More than a simple game
EKOPARTY Conference 2015, one of the most important conferences in Latin America, took place in Buenos Aires three months ago. IOActive and EKOPARTY hosted the main security competition of about 800 teams which ran for 32 hours, the EKOPARTY CTF (Capture the Flag). Teams from all around the globe demonstrated their skills in a variety of topics including web application security, reverse engineering, exploiting, and cryptography. It was a wonderful experience. If you haven’t competed before, you may wonder: What are security competitions all about? Why are they…
Drupal – Insecure Update Process
Just a few days after installing Drupal v7.39, I noticed there was a security update available: Drupal v7.41. This new version fixes an open redirect in the Drupal core. In spite of my Drupal update process checking for updates, according to my local instance, everything was up to date: Issue #1: Whenever the Drupal update process fails, Drupal states that everything is up to date instead of giving a warning. The issue was due to some sort of network problem. Apparently,…
(In)secure iOS Mobile Banking Apps – 2015 Edition
Two years ago, I decided to conduct research in order to obtain a global view of the state of security of mobile banking apps from some important banks. In this blog post, I will present my latest results to show how the security of the same mobile banking apps has evolved.
Maritime Security: Hacking into a Voyage Data Recorder (VDR)
In 2014, IOActive disclosed a series of attacks that affect multiple SATCOM devices, some of which are commonly deployed on vessels. Although there is no doubt that maritime assets are valuable targets, we cannot limit the attack surface to those communication devices that vessels, or even large cruise ships, are usually equipped with. In response to this situation, IOActive provides services to evaluate the security posture of the systems and devices that make up the modern integrated bridges and engine rooms found on cargo vessels and cruise ships. [1] …
Privilege Escalation Vulnerabilities Found in Lenovo System Update
Lenovo released a new version of the Lenovo System Update advisory (https://support.lenovo.com/ar/es/product_security/lsu_privilege) about two new privilege escalation vulnerabilities I had reported to Lenovo a couple of weeks ago (CVE-2015-8109, CVE-2015-8110). IOActive and Lenovo have issued advisories on these issues. Before digging into the details, let’s go over a high-level overview of how the Lenovo System Update pops up the GUI application with Administrator privileges. Here is a discussion of the steps depicted above: 1 – The user starts System Update…
Breaking into and Reverse Engineering iOS Photo Vaults
Every so often we hear stories of people losing their mobile phones, often with sensitive photos on them. Additionally, people may lend their phones to friends only to have those friends start going through their photos. For whatever reason, a lot of people store risqué pictures on their devices. Why they feel the need to do that is left for another discussion. This behavior has fueled a desire to protect photos on mobile devices. One popular option are photo vault applications. These applications claim to protect your photos, videos, etc….
Lenovo TVSUkernel Escalation of Privileges
The Lenovo System Update allows least-privileged users to perform system updates. To do this, System Update includes the System Update service (SUService.exe). This service runs as the privileged SYSTEM user, creates a temporary user account with Administrator privileges, and starts a GUI application (Tvsukernel.exe) with the new Administrator account. Once the application is closed, the temporary Administrator account is appropriately deleted. However the GUI application contains links to online support and privacy help topics, which, when clicked, start a web browser instance under the temporary Administrator account to display the…
Lenovo System Update Created an Insecure Random Administrator Password
This vulnerability allows a local unprivileged user to elevate privileges to Administrator or SYSTEM. Since the user is running the System Update is an unprivileged user, the SUService that is running as System will run the UACsdk.exe binary to create a temporary Administrator account to run the GUI application (Tvsukernel.exe).
Five Reasons Why You Should Go To BruCON
BruCON is one of the most important security conferences in Europe. Held each October, the ‘Bru’ in ‘BruCON’ refers to Brussels, the capital of Belgium, where it all started. Nowadays, it’s held in the beautiful city of Ghent, just 55 mins from its origin. I had the chance to attend this year, and here are the five things that make it a great conference, in my opinion. You can check out BruCON’s promo video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySmCRemtMc4. 1. The conference Great talks presented by international speakers; from deeply…
Harman-Kardon UConnect Vulnerability
UConnect 8.4AN/RA3/RA4 are vehicle-based infotainment systems. UConnect systems are integrated in certain makes of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram vehicles. The UConnect infotainment system allowed an unauthenticated connection from other access points on the Sprint Network. An attacker could issue commands to other components within the vehicle through the infotainment system.