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The Genie in the Market
Author: Scott Dunlop
The Android Market is an open and friendly variation on the app stores spreading across the mobile phone industry. These applications appear safe on the surface, but they exact a price for developer
accessibility that is paid by unsuspecting Android consumers and vendors. This article discusses the threats presented by native libraries included by Android Market applications and covers how
these vulnerabilities were exploited by the Unrevoked app to jailbreak the latest generation of Android phones.
Download the PDF
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Searching for Privacy: How to Protect Your Search Activity
Author: IOActive
This guide explains how to perform searches anonymously, protecting you from increasingly intrusive tracking and analysis by corporate and governmental organizations.
Download the PDF
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Beware of Relying on Tools Alone to Secure Web Applications
Author: IOActive
The demands of regulatory compliance may have you looking to vulnerability scanning tools in the hope of finding a magic bullet to vet your web applications. However, it would be unwise to expect sc anners alone to accurately determine the impact of the web application vulnerabilities they detect. While the latest and greatest scanning tools promise the world, the reality is they only function well when configured and utilized correctly. This paper discusses best practices for securing web applications including how to effectively use tools in conjunction with manual penetration testing.
Download the PDF
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Securing the Smart Grid: To Act Without Delay
Author: IOActive
This presentation, delivered at Infosecurity Europe by Joshua Pennell, discusses risks identified, research performed, and remediation efforts suggested around the Smart Grid and meters.
Download the PDF
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Top Threats to Cloud Computing V1.0
Author: Cloud Security Alliance
The purpose of this document is to provide needed context to assist organizations in making educated risk management decisions regarding their cloud adoption strategies. In essence, this threat research document should be seen as a companion to "Security Guidance for Critial Areas in Cloud Computing." As the first deliverable in the CSA's Cloud Threat Initiative, this document will be updated regularly to reflect expert consensus on the probable threats that customers should be concerned about.
IOActive's President and founder, Joshua Pennell, is a member of the CSA's advisory committee.
Download the PDF
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Best Practices for using Adobe Reader 9.0
Author: IOActive
Adobe products have long touted how they enable organizations to collaborate and share information in heterogeneous environments. But a recent stream of vulnerabilities found in Adobe products has caused a great deal of concern about the overall security threat associated with using these products. IOActive security experts offer suggestions for how to best protect your computer.
Read the article here.
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Improving RoI by Using an SDL
Author: IOActive
How to improve return on investment by implementing a secure development lifecycle—the paper provides a brief introduction to SDLs then explains how implementing an SDL can save your organization money, and concludes with a discussion of how threat modeling and penetration testing complement SDLs.
Download the PDF
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Updated PCI Standards: Flexibility, Clarity and Common Sense 2.0
Author: IOActive
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) are a set of 12
requirements that merchants and their business partners are expected to follow to ensure the safety of cardholder data. Authored by the PCI Security Standards Council—an independent consortium of representatives from the major credit card brands—the PCI DSS covers data management, information technology, encryption, physical security, legal agreements, and business operations. When these standards were updated from version 1.1 to version 1.2, 30 changes were introduced to the existing requirements.
Download the PDF
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Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing
Contributing Editors: Josh Pennell and Ward Spangenberg
What follows is our initial report, outlining areas of concern and guidance for organizations adopting cloud computing. The intention is to provide security practitioners with a comprehensive roadmap for being proactive in developing positive and secure relationships with cloud providers. Much of this guidance is also quite relevant to the cloud provider to improve the quality and security of their service offerings. As with any initial foray, there certainly will be guidance that we can improve, and we will likely modify the number of domains and change the focus of some areas of concern. We seek your help to improve this guidance and make version 2.0 an even better asset to the security practitioner and cloud provider.
View the document here. (.pdf)
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24 Deadly Sins of Software Security: Programming Flaws and How to Fix Them
Mentioned: Richard van Eeden
Fully updated to cover the latest security issues, 24 Deadly Sins of Software Security reveals the most common design and coding errors and explains how to fix each one—or better yet, avoid them from the start. Michael Howard and David LeBlanc, who teach Microsoft employees and the world how to secure code, have partnered again with John Viega, who uncovered the original 19 deadly programming sins. They have completely revised the book to address the most recent vulnerabilities and have added five brand-new sins. This practical guide covers all platforms, languages, and types of applications.
Order the book from Amazon here.
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Black Ops of PKI Black Hat USA 2009
Author: Dan Kaminsky
Research unveiled in December of 2008 showed how MD5's long-known flaws could be actively exploited to attack the real-world Certification Authority infrastructure. This August 2009 presentation demonstrates two new collision classes: the applicability of MD2 preimage attacks against the primary root certificate for VeriSign and the difficulty of validating X.509 Names contained within PKCS#10 Certificate Requests. It also calls out two possibly unrecognized vectors for implementation flaws that have been problematic in the past: the ASN.1 BER decoder required to parse PKCS#10 and the potential for SQL injection from text contained within its requests. The implications of these attacks are larger than some have realized—first, because Client Authentication is sometimes tied to X.509 and second, because Extended Validation certificates were only intended to stop phishing attacks from names similar to trusted brands. As per the work of Adam Barth and Collin Jackson, EV does not, in fact, prevent an attacker who can synthesize or acquire a "low assurance" certificate for a given name from acquiring the "green bar" EV experience.
Listen to the talk: Black Hat talk
Download the slides: PowerPoint presentation
Suporting information—with authors Len Sassaman and Meredith Patterson:
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PCI Compliance in the Cloud: What are the Risks?
Author: Ward Spangenberg
Cloud computing and virtualization are creating a noticeable buzz across the IT space. As the market puts pressure on companies to increase productivity and decrease capital investments, solutions like distributed computing are attractive options for management to consider. This paper introduces some risks and gives an overview of cloud computing. Download the PDF
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A Risk-based Approach to Determining ESPs and CCAs
Author: IOActive
To mitigate the possibility of one computer virus crippling an entire region's transportation, emergency services, and power, the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection Standards (CIPS) requirements 002–009 describe the cyber security standards with which bulk electric power providers must comply. As part of this compliance effort, power providers must identify their Critical Cyber Assets (CCA) and applicable corresponding Electronic Security Perimeters (ESP). This document provides a detailed methodology for determining ESPs and CCAs. Download the PDF
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Thoughts on the Microsoft SDL
Author: IOActive
Using a Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL) is an important practice because it produces more secure software from the start and saves money in the long term. SDL is a software development lifecycle with security milestones and processes built into your overall software development methodology. The goal of an SDL is not only to produce more secure software, but to reduce the overall lifetime cost of software development projects due to the need for security bug fixes. Download the PDF
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Exploitation in the "New" WIN32 Environment
Author: Walter Pearce
With the release of Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2003, Win32 auditing, exploitation and research became far more complex. Data Execution Protection, a host of new security measures within the compilers, and the .NET Framework's implications on development as a whole all signaled the end of "simple" core system exploits. This paper focuses on these architecture changes—which were made to prevent exploitation of win32 processes—and how to break them. It reiterates what the author learned about general Win32 exploitation and provides detailed techniques to evade stack protections in Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2003. Download the PDF
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IOActive Profile:
Established: 1998
Headquarters: Seattle, WA and London, UK
Privately held and self-funded
IOActive Services:
Application Security, SCADA and Smart Grid, PCI and Compliance, Security Development Lifecycle, Infrastructure Audit, Incident Response and Training.
Customers:
Global 500 companies including power and utility, game, hardware, retail, financial, media, travel, aerospace, healthcare, high-tech, social networking, and software development organizations.
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