hunt’s blog.

Your Mac, iPhone or iPad may have left the Apple store with a serious security risk - Troy Hunt’s blog.

Pineapple Surprise! Mixing trusting devices with sneaky Wi-Fi at #wdc13 - Troy Hunt’s blog.

Netgear DS104 4-Port 10/100 Dual Speed Hub with Uplink Button (Amazon link) - recommended to look into as well by TinyApps bloggist who reports he had good experience with it.

CaptureSetup/Ethernet - The Wireshark Wiki

CaptureSetup/WLAN - The Wireshark Wiki

Cheers!

--Claus Valca

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