Security

avast-ordered-to-stop-selling-browsing-data-from-its-browsing-privacy-apps

Avast ordered to stop selling browsing data from its browsing privacy apps

Avast, avast antivirus, Biz & IT, browsing data, federal trade commission, ftc, jumpshot, Policy, privacy, Security, Tech / /

Security, privacy, things of that nature —

Identifiable data included job searches, map directions, “cosplay erotica.”

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Avast logo on a phone in front of the words

Getty Images

Avast, a name known for its security research and antivirus apps, has long offered Chrome extensions, mobile apps, and other tools aimed at increasing privacy.

Avast’s apps would “block annoying tracking cookies that collect data on your browsing activities,” and prevent web services from “tracking your online activity.” Deep in its privacy policy, Avast said information that it collected would be “anonymous and aggregate.” In its fiercest rhetoric, Avast’s desktop software claimed it would stop “hackers making money off your searches.”

All of that language was offered up while Avast was collecting users’ browser information from 2014 to 2020, then selling it to more than 100 other companies through a since-shuttered entity known as Jumpshot, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Under a proposed recent FTC order (PDF), Avast must pay $16.5 million, which is “expected to be used to provide redress to consumers,” according to the FTC. Avast will also be prohibited from selling future browsing data, must obtain express consent on future data gathering, notify customers about prior data sales, and implement a “comprehensive privacy program” to address prior conduct.

Reached for comment, Avast provided a statement that noted the company’s closure of Jumpshot in early 2020. “We are committed to our mission of protecting and empowering people’s digital lives. While we disagree with the FTC’s allegations and characterization of the facts, we are pleased to resolve this matter and look forward to continuing to serve our millions of customers around the world,” the statement reads.

Data was far from anonymous

The FTC’s complaint (PDF) notes that after Avast acquired then-antivirus competitor Jumpshot in early 2014, it rebranded the company as an analytics seller. Jumpshot advertised that it offered “unique insights” into the habits of “[m]ore than 100 million online consumers worldwide.” That included the ability to “[s]ee where your audience is going before and after they visit your site or your competitors’ sites, and even track those who visit a specific URL.”

While Avast and Jumpshot claimed that the data had identifying information removed, the FTC argues this was “not sufficient.” Jumpshot offerings included a unique device identifier for each browser, included in data like an “All Clicks Feed,” “Search Plus Click Feed,” “Transaction Feed,” and more. The FTC’s complaint detailed how various companies would purchase these feeds, often with the express purpose of pairing them with a company’s own data, down to an individual user basis. Some Jumpshot contracts attempted to prohibit re-identifying Avast users, but “those prohibitions were limited,” the complaint notes.

The connection between Avast and Jumpshot became broadly known in January 2020, after reporting by Vice and PC Magazine revealed that clients, including Home Depot, Google, Microsoft, Pepsi, and McKinsey, were buying data from Jumpshot, as seen in confidential contracts. Data obtained by the publications showed that buyers could purchase data including Google Maps look-ups, individual LinkedIn and YouTube pages, porn sites, and more. “It’s very granular, and it’s great data for these companies, because it’s down to the device level with a timestamp,” one source told Vice.

The FTC’s complaint provides more detail on how Avast, on its own web forums, sought to downplay its Jumpshot presence. Avast suggested both that only non-aggregated data was provided to Jumpshot and that users were informed during product installation about collecting data to “better understand new and interesting trends.” Neither of these claims proved true, the FTC suggests. And the data collected was far from harmless, given its re-identifiable nature:

For example, a sample of just 100 entries out of trillions retained by Respondents

showed visits by consumers to the following pages: an academic paper on a study of symptoms

of breast cancer; Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential candidacy announcement; a CLE course

on tax exemptions; government jobs in Fort Meade, Maryland with a salary greater than

$100,000; a link (then broken) to the mid-point of a FAFSA (financial aid) application;

directions on Google Maps from one location to another; a Spanish-language children’s

YouTube video; a link to a French dating website, including a unique member ID; and cosplay

erotica.

In a blog post accompanying its announcement, FTC Senior Attorney Lesley Fair writes that, in addition to the dual nature of Avast’s privacy products and Jumpshot’s extensive tracking, the FTC is increasingly viewing browsing data as “highly sensitive information that demands the utmost care.” “Data about the websites a person visits isn’t just another corporate asset open to unfettered commercial exploitation,” Fair writes.

FTC commissioners voted 3-0 to issue the complaint and accept the proposed consent agreement. Chair Lina Khan, along with commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, issued a statement on their vote.

Since the time of the FTC’s complaint and its Jumpshot business, Avast has been acquired by Gen Digital, a firm that contains Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, CCLeaner, and ReputationDefender, among other security businesses.

Disclosure: Condé Nast, Ars Technica’s parent company, received data from Jumpshot before its closure.

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Ransomware associated with LockBit still spreading 2 days after server takedown

Biz & IT, connectwise, lockbit, ransomware, screenconnect, Security / /

LINGERING RANSOMWARE MENACE —

LockBit’s extensive reach is making complete erasure hard.

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A stylized skull and crossbones made out of ones and zeroes.

Two days after an international team of authorities struck a major blow at LockBit, one of the Internet’s most prolific ransomware syndicates, researchers have detected a new round of attacks that are installing malware associated with the group.

The attacks, detected in the past 24 hours, are exploiting two critical vulnerabilities in ScreenConnect, a remote desktop application sold by Connectwise. According to researchers at two security firms—SophosXOps and Huntress—attackers who successfully exploit the vulnerabilities go on to install LockBit ransomware and other post-exploit malware. It wasn’t immediately clear if the ransomware was the official LockBit version.

“We can’t publicly name the customers at this time but can confirm the malware being deployed is associated with LockBit, which is particularly interesting against the backdrop of the recent LockBit takedown,” John Hammond, principal security researcher at Huntress, wrote in an email. “While we can’t attribute this directly to the larger LockBit group, it is clear that LockBit has a large reach that spans tooling, various affiliate groups, and offshoots that have not been completely erased even with the major takedown by law enforcement.”

Hammond said the ransomware is being deployed to “vet offices, health clinics, and local governments (including attacks against systems related to 911 systems).”

Muddying the attribution waters

SophosXOps and Huntress didn’t say if the ransomware being installed is the official LockBit version or a version leaked by a disgruntled LockBit insider in 2022. The leaked builder has circulated widely since then and has touched off a string of copycat attacks that aren’t part of the official operation.

“When builds are leaked, it can also muddy the waters with regards to attribution,” researchers from security firm Trend Micro said Thursday. “For example, in August 2023, we observed a group that called itself the Flamingo group using a leaked LockBit payload bundled with the Rhadamanthys stealer. In November 2023, we found another group, going by the moniker Spacecolon, impersonating LockBit. The group used email addresses and URLs that gave victims the impression that they were dealing with LockBit.”

SophosXOps said only that it had “observed several LockBit attacks.” A company spokesperson said no other details were available. Hammond said the malware was “associated with” the ransomware group and wasn’t immediately able to confirm if the malware was the official version or a knockoff.

The attacks come two days after officials in the UK, US, and Europol announced a major disruption of LockBit. The action included seizing control of 14,000 accounts and 34 servers, arresting two suspects, and issuing five indictments and three arrest warrants. Authorities also froze 200 cryptocurrency accounts linked to the ransomware operation. The actions came after investigators hacked and took control of the LockBit infrastructure.

Authorities said LockBit has extorted more than $120 million from thousands of victims around the world, making it among the world’s most active ransomware groups. Like most other ransomware groups, LockBit operates under a ransomware-as-a-service model, in which affiliates share the revenue they generate in exchange for using the LockBit ransomware and infrastructure.

Given the sheer number of affiliates and their broad geographic and organizational distribution, it’s often not feasible for all of them to be neutralized in actions like the one announced Tuesday. It’s possible that some affiliates remain operational and want to signal that the ransomware franchise will continue in one form or another. It’s also possible that the infections SophosXOps and Huntress are seeing are the work of an unaffiliated group of actors with other motivations.

Besides installing the LockBit-associated ransomware, Hammond said, the attackers are installing several other malicious apps, including a backdoor known as Cobalt Strike, cryptocurrency miners, and SSH tunnels for remotely connecting to compromised infrastructure.

The ScreenConnect vulnerabilities are under mass exploitation and are tracked as CVE-2024-1708 and CVE-2024-1709. ConnectWise has made patches available for all vulnerable versions, including those no longer actively supported.

Ransomware associated with LockBit still spreading 2 days after server takedown Read More »

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iMessage gets a major makeover that puts it on equal footing with Signal

Apple, Biz & IT, iMessage, messaging apps, MESSENGER, quantum computing, Security, signal / /
Stylized illustration of key.

iMessage is getting a major makeover that makes it among the two messaging apps most prepared to withstand the coming advent of quantum computing, largely at parity with Signal or arguably incrementally more hardened.

On Wednesday, Apple said messages sent through iMessage will now be protected by two forms of end-to-end encryption (E2EE), whereas before, it had only one. The encryption being added, known as PQ3, is an implementation of a new algorithm called Kyber that, unlike the algorithms iMessage has used until now, can’t be broken with quantum computing. Apple isn’t replacing the older quantum-vulnerable algorithm with PQ3—it’s augmenting it. That means, for the encryption to be broken, an attacker will have to crack both.

Making E2EE future safe

The iMessage changes come five months after the Signal Foundation, maker of the Signal Protocol that encrypts messages sent by more than a billion people, updated the open standard so that it, too, is ready for post-quantum computing (PQC). Just like Apple, Signal added Kyber to X3DH, the algorithm it was using previously. Together, they’re known as PQXDH.

iMessage and Signal provide end-to-end encryption, a protection that makes it impossible for anyone other than the sender and recipient of a message to read it in decrypted form. iMessage began offering E2EE with its rollout in 2011. Signal became available in 2014.

One of the biggest looming threats to many forms of encryption is quantum computing. The strength of the algorithms used in virtually all messaging apps relies on mathematical problems that are easy to solve in one direction and extremely hard to solve in the other. Unlike a traditional computer, a quantum computer with sufficient resources can solve these problems in considerably less time.

No one knows how soon that day will come. One common estimate is that a quantum computer with 20 million qubits (a basic unit of measurement) will be able to crack a single 2,048-bit RSA key in about eight hours. The biggest known quantum computer to date has 433 qubits.

Whenever that future arrives, cryptography engineers know it’s inevitable. They also know that it’s likely some adversaries will collect and stockpile as much encrypted data now and decrypt it once quantum advances allow for it. The moves by both Apple and Signal aim to defend against that eventuality using Kyber, one of several PQC algorithms currently endorsed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Since Kyber is still relatively new, both iMessage and Signal will continue using the more tested algorithms for the time being.

iMessage gets a major makeover that puts it on equal footing with Signal Read More »

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After years of losing, it’s finally feds’ turn to troll ransomware group

Biz & IT, hacking, lockbit, ransomware, Security, takedowns / /

LOOK WHO’S TROLLING NOW —

Authorities who took down the ransomware group brag about their epic hack.

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After years of losing, it’s finally feds’ turn to troll ransomware group

Getty Images

After years of being outmaneuvered by snarky ransomware criminals who tease and brag about each new victim they claim, international authorities finally got their chance to turn the tables, and they aren’t squandering it.

The top-notch trolling came after authorities from the US, UK, and Europol took down most of the infrastructure belonging to LockBit, a ransomware syndicate that has extorted more than $120 million from thousands of victims around the world. On Tuesday, most of the sites LockBit uses to shame its victims for being hacked, pressure them into paying, and brag of their hacking prowess began displaying content announcing the takedown. The seized infrastructure also hosted decryptors victims could use to recover their data.

The dark web site LockBit once used to name and shame victims, displaying entries such as

Enlarge / The dark web site LockBit once used to name and shame victims, displaying entries such as “press releases,” “LB Backend Leaks,” and “LockbitSupp You’ve been banned from Lockbit 3.0.”

this_is_really_bad

Authorities didn’t use the seized name-and-shame site solely for informational purposes. One section that appeared prominently gloated over the extraordinary extent of the system access investigators gained. Several images indicated they had control of /etc/shadow, a Linux file that stores cryptographically hashed passwords. This file, among the most security-sensitive ones in Linux, can be accessed only by a user with root, the highest level of system privileges.

Screenshot showing a folder named

Enlarge / Screenshot showing a folder named “shadow” with hashes for accounts including “root,” “daemon,” “bin,” and “sys.”

Other images demonstrated that investigators also had complete control of the main web panel and the system LockBit operators used to communicate with affiliates and victims.

Screenshot of a panel used to administer the LockBit site.

Enlarge / Screenshot of a panel used to administer the LockBit site.

Screenshot showing chats between a LockBit affiliate and a victim.

Enlarge / Screenshot showing chats between a LockBit affiliate and a victim.

The razzing didn’t stop there. File names of the images had titles including: “this_is_really_bad.png,” “oh dear.png,” and “doesnt_look_good.png.” The seized page also teased the upcoming doxing of LockbitSupp, the moniker of the main LockBit figure. It read: “Who is LockbitSupp? The $10m question” and displayed images of cash wrapped in chains with padlocks. Copying a common practice of LockBit and competing ransomware groups, the seized site displayed a clock counting down the seconds until the identifying information will be posted.

Screenshot showing

Enlarge / Screenshot showing “who is lockbitsupp?”

In all, authorities said they seized control of 14,000 accounts and 34 servers located in the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, France, Switzerland, Australia, the US, and the UK. Two LockBit suspects have been arrested in Poland and Ukraine, and five indictments and three arrest warrants have been issued. Authorities also froze 200 cryptocurrency accounts linked to the ransomware operation.

“At present, a vast amount of data gathered throughout the investigation is now in the possession of law enforcement,” Europol officials said. “This data will be used to support ongoing international operational activities focused on targeting the leaders of this group, as well as developers, affiliates, infrastructure, and criminal assets linked to these criminal activities.”

LockBit has operated since at least 2019 under the name “ABCD.” Within three years, it was the most widely circulating ransomware. Like most of its peers, LockBit operates under what’s known as ransomware-as-a-service, in which it provides software and infrastructure to affiliates who use it to compromise victims. LockBit and the affiliates then divide any resulting revenue. Hundreds of affiliates participated.

According to KrebsOnSecurity, one of the LockBit leaders said on a Russian-language crime forum that a vulnerability in the PHP scripting language provided the means for authorities to hack the servers. That detail led to another round of razzing, this time from fellow forum participants.

“Does it mean that the FBI provided a pen-testing service to the affiliate program?” one participant wrote, according to reporter Brian Krebs. “Or did they decide to take part in the bug bounty program? :):).”

Several members also posted memes taunting the group about the security failure.

“In January 2024, LockBitSupp told XSS forum members he was disappointed the FBI hadn’t offered a reward for his doxing and/or arrest, and that in response he was placing a bounty on his own head—offering $10 million to anyone who could discover his real name,” Krebs wrote. “‘My god, who needs me?’ LockBitSupp wrote on January 22, 2024. ‘There is not even a reward out for me on the FBI website.’”

After years of losing, it’s finally feds’ turn to troll ransomware group Read More »

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DOJ quietly removed Russian malware from routers in US homes and businesses

Biz & IT, china, DDoS, department of justice, DoJ, Fancy Bear, fbi, routers, russia, Security, ubiquiti / /

Fancy Bear —

Feds once again fix up compromised retail routers under court order.

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Ethernet cable plugged into a router LAN port

Getty Images

More than 1,000 Ubiquiti routers in homes and small businesses were infected with malware used by Russian-backed agents to coordinate them into a botnet for crime and spy operations, according to the Justice Department.

That malware, which worked as a botnet for the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear, was removed in January 2024 under a secret court order as part of “Operation Dying Ember,” according to the FBI’s director. It affected routers running Ubiquiti’s EdgeOS, but only those that had not changed their default administrative password. Access to the routers allowed the hacking group to “conceal and otherwise enable a variety of crimes,” the DOJ claims, including spearphishing and credential harvesting in the US and abroad.

Unlike previous attacks by Fancy Bear—that the DOJ ties to GRU Military Unit 26165, which is also known as APT 28, Sofacy Group, and Sednit, among other monikers—the Ubiquiti intrusion relied on a known malware, Moobot. Once infected by “Non-GRU cybercriminals,” GRU agents installed “bespoke scripts and files” to connect and repurpose the devices, according to the DOJ.

The DOJ also used the Moobot malware to copy and delete the botnet files and data, according to the DOJ, and then changed the routers’ firewall rules to block remote management access. During the court-sanctioned intrusion, the DOJ “enabled temporary collection of non-content routing information” that would “expose GRU attempts to thwart the operation.” This did not “impact the routers’ normal functionality or collect legitimate user content information,” the DOJ claims.

“For the second time in two months, we’ve disrupted state-sponsored hackers from launching cyber-attacks behind the cover of compromised US routers,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in a press release.

The DOJ states it will notify affected customers to ask them to perform a factory reset, install the latest firmware, and change their default administrative password.

Christopher A. Wray, director of the FBI, expanded on the Fancy Bear operation and international hacking threats generally at the ongoing Munich Security Conference. Russia has recently targeted underwater cables and industrial control systems worldwide, Wray said, according to a New York Times report. And since its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has focused on the US energy sector, Wray said.

The past year has been an active time for attacks on routers and other network infrastructure. TP-Link routers were found infected in May 2023 with malware from a reportedly Chinese-backed group. In September, modified firmware in Cisco routers was discovered as part of a Chinese-backed intrusion into multinational companies, according to US and Japanese authorities. Malware said by the DOJ to be tied to the Chinese government was removed from SOHO routers by the FBI last month in similar fashion to the most recently revealed operation, targeting Cisco and Netgear devices that had mostly reached their end of life and were no longer receiving security patches.

In each case, the routers provided a highly valuable service to the groups; that service was secondary to whatever primary aims later attacks might have. By nesting inside the routers, hackers could send commands from their overseas locations but have the traffic appear to be coming from a far more safe-looking location inside the target country or even inside a company.

Similar inside-the-house access has been sought by international attackers through VPN products, as in the three different Ivanti vulnerabilities discovered recently.

DOJ quietly removed Russian malware from routers in US homes and businesses Read More »

canada-declares-flipper-zero-public-enemy-no.-1-in-car-theft-crackdown

Canada declares Flipper Zero public enemy No. 1 in car-theft crackdown

Biz & IT, Canada, car theft, Cars, flipper zero, hacking, Policy, radio, Security / /

FLIPPING YOUR LID —

How do you ban a device built with open source hardware and software anyway?

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A Flipper Zero device

Enlarge / A Flipper Zero device

https://flipperzero.one/

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has identified an unlikely public enemy No. 1 in his new crackdown on car theft: the Flipper Zero, a $200 piece of open source hardware used to capture, analyze and interact with simple radio communications.

On Thursday, the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada agency said it will “pursue all avenues to ban devices used to steal vehicles by copying the wireless signals for remote keyless entry, such as the Flipper Zero, which would allow for the removal of those devices from the Canadian marketplace through collaboration with law enforcement agencies.” A social media post by François-Philippe Champagne, the minister of that agency, said that as part of the push “we are banning the importation, sale and use of consumer hacking devices, like flippers, used to commit these crimes.”

In remarks made the same day, Trudeau said the push will target similar tools that he said can be used to defeat anti-theft protections built into virtually all new cars.

“In reality, it has become too easy for criminals to obtain sophisticated electronic devices that make their jobs easier,” he said. “For example, to copy car keys. It is unacceptable that it is possible to buy tools that help car theft on major online shopping platforms.”

Presumably, such tools subject to the ban would include HackRF One and LimeSDR, which have become crucial for analyzing and testing the security of all kinds of electronic devices to find vulnerabilities before they’re exploited. None of the government officials identified any of these tools, but in an email, a representative of the Canadian government reiterated the use of the phrase “pursuing all avenues to ban devices used to steal vehicles by copying the wireless signals for remote keyless entry.”

A humble hobbyist device

The push to ban any of these tools has been met with fierce criticism from hobbyists and security professionals. Their case has only been strengthened by Trudeau’s focus on Flipper Zero. This slim, lightweight device bearing the logo of an adorable dolphin acts as a Swiss Army knife for sending, receiving, and analyzing all kinds of wireless communications. It can interact with radio signals, including RFID, NFC, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or standard radio. People can use them to change the channels of a TV at a bar covertly, clone simple hotel key cards, read the RFID chip implanted in pets, open and close some garage doors, and, until Apple issued a patch, send iPhones into a never-ending DoS loop.

The price and ease of use make Flipper Zero ideal for beginners and hobbyists who want to understand how increasingly ubiquitous communications protocols such as NFC and Wi-Fi work. It bundles various open source hardware and software into a portable form factor that sells for an affordable price. Lost on the Canadian government, the device isn’t especially useful in stealing cars because it lacks the more advanced capabilities required to bypass anti-theft protections introduced in more than two decades.

One thing the Flipper Zero is exceedingly ill-equipped for is defeating modern antihack protections built into cars, smartcards, phones, and other electronic devices.

The most prevalent form of electronics-assisted car theft these days, for instance, uses what are known as signal amplification relay devices against keyless ignition and entry systems. This form of hack works by holding one device near a key fob and a second device near the vehicle the fob works with. In the most typical scenario, the fob is located on a shelf near a locked front door, and the car is several dozen feet away in a driveway. By placing one device near the front door and another one next to the car, the hack beams the radio signals necessary to unlock and start the device.

Canada declares Flipper Zero public enemy No. 1 in car-theft crackdown Read More »

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London Underground is testing real-time AI surveillance tools to spot crime

AI, AI surveillance, Biz & IT, Freedom of information act, london underground, Security, syndication / /

tube tracking —

Computer vision system tried to detect crime, weapons, people falling, and fare dodgers.

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Commuters wait on the platform as a Central Line tube train arrives at Liverpool Street London Transport Tube Station in 2023.

Thousands of people using the London Underground had their movements, behavior, and body language watched by AI surveillance software designed to see if they were committing crimes or were in unsafe situations, new documents obtained by WIRED reveal. The machine-learning software was combined with live CCTV footage to try to detect aggressive behavior and guns or knives being brandished, as well as looking for people falling onto Tube tracks or dodging fares.

From October 2022 until the end of September 2023, Transport for London (TfL), which operates the city’s Tube and bus network, tested 11 algorithms to monitor people passing through Willesden Green Tube station, in the northwest of the city. The proof of concept trial is the first time the transport body has combined AI and live video footage to generate alerts that are sent to frontline staff. More than 44,000 alerts were issued during the test, with 19,000 being delivered to station staff in real time.

Documents sent to WIRED in response to a Freedom of Information Act request detail how TfL used a wide range of computer vision algorithms to track people’s behavior while they were at the station. It is the first time the full details of the trial have been reported, and it follows TfL saying, in December, that it will expand its use of AI to detect fare dodging to more stations across the British capital.

In the trial at Willesden Green—a station that had 25,000 visitors per day before the COVID-19 pandemic—the AI system was set up to detect potential safety incidents to allow staff to help people in need, but it also targeted criminal and antisocial behavior. Three documents provided to WIRED detail how AI models were used to detect wheelchairs, prams, vaping, people accessing unauthorized areas, or putting themselves in danger by getting close to the edge of the train platforms.

The documents, which are partially redacted, also show how the AI made errors during the trial, such as flagging children who were following their parents through ticket barriers as potential fare dodgers, or not being able to tell the difference between a folding bike and a non-folding bike. Police officers also assisted the trial by holding a machete and a gun in the view of CCTV cameras, while the station was closed, to help the system better detect weapons.

Privacy experts who reviewed the documents question the accuracy of object detection algorithms. They also say it is not clear how many people knew about the trial, and warn that such surveillance systems could easily be expanded in the future to include more sophisticated detection systems or face recognition software that attempts to identify specific individuals. “While this trial did not involve facial recognition, the use of AI in a public space to identify behaviors, analyze body language, and infer protected characteristics raises many of the same scientific, ethical, legal, and societal questions raised by facial recognition technologies,” says Michael Birtwistle, associate director at the independent research institute the Ada Lovelace Institute.

In response to WIRED’s Freedom of Information request, the TfL says it used existing CCTV images, AI algorithms, and “numerous detection models” to detect patterns of behavior. “By providing station staff with insights and notifications on customer movement and behaviour they will hopefully be able to respond to any situations more quickly,” the response says. It also says the trial has provided insight into fare evasion that will “assist us in our future approaches and interventions,” and the data gathered is in line with its data policies.

In a statement sent after publication of this article, Mandy McGregor, TfL’s head of policy and community safety, says the trial results are continuing to be analyzed and adds, “there was no evidence of bias” in the data collected from the trial. During the trial, McGregor says, there were no signs in place at the station that mentioned the tests of AI surveillance tools.

“We are currently considering the design and scope of a second phase of the trial. No other decisions have been taken about expanding the use of this technology, either to further stations or adding capability.” McGregor says. “Any wider roll out of the technology beyond a pilot would be dependent on a full consultation with local communities and other relevant stakeholders, including experts in the field.”

London Underground is testing real-time AI surveillance tools to spot crime Read More »

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A password manager LastPass calls “fraudulent” booted from App Store

App Store, Apple, Biz & IT, lastpass, Security / /

GREAT PRETENDER —

“LassPass” mimicked the name and logo of real LastPass password manager.

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A password manager LastPass calls “fraudulent” booted from App Store

Getty Images

As Apple has stepped up its promotion of its App Store as a safer and more trustworthy source of apps, its operators scrambled Thursday to correct a major threat to that narrative: a listing that password manager maker LastPass said was a “fraudulent app impersonating” its brand.

At the time this article on Ars went live, Apple had removed the app—titled LassPass and bearing a logo strikingly similar to the one used by LastPass—from its App Store. At the same time, Apple allowed a separate app submitted by the same developer to remain. Apple provided no explanation for the reason for removing the former app or for allowing the latter one to remain.

Apple warns of “new risks” from competition

The move comes as Apple has beefed up its efforts to promote the App Store as a safer alternative to competing sources of iOS apps mandated recently by the European Union. In an interview with App Store head Phil Schiller published this month by FastCompany, Schiller said the new app stores will “bring new risks”—including pornography, hate speech, and other forms of objectionable content—that Apple has long kept at bay.

“I have no qualms in saying that our goal is going to always be to make the App Store the safest, best place for users to get apps,” he told writer Michael Grothaus. “I think users—and the whole developer ecosystem—have benefited from that work that we’ve done together with them. And we’re going to keep doing that.”

Somehow, Apple’s app vetting process—long vaunted even though Apple has provided few specifics—failed to spot the LastPass lookalike. Apple removed LassPass Thursday morning, two days, LastPass said, after it flagged the app to Apple and one day after warning its users the app was fraudulent.

“We are raising this to our customers’ attention to avoid potential confusion and/or loss of personal data,” LastPass Senior Principal Intelligence Analyst Mike Kosak wrote.

There’s no denying that the logo and name were strikingly similar to the official ones. Below is a screenshot of how LassPass appeared, followed by the official LastPass listing:

The LassPass entry as it appeared in the App Store.

Enlarge / The LassPass entry as it appeared in the App Store.

The official LastPass entry.

Enlarge / The official LastPass entry.

Here yesterday, gone today

Thomas Reed, director of Mac offerings at security firm Malwarebytes, noted that the LassPass entry in the App Store said the app’s privacy policy was available on bluneel[.]com, but that the page was gone by Thursday, and the main page shows a generic landing page. Whois records indicated the domain was registered five months ago.

There’s no indication that LassPass collected users’ LastPass credentials or copied any of the data it stored. The app did, however, provide fields for users to enter a wealth of sensitive personal information, including passwords, email and physical addresses, and bank, credit, and debit card data. The app had an option for paid subscriptions.

A LastPass representative said the company learned of the app on Tuesday and focused its efforts on getting it removed rather than analyzing its behavior. Company officials don’t have information about precisely what LassPass did when it was installed or when it first appeared in the App Store.

The App Store continues to host a separate app from the same developer who is listed simply as Parvati Patel. (A quick Internet search reveals many individuals with the same name. At the moment, it wasn’t possible to identify the specific one.) The separate app is named PRAJAPATI SAMAJ 42 Gor ABD-GNR, and a corresponding privacy policy (at psag42[.]in/policy.html) is dated December 2023. It’s described as an “application for Ahmedabad-Gandhinager Prajapati Samaj app” and further as a “platform for community.” The app was also recently listed on Google Play but was no longer available for download at the time of publication. Attempts to contact the developer were unsuccessful.

There’s no indication the separate app violates any App Store policy. Apple representatives didn’t respond to an email asking questions about the incident or its vetting process or policies.

A password manager LastPass calls “fraudulent” booted from App Store Read More »

critical-vulnerability-affecting-most-linux-distros-allows-for-bootkits

Critical vulnerability affecting most Linux distros allows for bootkits

Biz & IT, bootkits, Linux, Security, shim, uefi, vulnerabilities / /
Critical vulnerability affecting most Linux distros allows for bootkits

Linux developers are in the process of patching a high-severity vulnerability that, in certain cases, allows the installation of malware that runs at the firmware level, giving infections access to the deepest parts of a device where they’re hard to detect or remove.

The vulnerability resides in shim, which in the context of Linux is a small component that runs in the firmware early in the boot process before the operating system has started. More specifically, the shim accompanying virtually all Linux distributions plays a crucial role in secure boot, a protection built into most modern computing devices to ensure every link in the boot process comes from a verified, trusted supplier. Successful exploitation of the vulnerability allows attackers to neutralize this mechanism by executing malicious firmware at the earliest stages of the boot process before the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface firmware has loaded and handed off control to the operating system.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-40547, is what’s known as a buffer overflow, a coding bug that allows attackers to execute code of their choice. It resides in a part of the shim that processes booting up from a central server on a network using the same HTTP that the Internet is based on. Attackers can exploit the code-execution vulnerability in various scenarios, virtually all following some form of successful compromise of either the targeted device or the server or network the device boots from.

“An attacker would need to be able to coerce a system into booting from HTTP if it’s not already doing so, and either be in a position to run the HTTP server in question or MITM traffic to it,” Matthew Garrett, a security developer and one of the original shim authors, wrote in an online interview. “An attacker (physically present or who has already compromised root on the system) could use this to subvert secure boot (add a new boot entry to a server they control, compromise shim, execute arbitrary code).”

Stated differently, these scenarios include:

  • Acquiring the ability to compromise a server or perform an adversary-in-the-middle impersonation of it to target a device that’s already configured to boot using HTTP
  • Already having physical access to a device or gaining administrative control by exploiting a separate vulnerability.

While these hurdles are steep, they’re by no means impossible, particularly the ability to compromise or impersonate a server that communicates with devices over HTTP, which is unencrypted and requires no authentication. These particular scenarios could prove useful if an attacker has already gained some level of access inside a network and is looking to take control of connected end-user devices. These scenarios, however, are largely remedied if servers use HTTPS, the variant of HTTP that requires a server to authenticate itself. In that case, the attacker would first have to forge the digital certificate the server uses to prove it’s authorized to provide boot firmware to devices.

The ability to gain physical access to a device is also difficult and is widely regarded as grounds for considering it to be already compromised. And, of course, already obtaining administrative control through exploiting a separate vulnerability in the operating system is hard and allows attackers to achieve all kinds of malicious objectives.

Critical vulnerability affecting most Linux distros allows for bootkits Read More »

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As if two Ivanti vulnerabilities under exploit weren’t bad enough, now there are 3

Biz & IT, exploitation, ivanti, Security, vpns, vulnerabilities / /

CHAOS REIGNS —

Hackers looking to diversify, began mass exploiting a new vulnerability over the weekend.

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As if two Ivanti vulnerabilities under exploit weren’t bad enough, now there are 3

Mass exploitation began over the weekend for yet another critical vulnerability in widely used VPN software sold by Ivanti, as hackers already targeting two previous vulnerabilities diversified, researchers said Monday.

The new vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-21893, is what’s known as a server-side request forgery. Ivanti disclosed it on January 22, along with a separate vulnerability that so far has shown no signs of being exploited. Last Wednesday, nine days later, Ivanti said CVE-2024-21893 was under active exploitation, aggravating an already chaotic few weeks. All of the vulnerabilities affect Ivanti’s Connect Secure and Policy Secure VPN products.

A tarnished reputation and battered security professionals

The new vulnerability came to light as two other vulnerabilities were already under mass exploitation, mostly by a hacking group researchers have said is backed by the Chinese government. Ivanti provided mitigation guidance for the two vulnerabilities on January 11, and released a proper patch last week. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, meanwhile, mandated all federal agencies under its authority disconnect Ivanti VPN products from the Internet until they are rebuilt from scratch and running the latest software version.

By Sunday, attacks targeting CVE-2024-21893 had mushroomed, from hitting what Ivanti said was a “small number of customers” to a mass base of users, research from security organization Shadowserver showed. The steep line in the right-most part of the following graph tracks the vulnerability’s meteoric rise starting on Friday. At the time this Ars post went live, the exploitation volume of the vulnerability exceeded that of CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887, the previous Ivanti vulnerabilities under active targeting.

Shadowserver

Systems that had been inoculated against the two older vulnerabilities by following Ivanti’s mitigation process remained wide open to the newest vulnerability, a status that likely made it attractive to hackers. There’s something else that makes CVE-2024-21893 attractive to threat actors: because it resides in Ivanti’s implementation of the open-source Security Assertion Markup Language—which handles authentication and authorization between parties—people who exploit the bug can bypass normal authentication measures and gain access directly to the administrative controls of the underlying server.

Exploitation likely got a boost from proof-of-concept code released by security firm Rapid7 on Friday, but the exploit wasn’t the sole contributor. Shadowserver said it began seeing working exploits a few hours before the Rapid7 release. All of the different exploits work roughly the same way. Authentication in Ivanti VPNs occurs through the doAuthCheck function in an HTTP web server binary located at /root/home/bin/web. The endpoint /dana-ws/saml20.ws doesn’t require authentication. As this Ars post was going live, Shadowserver counted a little more than 22,000 instances of Connect Secure and Policy Secure.

Shadowserver

VPNs are an ideal target for hackers seeking access deep inside a network. The devices, which allow employees to log into work portals using an encrypted connection, sit at the very edge of the network, where they respond to requests from any device that knows the correct port configuration. Once attackers establish a beachhead on a VPN, they can often pivot to more sensitive parts of a network.

The three-week spree of non-stop exploitation has tarnished Ivanti’s reputation for security and battered security professionals as they have scrambled—often in vain—to stanch the flow of compromises. Compounding the problem was a slow patch time that missed Ivanti’s own January 24 deadline by a week. Making matters worse still: hackers figured out how to bypass the mitigation advice Ivanti provided for the first pair of vulnerabilities.

Given the false starts and high stakes, CISA’s Friday mandate of rebuilding all servers from scratch once they have installed the latest patch is prudent. The requirement doesn’t apply to non-government agencies, but given the chaos and difficulty securing the Ivanti VPNs in recent weeks, it’s a common-sense move that all users should have taken by now.

As if two Ivanti vulnerabilities under exploit weren’t bad enough, now there are 3 Read More »

a-startup-allegedly-“hacked-the-world”-then-came-the-censorship—and-now-the-backlash.

A startup allegedly “hacked the world.” Then came the censorship—and now the backlash.

Biz & IT, hackers, Security, syndication / /

hacker-for-hire —

Anti-censorship voices are working to highlight reports of one Indian company’s hacker past.

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A startup allegedly “hacked the world.” Then came the censorship—and now the backlash.

Hacker-for-hire firms like NSO Group and Hacking Team have become notorious for enabling their customers to spy on vulnerable members of civil society. But as far back as a decade ago in India, a startup called Appin Technology and its subsidiaries allegedly played a similar cyber-mercenary role while attracting far less attention. Over the past two years, a collection of people with direct and indirect links to that company have been working to keep it that way, using a campaign of legal threats to silence publishers and anyone else reporting on Appin Technology’s alleged hacking past. Now, a loose coalition of anti-censorship voices is working to make that strategy backfire.

For months, lawyers and executives with ties to Appin Technology and to a newer organization that shares part of its name, called the Association of Appin Training Centers, have used lawsuits and legal threats to carry out an aggressive censorship campaign across the globe. These efforts have demanded that more than a dozen publications amend or fully remove references to the original Appin Technology’s alleged illegal hacking or, in some cases, mentions of that company’s co-founder, Rajat Khare. Most prominently, a lawsuit against Reuters brought by the Association of Appin Training Centers resulted in a stunning order from a Delhi court: It demanded that Reuters take down its article based on a blockbuster investigation into Appin Technology that had detailed its alleged targeting and spying on opposition leaders, corporate competitors, lawyers, and wealthy individuals on behalf of customers worldwide. Reuters “temporarily” removed its article in compliance with that injunction and is fighting the order in Indian court.

As Appin Training Centers has sought to enforce that same order against a slew of other news outlets, however, resistance is building. Earlier this week, the digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sent a response—published here—pushing back against Appin Training Centers’ legal threats on behalf of media organizations caught in this crossfire, including the tech blog Techdirt and the investigative news nonprofit MuckRock.

No media outlet has claimed that Appin Training Centers—a group that describes itself as an educational firm run in part by former franchisees of the original Appin Technology, which reportedly ceased its alleged hacking operations more than a decade ago—has been involved in any illegal hacking. In December, however, Appin Training Centers sent emails to Techdirt and MuckRock demanding they too take down all content related to allegations that Appin Technology previously engaged in widespread cyberspying operations, citing the court order against Reuters.

Techdirt, Appin Training Centers argued, fell under that injunction by writing about Reuters’ story and the takedown order targeting it. So had MuckRock, the plaintiffs claimed, which hosted some of the documents that Reuters had cited in its story and uploaded to MuckRock’s DocumentCloud service. In the response sent on their behalf, the EFF states that the two media organizations are refusing to comply, arguing that the Indian court’s injunction “is in no way the global takedown order your correspondence represents it to be.” It also cites an American law called the SPEECH Act that deems any foreign court’s libel ruling that violates the First Amendment unenforceable in the US.

“It’s not a good state for a free press when one company can, around the world, disappear news articles,” Michael Morisy, the CEO and co-founder of MuckRock, tells WIRED. “That’s something that fundamentally we need to push back against.”

Techdirt founder Mike Masnick says that, beyond defeating the censorship of the Appin Technology story, he hopes their public response to that censorship effort will ultimately bring even more attention to the group’s past. In fact, 19 years ago, Masnick coined the term “the Streisand effect” to describe a situation in which someone’s attempt to hide information results in its broader exposure—exactly the situation he hopes to help create in this case. “The suppression of accurate reporting is problematic,” says Masnick. “When it happens, it deserves to be called out, and there should be more attention paid to those trying to silence it.”

The anti-secrecy nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) has also joined the effort to spark that Streisand Effect, “uncensoring” Reuters’ story on the original Appin Technology as part of a new initiative it calls the Greenhouse Project. DDoSecrets cofounder Emma Best says the name comes from its intention to foster a “warming effect”—the opposite of the “chilling effect” used to describe the self-censorship created by legal threats. “It sends a signal to would-be censors, telling them that their success may be fleeting and limited,” Best says. “And it assures other journalists that their work can survive.”

Neither Appin Training Centers nor Rajat Khare responded to WIRED’s request for comment, nor did Reuters.

The fight to expose the original Appin Technology’s alleged hacking history began to reach a head in November of 2022, when the Association for Appin Training Centers sued Reuters based only on its reporters’ unsolicited messages to Appin Training Centers’ employees and students. The company’s legal complaint, filed in India’s judicial system, accused Reuters not only of defamation, but “mental harassment, stalking, sexual misconduct and trauma.”

Nearly a full year later, Reuters nonetheless published its article, “How an Indian Startup Hacked the World.” The judge in the case initially sided with Appin Training Centers, writing that the article could have a “devastating effect on the general students population of India.” He quickly ordered an injunction stating that Appin Training Centers can demand Reuters take down their claims about Appin Technology.

A startup allegedly “hacked the world.” Then came the censorship—and now the backlash. Read More »