Newest epidode – hear now.
DOUG. Busts, shutdowns, Samba, and GitHub.
All that, and extra, on the Bare Safety podcast.
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Welcome to the podcast, everyone.
I’m Doug Aamoth; he’s Paul Ducklin.
Paul, how do you do right this moment, Sir?
DUCK. I’m very nicely, Douglas.
DOUG. Allow us to begin the present with our Tech Historical past phase – that is an fascinating one.
This week, on 01 February 1982, the Intel 80286 16-bit microprocessor was launched, and went on to turn into a mainstay in IBM PC/AT computer systems for years.
Apparently, Intel didn’t anticipate the 286 for use for private computer systems, and designed a chip with multitasking and multi-user techniques in thoughts.
DUCK. Its major use, as you say, was the PC/AT, the “Superior Expertise” pc from IBM, which was mainly designed to run DOS.
Though DOS is proscribed to 1MB of RAM (or 640KB RAM and the remainder ROM), you can have additional reminiscence, and you can use it for issues like…
…bear in mind HIMEM.SYS, and RAM caches, all of that stuff?
Besides that as a result of Intel had safety in thoughts, bless their hearts, after they designed the 286…
…when you had switched from the mode the place it ran like an 8086 into the super-powerful so-called “protected mode”, *you couldn’t change again*.
When you flipped into the mode that allow you to entry your HIMEM or your RAMDISK, you have been caught.
You couldn’t return and keep it up operating DOS!
And IBM truly jury-rigged their PC – you despatched this particular command to (consider it or not) the keyboard controller, and the keyboard controller mainly rebooted the CPU.
Then, when the CPU began up once more, the BIOS stated, “Oh, that’s not a real reboot, that’s a sneaky ‘change again illegally to actual mode’ reboot,” [LAUGHTER] and it went again to the place you have been in DOS.
So the issue is, it was super-inefficient.
The opposite factor with the 286, though it may entry 16MB RAM in complete, is that, similar to the 8086, it may solely work on a most of 64KB at a time.
So the 64-kilobyte restrict was nonetheless mainly wired into the DNA of that 286 microprocessor.
It was majestically and needlessly, because it turned out, sophisticated.
It’s sort of like a product that was super-cool, however didn’t actually match a necessity out there on the time, sadly.
DOUG. Nicely, let’s begin in on our first tales.
Now we have a two-pack – it’s crime time.
Let’s discuss shutdowns and lock-ups, beginning with the FBI shutting down the Hive ransomware servers in the end.
That’s excellent news!
Hive ransomware servers shut down ultimately, says FBI
DUCK. It does appear so, doesn’t it, Doug?
Though we have to say, as we all the time do, basically, that “cybercrime abhors a vacuum”.
Sadly, different operators steam in when one lot get busted…
…or if all that occurs is that their servers get taken down, and the precise individuals working them don’t get recognized and arrested, sometimes what occurs is that they maintain their heads under the parapet for a short while, after which they simply pop up some place else.
Generally they reinvent the outdated model, simply to thumb their nostril on the world.
Generally they’d come again with a brand new identify.
So the factor with Hive – it seems that the FBI had infiltrated the Hive ransomware gang, presumably by taking up some sysadmin’s account, and apparently that occurred in the course of 2022.
However, as we have now stated on the podcast earlier than, with the darkish internet, the truth that you might have somebody’s account and you’ll log in as them…
…you continue to can’t simply search for the IP variety of the server you’re connecting to, as a result of the darkish internet is hiding that.
So evidently, for the primary a part of this operation, the FBI weren’t truly in a position to determine the place the servers have been, though apparently they have been in a position to get free decryption keys for fairly a lot of individuals – I feel a number of hundred victims.
In order that was fairly excellent news!
After which, whether or not it was some operational intelligence blunder, whether or not they simply received fortunate, or… we don’t know, however evidently ultimately they did work out the place the servers have been, and bingo!
Shutdown!
DOUG. OK, superb.
After which our second of those crime tales.
We’ve received a Dutch suspect in custody, charged for not simply private information theft, however [DOOM-LADEN VOICE] “megatheft”, as you set it. Paul:
Dutch suspect locked up for alleged private information megathefts
DUCK. Sure!
Evidently his “job” was… he finds information, or buys information from different individuals, or breaks into websites and steals big tranches of information himself.
Then he slices-and-dices it in varied methods, and places it up on the market on the darkish internet.
He was caught as a result of the corporate that appears after TV licensing in Austria (lots of European nations require you to have a allow to personal and function a TV set, which basically funds nationwide tv)… these databases just about have each family, minus a couple of.
The Austrian authorities turned conscious that there was a database up on the market on the darkish internet that appeared very very similar to the sort of information you’d get – the fields, and the way in which all the things was formatted… “That appears like ours, that appears like Austrian TV licences. My gosh!”
So that they did a very cool factor, Doug.
They did an undercover buy-back, and within the technique of doing so, they really received a great deal with on the place the individual was: “It seems like this individual might be in Amsterdam, within the Netherlands.”
And they also received in contact with their friends within the Dutch police, and the Dutch have been in a position to get warrants, and discover out extra, and do some raids, and bust any individual for this crime.
Maybe unusually, they received the suitable from the courtroom, basically, to carry the man incommunicado – it was all a secret.
He was simply locked away, didn’t get bail – in reality, they’ve nonetheless received a pair extra months, I feel, that they’ll maintain him.
So he’s not getting out.
I’m assuming they’re nervous that [A] he’s received a great deal of cryptocurrency mendacity round, so he’d in all probability do a runner, and [B] he’d in all probability tip off all his compadres within the cyberunderworld.
It additionally appeared that he was making loads of cash out of it, as a result of he’s additionally being charged with cash laundering – the Dutch police declare to have proof that he personally cashed out someplace within the area of half-a-million euros of cryptocoins final 12 months.
So there you’re!
Numerous derring-do in an investigation, as soon as once more.
DOUG. Sure, certainly.
OK, it is a traditional “We are going to control that!” sort of story.
Within the meantime, we have now a Samba logon bug that reminds us why cryptographic agility is so necessary:
Severe Safety: The Samba logon bug brought on by outdated crypto
DUCK. It’s a reminder that when the cryptographic gurus of the world say, “XYZ algorithm is now not match for function, please cease utilizing it”, snd the 12 months is – let’s assume – the mid 2000s…
…it’s nicely value listening!
Guarantee that there isn’t some legacy code that drags on, since you kind-of assume, “Nobody will use it.”
This can be a logon course of in Microsoft Home windows networking which depends on the MD5 hashing algorithm.
And the issue with the MD5 hashing algorithm is it’s a lot too straightforward to create two information which have precisely the identical hash.
That shouldn’t occur!
For me to get two separate inputs which have precisely the identical hash ought to take me, on my laptop computer, roughly 10,000 years…
DOUG. Roughly! [LAUGHS]
DUCK. Roughly.
Nonetheless, only for that article alone, utilizing instruments developed by a Dutch cryptographer for his Grasp’s thesis again in 2007, I created *ten* colliding MD5 hash-pair information…
…in a most of 14 seconds (for one in all them) and a minimal of underneath half a second.
So, billions of instances quicker than it’s imagined to be potential.
You may subsequently be completely certain that the MD5 hash algorithm *merely doesn’t reside as much as its promise*.
That’s the core of this bug.
Mainly, in the course of the authentication course of, there’s a component that claims, “You recognize what, we’re going to create this super-secure authentication token from information equipped by the person, and utilizing a secret key equipped by the person. So, what we’ll do is we’ll first do an MD5 hash of the info to make it good and quick, after which we’ll create the authentication code *primarily based on that 128-bit hash.”
In idea, when you’re an attacker, you may create different enter information *that may provide you with the identical authentication hash*.
And which means you may persuade the opposite finish, “Sure, I *should* know the key key, in any other case how may I probably create the suitable authentication code?”
The reply is: you cheat in the course of the method, by feeding in information that simply occurs to provide you with the identical hash, which is what the authentication code is predicated upon.
The MD5 algorithm died years in the past, however but it lives on – and it shouldn’t!
So the repair is straightforward.
Samba simply stated, “What we’re going to do is, if you wish to use this outdated algorithm, any longer, you’ll have to bounce by hoops to show it on. And if that breaks issues, and if abruptly you may’t log into your individual community since you have been utilizing weak safety with out realising it… that’s the worth we’re all prepared to pay.”
And I agree with that.
DOUG. OK, it’s model 4.17.5 that now forces these two choices, so head on the market and decide that up when you haven’t already.
And final, however definitely not least, we’ve received code-signing certificates stolen from GitHub.
However there’s a silver lining right here, fortuitously:
GitHub code-signing certificates stolen (however will likely be revoked this week)
DUCK. It’s been fairly the few months for cloud breaches and potential provide chain assaults.
DOUG. Critically!
DUCK. “Oh expensive, stolen signing keys”… GitHub realised this had occurred on 07 December 2022.
Now, hats off to them, they realised the very day after the crooks had received in.
The issue is that they hadn’t received into wander round – evidently their skill to get in was primarily based on the truth that they might obtain personal GitHub repositories.
This isn’t a breach of the GitHub techniques, or the GitHub infrastructure, or how GitHub shops information – it’s simply that GitHub’s code on GitHub… among the stuff that was imagined to be personal received downloaded.
And as we’ve spoken about earlier than, the issue when supply code repositories which are imagined to be personal get downloaded…
…the issue is that, surprisingly typically, these repositories may need stuff in that you just don’t wish to make public.
For instance, passwords to different providers.
And, importantly, the code-signing keys – your signet ring, that you just use to place your little seal within the wax of this system that you just truly construct.
Even when you’re an open supply challenge, you’re not going to place your code-signing keys within the public model of the supply code!
In order that was GitHub’s concern: “Oh expensive. We discovered the crooks virtually instantly, however they got here in, they grabbed the code, they went… thus, harm already performed.”
It took them fairly a very long time, practically two months, to determine what they might say about this.
Or no less than it took two months till they stated something about it.
And it sounds as if the one issues which may impact clients that did get stolen have been certainly code-signing keys.
Solely two tasks have been affected.
One is the supply code editor often called “Atom”, GitHub Atom.
That was mainly outdated in most builders’ lives by Visible Studio Code [LAUGHS], so the entire challenge received discontinued in the course of 2022, and its final safety replace was December 2022.
So that you in all probability shouldn’t be utilizing Atom anyway.
And the excellent news is that, as a result of they weren’t going to be constructing it any extra, the certificates concerned…
…most of them have already expired.
And in the long run, GitHub discovered, I feel, that there are solely three stolen certificates that have been truly nonetheless legitimate, in different phrases, that crooks may truly use for signing something.
And people three certificates have been all encrypted.
One in every of them expired on 04 January 2023, and it doesn’t appear that the crooks did crack that password, as a result of I’m not conscious of any malware that was signed with that certificates within the hole between the crooks getting in and the certificates expiring one month later.
There’s a second certificates that expires the day we’re recording the podcast, Wednesday, 01 February 2022; I’m not conscious of that one having been abused, both.
The one outlier in all of it is a code-signing certificates that, sadly, doesn’t expire till 2027, and that’s for signing Apple applications.
So GitHub has stated to Apple, “Be careful for something that comes alongside that’s signed with that.”
And from 02 February 2022, all the code-signing certificates that have been stolen (even those which have already expired) will likely be revoked.
So it seems as if it is a case of “all’s nicely that ends nicely.”
After all, there’s a minor side-effect right here, and that’s that when you’re utilizing the GitHub Desktop product, or when you’re nonetheless utilizing the Atom editor, then basically GitHub is revoking signing keys *for their very own apps*.
Within the case of the GitHub Desktop, you completely must improve, which you have to be doing anyway.
Paradoxically, as a result of Atom is discontinued… when you desperately must proceed utilizing it, you truly must downgrade barely to the latest model of the app that was signed with a certificates that isn’t going to get revoked.
I’ll have made that sound extra sophisticated than it truly is…
…nevertheless it’s a foul search for GitHub, as a result of they did get breached.
It’s one other unhealthy search for GitHub that included within the breach have been code-signing certificates.
However it’s a great search for GitHub that, by the way in which they managed these certificates. most of them have been now not of any use.
Two of the three that might be harmful can have expired by the point you hearken to this podcast, and the final one, in your phrases, Doug, “they’re actually keeping track of.”
Additionally, they’ve revoked all of the certificates, regardless of the actual fact that there’s a knock-on impact on their very own code.
So, they’re basically disowning their very own certificates, and a few of their very own signed applications, for the better good of all.
And I feel that’s good!
DOUG. Alright, good job by GitHub.
And, because the solar begins to set on our present for right this moment, it’s time to listen to from one in all our readers.
Nicely, when you bear in mind from final week, we’ve been attempting to assist out reader Steven roll his personal USB-key-based password supervisor.
Primarily based on his quandary, reader Paul asks:
Why not simply retailer your passwords on a USB follow {hardware} encryption and a keypad… in a conveyable password supervisor corresponding to KeePass? No must invent your individual, simply shell out a couple of dollars and maintain a backup someplace, like in a secure.
DUCK. Not a foul thought in any respect. Doug!
I’ve been that means to buy-and-try a kind of particular USB drives… you get hard-disk sized ones (though they’ve SSDs normally lately), the place there’s loads of room for a keypad on the highest of the drive.
However you even get USB sticks, and so they sometimes have two rows of 5 keys or two rows of six keys subsequent to one another.
It’s not like these commodity USB drives that, say, “Consists of free encryption software program,” which is on the stick and you’ll then set up it in your pc.
The thought is that it’s like BitLocker or FileVault or LUKS, like we spoke about final week.
There’s a full-disk encryption layer *contained in the drive enclosure itself*, and as quickly as you unplug it, even when you don’t unmount it correctly, when you simply yank it out of the pc…
…when the facility goes down, the important thing will get flushed from reminiscence and the factor will get locked once more.
I suppose the burning query is, “Nicely, why doesn’t everybody simply use these as USB keys, as a substitute of normal USB units?”
And there are two causes: the primary is that it’s a problem, and the opposite downside is that they’re a lot, far more costly than common USB keys.
So I feel, “Sure, that’s an amazing thought.”
The issue is, as a result of they’re not mainstream merchandise, I don’t have any I can advocate – I’ve by no means tried one.
And you’ll’t simply go into the typical PC store and purchase one.
So if any listeners have a model, or a kind, or a specific class of such product that they use and like…
…we’d love to listen to about it, so do tell us!
DOUG. OK, nice.. I really like a little bit crowd-sourcing, individuals serving to individuals.
Thanks very a lot, Paul, for sending that in.
In case you have an fascinating story, remark or query you’d prefer to submit, we’d like to learn it on the podcast.
You may e-mail ideas@sophos.com, touch upon any one in all our articles, or hit us up on social: @NakedSecurity.
That’s our present for right this moment – thanks very a lot for listening.
For Paul Ducklin, I’m Doug Aamoth, reminding you till subsequent time to…
BOTH. Keep safe!
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