23 August 2011

Anonymous dice que destruirá Facebook el 5 de noviembre


Anonymous, el mayor grupo de hackers en activo en la actualidad, y que ha llevado al caos a páginas como las de Apple, Telefónica y más de 70 organismos oficiales en todo el mundo, ha puesto fecha y nombre para un nuevo objetivo: Facebook.

Pero en esta ocasión no quiere bloquear el site, tirarlo durante unos minutos… como en el resto de sus ataques. En este caso, su objetivo es la destrucción total de la red social.

Así lo ha comunicado Anonymous en un vídeo oficial que ha subido a YouTube, en la que habla de la “Facebook OP”, (la Operación Facebook), que tendrá lugar el 5 de noviembre y que acabará con Facebook por la violación constante de la privacidad de los usuarios, y el hecho de que comercialice con los datos de los mismos hasta el punto de venderlos a los gobiernos que deseen vigilarles, según ha dicho el grupo de hacktivistas.

Facebook ha estado vendiendo información a las agencias de gobiernos, y ofreciendo acceso clandestino a los datos de los usuarios, por lo que permite espiar a gente de todo el mundo”, advierte en el vídeo. “Facebook sabe más sobre usted que su propia familia”, puntualiza.

Anonymous también acusa a Facebook de haber censurado sus cuentas sin motivo, y avisa “Facebook, prepárate para la batalla”. El grupo además ha creado una cuenta en Twitter y el ‘hashtag’ #opfacebook para dar más popularidad a su supuesto ataque.

Habrá que esperar cuatro meses para ver si se materializa la amenaza. Hasta ahora Anonymous no había avisado con tanta antelación, pero tampoco se había fijado como objetivo la destrucción total de un site. Veremos qué pasa.

La niña de 10 años que da 'clases' a los hackers

Defcon, la conferencia de seguridad que hackers benevolentes, sin ánimo de hacer estropicios, celebran en Las Vegas, ha tenido una ponente inédita.

Se trata de una niña de 10 años, cuyo alias en CyFi, que ha descubierto una vulnerabilidad en juegos para móviles con los sistemas operativos iOs y Android. Investigadores independientes han confirmado la veracidad del hallazgo.


Era duro, explica la niña, progresar en este tipo de juegos porque se hacía muy largo esperar a que crecieran las cosechas. Entonces pensó en alterar el tiempo.

Sacar provecho de una siembra de maíz puede suponer 10 horas. Pensó que una solución era forzar el reloj del móvil o tableta y fue en esta indagación cuando descubrió una vulnerabilidad que permitía hacerlo.

CyFi no ha dado los nombres de los juegos afectados. La niña detectó sistemas de prevención de estas manipulaciones pero también descubrió atajos para obviarlas, como desconectar el wifi del móvil.

La sesión se celebró en el marco de la conferencia que, por primera vez, ha abierto una sección para niños, DefCon Kids, ante la evidencia de la comunidad hacker es cada vez más joven. Una compañía, AllCrealID ofrece premios en este apartado.

Pirateo por engaño

En la misma conferencia, pero con protagonistas adultos, se realizó un experimento para demostrar la vulnerabilidad de las grandes compañías debido a la deficiente información sobre seguridad informática de sus empleados.

En la prueba se demostró lo ridículamente fácil que era engañar a empleados de una empresa para que suministraran información que comprometía la seguridad de sus equipos.

En un caso, se convenció a un trabajador para que diera datos sobre la configuración de su ordenador, lo que puede ayudar a escoger el programa malicioso más apropiado para realizar una intrusión.

Este mecanismo tiene incluso un nombre: ingeniería social. El conocido ex hacker Kevin Mitnick, por ejemplo, la considera una de las principales armas para el asalto informático.

Se trata de engañar a un empleado para que suministre datos importantes sobre el sistema informático.

Un ejemplo clásico es llamar a una secretaria en nombre del supuesto equipo de informática de la compañía, explicar que se está procediendo a cambiar las contraseñas para reforzar la seguridad del sistema y solicitar la de su jefe para tal supuesto propósito.

Con increíble facilidad se obtiene la información buscada.

Entre las compañías en las que se hizo la prueba figuran Oracle, Apple, AT&T Delta Air Lines, Symantec y Verizon.

Agencias, 09 de agosto de 2011 a las 10:18

22 August 2011

Kaspersky disputes McAfee's Shady Rat report

Last week, Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (CA-45), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, sent a letter to Dmitri Alperovitch, Vice President of Threat Research at McAfee, requesting further information on his recently published report “Revealed: Operation Shady RAT.”

First of all I’d like to say straight out that we do not share the concerns surrounding the intrusion described in the report, which intrusion the report claims has resulted in the theft of sensitive information of multiple governments, corporations and non-profit organizations.

We conducted detailed analysis of the Shady RAT botnet and its related malware, and can conclude that the reality of the matter (especially the technical specifics) differs greatly from the conclusions made by Mr. Alperovitch.

We consider those conclusions to be largely unfounded and not a good measure of the real threat level. Also, we cannot concede that the McAfee analyst was not aware of the groundlessness of the conclusions, leading us to being able to flag the report as alarmist due to its deliberately spreading misrepresented information.

I’d like to give my own answers to the key questions posed in the letter, to firmly establish the assessment of the situation by Kaspersky Lab as global security researchers – not only for the US, but for all nations concerned with cybercrime and advanced threats.

The report suggests the high-profile intrusions of recent months are neither sophisticated nor novel. How do these unsophisticated intrusions differ from the intrusions that were the focus of your report?

Many of the so-called “unsophisticated” intrusions that the IT security industry has discovered recently and which have been so prominent in the news should in fact be labeled just the opposite: “sophisticated”.

These sophisticated threats – such as TDSS, Zeus, Conficker, Bredolab, Stuxnet, Sinowal and Rustock – pose a much greater risk to governments, corporations and non-profit organizations than Shady RAT.

For example, TDSS controls one of the world’s largest zombie networks, made up of more than 4.5 million computers worldwide. It contains extremely sophisticated techniques and implements a whole range of risky payloads that can lead to the theft of sensitive information and even funds in bank accounts, to spam distribution, DDoS attacks and much more.

On the other hand, most security vendors did not even bother assigning a name to Shady RAT’s malware family, due to its being rather primitive.

Are such intrusions something the government and private sector can effectively prevent or mitigate on a continuing basis?

Most commercially-available anti-virus software is capable of preventing infection by the malware involved in Operation Shady RAT; most doesn’t require a special update to do so either, capable of detecting the malware generically.

Did the logs analyzed by McAfee reveal novel techniques or patterns that would be helpful in our efforts to combat cybercrime?

We are fairly sure that the logs that McAfee analyzed did not differ from the logs all the other security vendors analyzed.

Here are our findings: unlike malware from the abovementioned sophisticated samples, we found no novel techniques or patterns used in this malware. What we did find were striking shortcomings that reveal the authors’ low level of programming skill and lack of basic web security knowledge.

In addition, the way the malware spread – via masses of spam messages with infected files attached – is now considered to be old hat; most modern malware uses web attacks to get to target computers. Shady RAT also never used any advanced or previously unknown technologies for hiding itself in the system, any countermeasures against anti-viruses, or any encryption to protect the traffic between the servers and infected computers. Needless to say, these are features inherent only in sophisticated malware.

What is the greater target: intellectual property and national security information, or consumer information that can be used to perpetrate identity theft?

There is no evidence showing what sort of data has been acquired from infected computers, or if any data has been acquired at all.

We can only understand what data (if any) has been stolen by conducting an in-depth investigation within an affected organization to examine the actual access rights of the infected computers.

The report suggests that the more insidious intrusions are more likely to occur without public disclosure. Would more public disclosure help or harm industry efforts to fight this type of cybercrime?

Some of the more insidious intrusions take place without the general public becoming aware of them. What’s more, they can go undetected for some time before being discovered by the IT security industry, and this is likely to continue due to the nature of the architecture of modern software and the Internet.

However, regarding Shady RAT, the IT security industry did know about this botnet, but decided not to ring any alarm bells due to its very low proliferation – as confirmed by our cloud-based cyber-threat monitoring system and by other security vendors. It has never been on the list of the most widespread threats.

For years now the industry has adopted the simple and helpful rule of not crying wolf.

A very important question that has slipped off the radar is what state is behind this intrusion?

It’s not possible to give a straight and clear answer to this question; however, it looks overwhelmingly likely that no state is behind the Shady RAT botnet. How the botnet operates and the way the related malware is designed reveals startling fundamental defects hardly indicative of a well-funded cyber-attack backed up by a nation state.

A good example of a cyber-attack most likely backed by a nation state is Stuxnet. Just compare the number of vulnerabilities used, special techniques, and the various assessments of the development cost. With Shady RAT we are dealing with a lame piece of homebrew code that could have been written by a beginner.

On the black market the Shady RAT malware would be valued at not much more than a couple hundred dollars. Even if an “evil” state were to decide to launch a targeted attack, it could buy much more sophisticated malware for just $2,000 – $3,000. And most certainly the evil state wouldn’t use the same command and control server for five years, and then keep it operating after it was revealed in the world media that it had been exposed – allowing security researchers to conduct in-depth analysis of the botnet.

We believe that this act was performed by rather novice criminals who were testing the ground, but who didn’t improve their skills much at all since the date they started the botnet.

To summarize the Shady RAT report:

Was it the most sophisticated attack ever?

No.

Was it the longest-lasting attack ever?

No.

Was it a historically unprecedented transfer of wealth?

No.

Is there proof that 71 organizations were compromised and had data leaked?

No.

Was it backed up by a state?

No.

Does Shady RAT deserve much attention?

No.

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