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Windows 11, the latest operating system (OS) from Microsoft, launches today, and organizations have begun asking themselves when and if they should upgrade from Windows 10 or older versions. The requirements and considerations of each organization will be different, and many things will inform the decisions they make about whether to stick or twist. One of those things will be whether or not Windows 11 makes them safer and more secure.

I spoke to Malwarebytes’ Windows experts Alex Smith and Charles Oppermann to understand what’s changed in Windows 11 and what impact it could have on security.

A higher bar for hardware

If you’ve read anything about Windows 11 it’s probably that it will only run on “new” computers. Microsoft’s latest OS sets a high bar for hardware, with the aim of creating a secure platform for all that’s layered on top of it. In effect, Microsoft is making its existing Secured-core PC standards the new baseline, so that a range of technologies that are optional in Windows 10 are mandatory, or on by default, in Windows 11.

In reality the hardware requirements will only seem exacting for a short period. Moore’s Law and the enormous Windows install base mean that yesterday’s stringent hardware requirements will rapidly turn into today’s minimum spec.

Three of the new OS’s hardware requirements play major, interlocking roles in security:

All hail the hypervisor

At a minimum, Windows 11 requires a 64-bit, 1 GHz processor with virtualization extensions and at least two cores, and HVCI-compatible drivers. In practice that means it requires an 8th generation Intel processor, an AMD Zen 2, or a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8180.

This is because Virtualization Based Security (VBS) has become a keystone concept in Microsoft’s approach to security. VBS runs Windows on top of a hypervisor, which can then use the same techniques that keep guest operating systems apart to create secure spaces that are isolated from the main OS. Doing that requires hardware-based virtualization features, and enough horsepower that you won’t notice the drag on performance.

Noteworthy security features that rely on VBS include:

• Kernel Data Protection, which uses VBS to mark some kernel memory as read only, to protect the Windows kernel and its drivers from being tampered with.
• Memory Integrity (a more digestible name for HVCI), which runs code integrity checks in an isolated environment, which should provide stronger protection against kernel viruses and malware.
• Application Guard, a protective sandbox for Edge and Microsoft Office that uses virtualization to isolate untrusted websites and office documents, limiting the damage they can cause.
• Credential Guard runs the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service in a virtual container, which stops attackers dumping credentials and using them in pass-the-hash attacks.
• Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-In uses VBS to isolate biometric software, and to create secure pathways to external components like the camera and TPM.

United Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)

UEFI is a specification for the firmware that controls the first stages of booting up a computer, before the operating system is loaded. (It’s a replacement for the more widely-known BIOS.) From a security standpoint, UEFI’s key feature is Secure Boot, which checks the digital signatures of the software used in the boot process. It protects against bootkits that load before the operating system, and rootkits that modify the operating system.

Trusted Platform Module 2.0 (TPM 2.0)

TMP is tamper-resistant technology that performs cryptographic operations, such as creating and storing cryptographic keys, where they can’t be interfered with. It’s probably best known for its role in Secure Boot, that ensures computers only load trusted boot loaders, and in BitLocker disk encryption. In Windows 11 it forms the secure underpinning for a host of security features, including Secure Boot’s big brother, Measured Boot; BitLocker (Device Encryption on Windows Home); Windows Defender System Guard; Device Health Attestation; Windows Hello; and more.

New in Windows 11

Windows 11 has some new tricks up its sleeve too.

Hardware-enforced Stack Protection

Windows 11 extends the Hardware-enforced Stack Protection introduced in Windows 10 so that it protects code running in kernel mode as well as in user mode. It’s designed to prevent control-flow hijacking by creating a “shadow stack” that mirrors the call stack’s list of return addresses. When control is transferred to a return address on the call stack it’s checked against the shadow stack to ensure it hasn’t changed. If it has, something untoward has happened and an error is raised.

Pluton

Windows 11 comes ready to embrace the impressively-named Pluton TPM architecture. It’s been a feature of the Xbox One gaming console since 2013, but doesn’t exit in PCs… yet.

Pluton sees the security chip built directly into the CPU, which prevents physical attacks that target the communication channel between the CPU and the TPM. And while Pluton is backwards-compatible with existing TPMs, it’ll do more if you let it. According to Microsoft, “Pluton also provides the unique Secure Hardware Cryptography Key (SHACK) technology that helps ensure keys are never exposed outside of the protected hardware, even to the Pluton firmware itself”.

Microsoft Azure Attestation (MAA)

No discussion about security in 2021 would be complete without somebody mentioning Zero Trust, so here it is. Windows 11 comes with out-of-the-box support for MAA, which can verify the integrity of a system’s hardware and software remotely. Microsoft says this will allow organizations to “enforce Zero Trust policies when accessing sensitive resources in the cloud”.

Evolution, not revolution

For several years, Microsoft’s approach to Windows security has been to create a chain of trust that ensures the integrity of the entire hardware and software stack, from the ground up. The latest version of Windows seeks to make that approach the default, and demands the hardware necessary to make it work. With Windows 11, Microsoft is making an aggressive attempt to raise the security floor of the PC platform, and that’s a good thing for everyone’s security.

Make no mistake that threat actors will adapt, as they have done before. Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups are well-funded enough to find a way through tough defences, ransomware gangs are notoriously good at finding the lowest-hanging fruit, and lucrative forms of social engineering like BEC are notoriously resistant to technology solutions.

And you can add to that the interlocking problems of increasing complexity, backwards compatibility, and technical debt. Operating systems and the applications they must support are a behemoth, and while Microsoft pursues its laudable aim of eliminating entire classes of vulnerabilities, new bugs will appear and a lot of legacy code will inevitably come along for the ride.

Decisions about whether to adopt Windows 11 will doubtless be impacted by the fact it won’t run on a lot of otherwise perfectly good computers. We expect this to have a chilling effect on organizations’ willingness to migrate away from Windows 10.

And there are other headwinds too. These days, new Windows operating systems are rarely greeted with great enthusiasm unless they’re putting right the wrongs of a particularly disliked predecessor. The bottom line is that Windows 10 works and OS upgrades are painful, so it is difficult to imagine that anyone will conclude they need Windows 11.

Migration away from older versions of Windows is inevitable eventually, and by the time mainstream support for Windows 10 ends in October 2025, users will undoubtedly be more secure. But we expect organizations to move away from Windows 10 slowly, which will delay the undoubted security benefits that will follow from wide-scale adoption of Windows 11.

The post Windows 11 is out. Is it any good for security? appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

“A global privacy disaster”, “espionage gold”, and “a state-sponsored wet dream” are just some of the comments one can read regarding the breach at Syniverse, a key player in the tech/telecommunications industry that calls itself the “center of the connected world.”

In a filing with the US Security and Exchange Commission, Syniverse said the breach affected more than 200 of its clients who have an accumulated number of cellphone users by the billions worldwide. Syniverse’s clients include Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Vodafone, China Mobile, Telefonica, and America Movil, to name a few.

The company revealed that it first noticed the breach in May 2021, but that the access had begun in May 2016—a whole five years before.

According to Motherboard, who first wrote about this story, Syniverse receives, processes, stores, and transmits electronic customer information, which includes billing information among carriers globally, records about calls and data usage, and other potentially sensitive data. It processes more than 740 billion SMS messages alone per year, routing text messages between users of two different carriers (both in the US and abroad).

The filing said that “Syniverse’s investigation revealed that the individual or organization gained unauthorized access to databases within its network on several occasions, and that login information allowing access to or from its Electronic Data Transfer (“EDT”) environment was compromised for approximately 235 of its customers.”

In an email interview with Motherboard, Karsten Nohl, a security researcher is quoted saying, “Syniverse systems have direct access to phone call records and text messaging, and indirect access to a large range of Internet accounts protected with SMS 2-factor authentication. Hacking Syniverse will ease access to Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and all kinds of other accounts, all at once.”

A telecomm industry insider, who spoke to Motherboard said: “With all that information, I could build a profile on you. I’ll know exactly what you’re doing, who you’re calling, what’s going on. I’ll know when you get a voicemail notification. I’ll know who left the voicemail. I’ll know how long that voicemail was left for. When you make a phone call, I’ll know exactly where you made that phone call from.”

“I’ll know more about you than your doctor.”

Motherboard asked Syniverse whether the hackers had accessed or stolen personal data on cellphone users, but Syniverse declined to answer. 

Syniverse said all EDT customers have had their credentials reset or inactivated, whether they were part of the breach or not. The company says no further action is required on behalf of those customers.

“We have communicated directly with our customers regarding this matter and have concluded that no additional action is required. In addition to resetting customer credentials, we have implemented substantial additional measures to provide increased protection to our systems and customers.” 

The post Criminals were inside Syniverse for 5 years before anyone noticed appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Mark Zuckerberg was left counting the personal cost of bad PR yesterday (about $6 billion, according to Bloomberg) on a day when his company couldn’t get out of the news headlines, for all the wrong reasons.

The billionaire Facebook CEO’s bad day at the office started with whistleblower Frances Haugen finally revealing her identity in a round of interviews that looked set to lay siege to the Monday headlines. Anonymous revelations by the former Facebook product manager had fuelled an entire Wall Street Journal series about the harm inflicted or ignored by Instagram and Facebook, and her unmasking was its denouement. It was supposed to be big news, and for a while it was.

But then something even bigger happened.

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp completely disappeared. For six hours.

Despite losing access to the world’s favourite confirmation bias apparatus, conspiracy theorists didn’t miss a beat. Putting two and two together to make five, they decided that it was all too convenient and that Facebook was using the dead cat strategy to rob Haugen of the spotlight!

It was a convenient theory, but there is no evidence for it besides an interesting coincidence, and it ignores the fact that Facebook taking itself out to silence a whistleblower is a far more interesting story than Facebook simply taking itself out by accident. I’m afraid that in the absence of more compelling information, Hanlon’s Razor will have to suffice: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”.

BGP

What we can say for sure, is that Facebook took itself and its stablemates out with a spectacular self-inflicted wound, in the form of a toxic Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) update.

The Internet is a patchwork of hundreds of thousands of separate networks, called Autonomous Systems, that are stitched together with BGP. To route data across the Internet, Autonomous Systems need to know which IP addresses other Autonomous Systems either control or can route traffic to. They share this information with each other using BGP.

According to Cloudflare—which has published an excellent explanation of what it saw—Facebook’s trouble started when its Autonomous System issued a BGP update withdrawing routes to its own DNS servers. Without DNS servers, the address facebook.com stopped working. In Cloudflare’s words: “With those withdrawals, Facebook and its sites had effectively disconnected themselves from the Internet.”

Cloudflare appears to have noticed the problem almost straight away, so we can assume that Facebook did too. So why did it take six more hours to fix it? The social media scuttlebutt, later confirmed in Facebook’s own terse explanation, was that the outage disabled the very tools Facebook’s enormous number of remote workers would normally rely on to both communicate with each other and to fix the problem.

The underlying cause of this outage also impacted many of the internal tools and systems we use in our day-to-day operations, complicating our attempts to quickly diagnose and resolve the problem.

The unconfirmed part of the same scuttlebutt is that Facebook is so 21st century that folks were locked out of offices, and even a server room, which had to be entered forcibly in order to fix the configuration issue locally.

Of course that could just be another conspiracy theory, but as somebody who has themselves been stranded outside a building, forced to look through a glass door at the very computer that controls that door attempting and failing to boot from the broken network I had come to investigate, let me assure you that it’s not an outrageous suggestion.

The Facebook Empire withdrawing itself from the Internet didn’t stop people looking for it though. In fact, it made them look much, much harder (just imagine everyone, everywhere, frustrated, hitting “refresh” or reinstalling Instagram until they’re bored, and you get the idea). Unanswered DNS requests spiked, and DNS resolvers groaned, as computers groped around in the dark looking for the now non-existent facebook.com domains.

When they weren’t pummelling DNS resolvers, the rest of the Facebook diaspora was forced to find other forms of entertainment or other means of communication. Some local mobile phone operators reported being overwhelmed, and encrypted messaging app Signal said it welcomed “millions” of new users as people looked for alternatives to WhatsApp.

And let’s not forget that there are companies that rely on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to drive business, and there are services that use Facebook logins for authentication. And then there’s the influencers. All of them had to stop. For six hours. Won’t somebody think of the influencers?

When it finally sank in that nobody could use Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp, it started to dawn on us all just how much so many of us have put Facebook and its products at the centre of our lives.

And then we all went to Twitter to tell everyone else how good or bad it all was. Thankfully, it withstood the onslaught.

Which leads us to the “so what?” part of our story. This is a security blog after all, and if this wasn’t a cyberattack you may be wondering what all of this has to do with security. Where’s the lesson in all of this?

Single points of failure people.

That’s it. That’s the tweet.

The post Facebook shoots own foot, hits Instagram and WhatsApp too appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, formerly known as National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The idea is to raise awareness about cybersecurity, and provide resources for people to feel safer and more secure online.

The month is a collaboration between the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and it focusses on four themes, in turn: “Be Cyber Smart”, “Phight the Phish”, “Explore. Experience. Share”, and “Cybersecurity First”. Some of these are perhaps a little interchangeable or vague, but it’s certainly a dedicated effort. The questions is, is anybody listening?

Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a fixture of the calendar now, as are Data Privacy Day, World Password Day, and a host of other well-intentioned privacy and security themed events. There are so many of them now, and they come around so often, that some of the Malwarebytes Labs team were feeling a little jaded about this month’s event.

So, in the spirit of the event’s first theme, “Be Cyber Smart”, we asked two of our Malwarebytes Labs blog team, Chris and Jovi, whether the smart thing to do was forgot about it altogether.

The pros and cons of awareness campaigns

Jovi: I don’t see that anyone can have a problem with events such as this. It’s good to have regular reminders about our responsibility to keep ourselves and our families safe. It’s also a good opportunity to learn something new about security and privacy.

Chris: I mean, are they really learning something new? From experience, the content in these events doesn’t tend to differ much from year to year. A lot of it is the same basic information you see on mainstream news reports, or blogs. I’ve been involved with events like this since 2005, and one time at a panel with reps from the FTC and the NYAG…

(several minutes of completely unrelated factoids from the dawn of time follow)

Jovi: …I’m surprised that didn’t end with you tying an onion to your belt.

Chris, oblivious to onions: If it was worthwhile, you’d think there’d be some tangible, visible improvement in security by this point. Or at least a bunch of people saying “Wow, that ‘event-name-goes-here’ really helped me with this one problem I had. Hooray for ‘event-name-goes-here’.

Jovi: True, but then again, not everyone sees every relevant news report or even reads blogs. Some people get a lot of their security information from sources like Twitter, direct from infosec pros. Who then end up directing them to events like this anyway. There’s always a churn of new people who haven’t seen any of this before, so I don’t think it’s a problem to repeat some of the basics every year. Not everything has to be groundbreaking. If it’s easy to understand and helpful, that’s okay too.

Chris: Possible, but I also think many people have burnout from this kind of thing. How many times can you hear a major event, backed by Homeland Security, say “watch out for suspicious links” before you start to demand something a bit more involved? Admittedly, we don’t know what specifically is going to be covered during the month itself yet. It might be a mix of basic information and more complicated processes, which would be great! Another major event saying “don’t run unknown files”, though? Do we really need that? Or is there still a place for it?

Jovi: I once again direct you to “a churn of new people who haven’t seen any of this before”.

Chris: Ouch.

Jovi: You may be right about the fatigue aspect, though. I imagine it’s likely very difficult for anyone to really care that much about a month-long event. If you’re directly involved in some way, then fine. If you’re one of the many random people it’s aimed at? I think it’s probable they simply won’t care very much by week 3.

Chris: It may also be exacerbated if the thing they really want to do or look at happens during the final week. Will they even remember to go back by the tail-end of October to check it out?

Jovi: This is where the web resources for the event will be crucial, alongside lots of activity on social media. Handy little reminders to go back and check it out will work wonders.

Chris: Might work wonders.

Jovi: Ouch.

Chris: One novel thing I’ll definitely highlight is that they’re doing a whole bit about careers in tech. This is good. Not every event does this. There’s a lot of resources available and the opportunity for security companies, researchers, and anyone else to give tips on how to break into the industry. This will be particularly helpful for students about to graduate, and people thinking about a change in career.

Jovi: I’m mostly interested in the phishing week. You can’t go wrong with phish advice, especially when so many people are still working from home and potentially isolated from their security teams.

Chris: Is that any better than any other event doing a phish week though?

Jovi: It certainly doesn’t hurt to have them. I reckon big organisations and governments saying “we’re interested in this and you should be too” ultimately helps more than it hurts. We’d definitely feel their absence.

Chris: I’ll give you that. I’m not 100% convinced these events are making as much impact as some may think. This is what, the 18th one of these now? I’d be interested to know what the organisers think about how successful they are, what difference they’ve made. Even so, you’re likely right that we’re better served by having them than not at all.

Jovi: Amazing—did we finally agree?

Chris: Yes, please inform the DHS I’ve given permission for the event to go ahead.

Jovi: I’m sure they’ll be relieved.

Chris: This somehow feels like sarcasm.

Jovi: Definitely not.

Winding down

Whether you think events like this are a big boon to security discourse or too much like repeating ourselves for diminishing returns, they’re here to stay. We can all play a part in ensuring these annual reminders stay relevant. Whether you’re flying solo at home, an organisation, a security vendor, an SME, or a collection of interested students? Get involved!

Let the organisers know what you’d most like to see—if not at this event, then perhaps the next one. If these awareness campaigns exist in a vacuum, they’ll assume they’re getting everything right. Let’s help them along to fix the bits we’re not sure about and make it work for everyone.

The post Does Cybersecurity Awareness Month actually improve security? appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

One of the world’s ransomware groups appears to be a couple of members short today—and about two million dollars less rich—but nobody is sure which one. Police are staying tight-lipped about who’s short-handed following the arrest of two individuals in Kyiv, Ukraine. The arrests are part of a joint operation by the FBI, the French National Gendarmerie, and the Ukrainian National Police.

What little we do know comes by way of a terse Europol press release—which says that police seized $375,000 in cash, a further $1.3 million in cryptocurrencies and two “luxury vehicles”—and a press release and video by Ukrainian police.

The video shows police searching a surprisingly clean and tidy apartment. Among the usual ransomware gang paraphernalia of mobile phones, laptops, a fancy-pants computer “rig”, gaming chairs, and wads of cash, we also get a peak at some of the more surprising and mundane aspects of life as (or perhaps with) a modern day digital criminal. The video reveals enough flowers and little gift boxes to suggest it was a special day for somebody, as well as the occupants’ fondness for both Capri Sun, and brands like Louis Vuitton and Senso.

Of course what we really want to know is which ransomware group has taken a hit. There, we’re getting only crumbs from the police and guesswork from Twitter sleuths. Europol has divulged that the people arrested belong to an organised crime group “suspected of having committed a string of targeted attacks against very large industrial groups in Europe and North America from April 2020 onwards.” It says the criminals “would deploy malware and steal sensitive data from these companies, before encrypting their files”, a fairly vanilla description of modern-day ransomware. It describes the people arrested as “two prolific ransomware operators known for their extortionate ransom demands (between €5 to €70 million)”.

The individuals could belong to one of the well known ransomware groups, but it’s worth remembering that lots of ransomware is operated “as a service”, by affiliates. In either case, it’s fair to say that others will be along shortly to fill the void they leave, should those arrested be required to occupy a jail cell.

Europol says it helped the joint operation with analytical, malware, forensic, and crypto-tracing support. The last item is the least surprising on the list. The modern ransomware phenomenon is entirely reliant on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, and many observers have identified it as ransomware’s Achilles heel.

Why? Because cryptocurrency payments are very public. While the identities of payers and payees are hidden behind pseudonymous IDs, the actual payments happen in broad daylight and are recorded forever in giant distributed databases called blockchains. If real people can be linked to those IDs, then their role in ransomware transactions can be revealed.

A few years ago, we were all fond of describing the analysis of relationships in very large databases as Big Data, and the Bitcoin blockchain is the biggest of Big Data. It contains every transaction ever made with the cryptocurrency, nothing can ever be removed from it, anyone can own a copy, and law enforcement’s ability to analyse the patterns within it improve with time, and every additional payment.

The US government has been turning up the heat on ransomware gangs this year and has been quite open about its intention to follow the money. So it won’t surprise you to learn that one of the people arrested in this recent raid is believed to be involved in money laundering. And no surprise that a similar raid against the Clop ransomware gang earlier this year that was also carried out by police in Ukraine, also in the area of Kyiv, also targeted the gang’s money laundering operation.

The post Police take a piece out of a ransomware gang, but won’t say which one appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Millions of Neiman Marcus customers have had their personal and financial information exposed in a data breach. In a press release the company confirmed unauthorized access to customer online accounts.

According to the press release 4.6 million customers of Neiman Marcus Group stores, specifically Neiman Marcus and Last Call, are being notified about the data breach by email.

What information was stolen?

For affected customers, it’s always important to know what information the threat actor may have gotten hold off. The personal information for affected Neiman Marcus customers varied and may have included:

• Names and contact information
• Payment card numbers and expiration dates (without CVV numbers)
• Neiman Marcus virtual gift card numbers (without PINs)
• Usernames, passwords, and security questions and answers associated with Neiman Marcus online accounts.

What has Neiman Marcus done?

To investigate the matter Neiman Marcus has engaged Mandiant, an American cybersecurity firm, and notified law enforcement. The investigation is ongoing.

Neiman Marcus has also informed the affected customers, and forced an online account password reset for affected customers who haven’t changed their password since May 2020. Neiman Marcus promised to continue to take actions to enhance its system security, and safeguard information.

The company has set up a phone number—(866) 571-9725—and web page for concerned customers, although at the time of publishing the website is not currently working.

What you can do

If you know or suspect you may have been affected by this data breach there are a few things you can do.

The most important one is to change your password and make sure you have not re-used the same login credentials elsewhere online. If you have, you’ll need to change that too. The same is true for any security questions.

Scammers like to make the most of data breaches like this by sending out fake emails trying to trick you into giving them your login credentials, so make sure you go directly to the website to change your password.

Unlike Neiman Marcus, other companies have offered free credit and identity monitoring services as a conciliatory measure after a data breach. In this case you would have to pay for that yourself. Credit monitoring services can’t actually stop cybercriminals from stealing your identity, but they can alert you if someone opens up a line of credit under your name.

Think about it this way, these services alert you to changes on your credit report if you can’t be bothered to check your own credit report. If that’s the case, then you may want to consider signing up and paying someone else to monitor your credit file for you, but the bottom line is that these credit monitoring services are just that—monitoring services, not protection.

If you find any unauthorized transactions involving your payment cards then immediately contact the relevant payment card company or financial institution.

Customers are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report annually from each of the three nationwide consumer reporting agencies. To order a free credit report, you can visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call 1-877-322-8228.

Attribution

As this is an ongoing investigation, there is not much information to be had about any details that may point to a certain threat actor. The stolen data may at some point surface for sale on underground forum or dark web marketplace.

If you are wondering if the login credentials have been made publicly available, you may be able to find them at the website Have I been pwned? The same is true for other credentials. In fact, it doesn’t hurt to check your email address there every so often.

There’s no reason to be ashamed if you find your email address there, as long as you don’t use it in combination with the same password anymore. If you do, then make sure you change it as soon as you can. You can use a password manager or password book to keep track of all your different passwords.

Stay safe, everyone!

The post Neiman Marcus data breach affects millions appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs

• Teaching cybersecurity skills to special needs children with Alana Robinson: Lock and Code S02E18
• Phone screenshots accidentally leaked online by stalkerware-type company
• FoggyWeb, analysis of a Nobelium backdoor
• Instagram Kids put on hold
• Microsoft, CISA and NSA offer security tools and advice, but will you take it?
• Vaccine passport app leaks users’ personal data
• Telegram-powered bots circumvent 2FA
• Android Trojan GriftHorse, the gift horse you definitely should look in the mouth
• Apple Pay vulnerable to wireless pickpockets
• The FCC moves to curb SIM swap attacks

Malwarebytes released the Demographics of Cybercrime Report.

Other cybersecurity news

• Cambodia’s prime minister is Zoombombing opposition meetings. (Source: Rest Of World)
• Apple ignored 3 Zero-Day iPhone attacks for months, claims researcher. (Source: Forbes)
• When you ‘Ask app not to track,’ some iPhone apps keep snooping anyway. (Source: The Washington Post)
• Microsoft was warned about the Autodiscover flaw five years ago. (Source: The Register)
• Mission accomplished: Security plugin HTTPS Everywhere to be deprecated in 2022. (Source: The Daily Swig)
• Fake Amnesty International Pegasus scanner used to infect Windows. (Source: BleepingComputer)
• Google pushes emergency update for Chrome zero-days, the latest in a hectic year for vulnerabilities. (Source: CyberScoop)
• Mozilla rolls out fission to a fraction of users on the release channel. (Source: Mozilla blog)
• Paying hackers’ ransom demands is getting harder. (Source: DataCenter Knowledge)
• Hackers bypass Coinbase 2FA to steal customer funds. (Source: The Record)

Stay safe, everyone!

The post A week in security (Sept 27 – Oct 3) appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Researchers have shown that it is possible for attackers to bypass an Apple iPhone’s lock screen to access payment services and make contactless transactions. The issue, which only applies to Apple Pay and Visa, is caused by the use of so-called magic bytes, a unique code used to unlock Apple Pay.

In the full paper, researchers from two UK universities—the University of Birmingham and the University of Surrey—show how this feature makes it possible to wirelessly pickpocket money.

The underlying issue

What happens often is that a feature designed to make our lives easier, also makes it easier for clever attackers to use that same feature against us. The vulnerability identified by the researchers is only present when Visa cards are set up using Express mode in an iPhone’s wallet. Express mode allows iPhone owners to use transit or payment cards, passes, a student ID, a car key, and more, without waking or unlocking their device, or authenticating with Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode. The user may even be able to use their card, pass, or key when their device needs to be charged.

Transport mode

Contactless Europay, Mastercard, and Visa (EMV) payments are a fast and easy way to make payments, particularly at a time when we’re all much more wary about the hygiene of the surfaces we touch.

Normally, payments via smart-phone apps need to be confirmed by the user via a fingerprint, PIN code, or Face ID. Apple Pay elevated the EMV standard for usability, by introducing a feature that allows it to be used at a ticketing barriers (like those used to access the London underground railway network) without unlocking the phone. And Apple is not alone. Samsung has introduced the same “transport mode” feature as well.

The researchers found that Transport for London (TfL) ticket barriers broadcast a non-standard sequence of bytes—so-called “magic bytes”—which bypass the Apple Pay lock screen. Apple Pay then checks that its other requirements are met (which are different for Visa and Mastercard) and if they are it allows a payment to be performed with no user interaction. In this way it allows underground passengers to move through the barriers without stopping, in the same as they do with Oyster cards.

Taking payments

For Apple Pay Visa, the researchers were able to craft messages that resulted in fraudulent payments from a locked iPhone to any EMV shop reader, for any amount. The tests were made for payments up to £1,000 (roughly US$ 1,350). Mastercard is stricter, requiring readers to have a transit merchant code before allowing this functionality.

The researchers also found that Samsung Pay does not use magic bytes, but it was always possible to perform an EMV transaction with a locked Samsung phone. However, they also found that locked Samsung Pay would only allow a zero-value payment. Transport providers (which is only TfL right now) must have an arrangement with their banks to make good the value of the tickets. According to the researchers, “this makes it impossible to relay Samsung Pay to shop readers to buy goods, but it is still possible to relay Samsung Pay to other transport readers”.

Pointing fingers

When the attack was disclosed to Apple and Visa, Apple reportedly said that the problem was with Visa (stop us if you’ve heard this one before), and Visa said it was with Apple. Apple insisted it was up to Visa to implement additional fraud detection checks. Visa pointed out that the same problem did not exist in the Samsung Pay and Visa combination.

For now, as the academics stated, while the problems are acknowledged by both parties, who have been spoken to extensively, the issue remains unfixed. Apparently, when two industry parties each have partial blame, neither are willing to accept full responsibility. Needless to say, while nobody fixes the problem, all users are vulnerable.

It seems unlikely that transport modes will be removed from phones, so the researchers have proposed an EMV relay-resistant protocol.

Where does that leave you?

The attack has only been demonstrated in a lab and there is no evidence that criminals are currently exploiting the vulnerability.

However, if you are worried about falling victim to this type of attack, you should disable the Express Mode if you don’t need it. When you add an eligible transit card to an Apple Wallet, Express Mode is turned on by default.

Should you lose your phone or have it stolen, there is now—in theory at least—a way for thieves to extract funds from it without having to guess your passcode. To avoid that, we suggest that you inform your bank or payment provider if your phone is stolen so they can block your cards.

Stay safe, everyone!

The post Apple Pay vulnerable to wireless pickpockets appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is going to set new rules to curb the rising threat of SIM swapping, also known as SIMjacking.

SIM swapping (and the very similar port-out fraud) is the unlawful use of someone’s personal information to steal their phone number and swap or transfer it to another device. Once this happens, the scammer can use the device to receive calls and messages intended for the victim. SIM swapping is often used to intercept codes sent by SMS that are used in some forms of two-factor authentication (2FA).

SIM swapping is difficult to scale up into large attacks against lots of people at the same time, but it is often used to target specific, high-value individuals.

Early last year, US senators wrote a letter to the FCC urging it to do something about the rising problem of SIM swapping:

The impact of this type of fraud is large and rising. According to the Federal Trade Commission, the number of complaints about SIM swaps has increased dramatically, from 215 in 2016 to 728 through November 2019, and consumer complaints usually only reflect a small fraction of the actual number of incidents.

It went on to say that SIM swapping “may also endanger national security”:

SIM swap fraud may also endanger national security. For example, if a cyber criminal or foreign government uses a SIM swap to hack into the email account of a local public safety official, they could then leverage that access to issue emergency alerts using the federal alert and warning system operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

According to its recent release, the FCC “has received numerous complaints from consumers who have suffered significant distress, inconvenience, and financial harm as a result of SIM swapping and port-out fraud. In addition, recent data breaches have exposed customer information that could potentially make it easier to pull off these kinds of attacks.”

Currently, the proposals boil down to requiring better checks, and quicker notifications:

[The FCC] proposes to amend the Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) and Local Number Portability rules to require carriers to adopt secure methods of authenticating a customer before redirecting a customer’s phone number to a new device or carrier. It also proposes requiring providers to immediately notify customers whenever a SIM change or port request is made on customers’ accounts.”

Many are already happy upon receiving this news, vague as it is.

Of course, specifics need to be laid out as so to how carriers can help potential SIM swap victims and how they generally safeguard all their users.

The post The FCC moves to curb SIM swap attacks appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Two-factor authentication is a great way to protect your online accounts, and we always recommend you turn it on. But where users put up walls, you can be sure there are cybercriminals trying to break them down.

Yesterday, security intelligence firm, Intel 147, revealed it had noticed an uptick of activity in threat actors providing access to services in Telegram that circumvent two-factor authentication (2FA) methods. These services include calling their target victims, appearing to be from their bank, and socially engineering them into handing over a one-time password (OTP)—or other verification code—to the bot operators.

Other services target “other popular social media platforms or financial services, providing email phishing and SIM swapping capabilities.”

Intel 147 has been observing these activities since June when services like these started operating.

“[They] either operate via a Telegram bot or provide support for customers via a Telegram channel,” Intel 147 wrote, “In these support channels, users often share their success while using the bot, often walking away with thousands of dollars from victim accounts.”

The two bots that are becoming criminal favorites are SMSRanger and BloodOTPbot, according to Intel 147. Another bot, SMS Buster, was mentioned, but the researchers said operating it requires more effort on the part of the threat actor.

Those looking to operate these bots are expected to shell out $300 USD monthly. For additional services on top of the bot, they need to hand over an extra $20-$100 USD more.

2FA isn’t foolproof

These 2FA threats only further highlight the problem we already know about SMS-based and phone-call-based authentication OTP methods: they have weaknesses that can be easily exploited by threat actors.

Make no mistake: using 2FA is still better than not using it. But if companies start using better authentication methods, such as Time-Based One-Time Password (TOTP) codes—e.g. Google Authenticator and Authy—or push notifications—e.g. Okta or Duo—then such bots wouldn’t be much of a problem.

What to do

If you have sent your OTP to what you now believe is a scammer, call your bank and report it. Note that this might be a new scheme that banks have never heard of, so please do your best in explaining what happened. Remember that the more people report of the same or similar instances, the more aware banks will be of the fraud attempts.

Share your experience with friends and family to raise awareness on the matter, in order to prevent them falling for the same trick.

Remember that your bank won’t call you to ask for your OTP—ever—so if you receive similar requests in the future, just hang up.

Trust us: they won’t think you’re being rude.

Stay safe!

The post Telegram-powered bots circumvent 2FA appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.