ITACS 5211: Introduction to Ethical Hacking

Wade Mackay

Mauchel Barthelemy

Computer Scientists Close In On Perfect, Hack-Proof Code

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Are mathematical formulas the best answer to date against hacking? This is what Wired’s Kevin Hartnett explains in “Computer Scientists Close In On Perfect, Hack-Proof Code,” an article he posted on Huffington Post. Several computer scientists are experimenting on a coding method that would make it “impossible” to hack. It’s a sign of relief to learn that a great deal of effort is being put together to make hack-proof code a reality. Perhaps this is possible, but I’m almost certain attackers will eventually figure out a way to break into the system.

Tests are now being conducted using a helicopter code named as “Litte Bird.” Kevin reports that a team of hackers could have taken over the helicopter almost as easily as it could break into a home Wi-Fi. However, engineers from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency had implemented a new kind of security mechanism software system that couldn’t be commandeered. The writer goes further to add that key parts of Little Bird’s computer system were unhackable with “Existing technology, its code as trustworthy as a mathematical proof.” I’m looking forwards to see whether this coding method will emerge as unhackable as intended.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/computer-scientists-close-in-on-perfect-hack-proof_us_57e93bf1e4b05d3737be6460?section=us_technology

Wells Fargo Scandal (Follow-up)

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Apparently, the latest development on the Wells Fargo controversy takes interesting new twists.

Last Tuesday (9/20/16), John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo, spoke to the Senate Banking Committee to apologize for the bank’s opening as many as 2 million bogus customer accounts to generate fees for the lender. “I accept full responsibility for all unethical sales practices,” CEO John Stumpf told a congressional panel. Another ripple effect of Wells Fargo’s scandal includes John’s resignation from a national panel that discusses financial matters with the Federal Reserve. These are perfect examples of what an organization can face by simply failing to apply strong policy controls and business processes. Poor risk evaluation to describe potential business impact can also lead to such unfortunate outcomes. See below for articles’ links.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wells-fargo-hearing_us_57e02afee4b0071a6e08b170?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/09/22/wells-fargo-ceo-leaves-bank-panel-wake-fraud/90862240/

MIS 5211.001 – Fall 2016 | Analysis Report I

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Reconnaissance Report of ForManMills

 

Scope:

Reconnaissance is the first crucial step to launch a successful hacking attack. It enables an attacker to become familiar with basic, or not so basic information about a company. For example, information such as: Corporate culture, terminology, employee information, trading secrets, technology, and so forth. Conversely, reconnaissance can also be utilized as a wakeup call to help companies protect confidential information online. It is in the same line of idea that I develop the following reconnaissance findings about ForManMills or www.formanmills.com, one of Philadelphia’s largest local retail stores, using search bar commands.

 

The following report is divided into two parts:

Part I – Reconnaissance Information and Part II – Mitigation Strategy Recommendations.

 

Part I – Reconnaissance Information

First, a simple WHOIS search via http://www.networksolutions.com/ reveals an array of network information about FMM. Information such as: Registry Domain ID 720897_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN, corporate headquarters: 12808 Gran Bay Parkway West, Jacksonville, FL 32258, Admin Email: p32ep7r49gy@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com, domain creation date 1997-12-31T05:00:00Z,name of servers: NS1.NXLKHOST.COM and NS2.NXLKHOST.COM.

Next, DNSstuff.com confirms servers and IP information such as: Created date :1997-12-31T05:00:00Z, updated date :2015-01-28T23:42:27Z and WHOIS server:whois.verisign-grs.com.

Moreover, http://www.ip-tracker.org/ helps uncover additional material about FMM’s DNS server, IP Addresses and server names. See below.

IP Address: 156.154.64.25 [IP Blacklist Check] Reverse DNS: 25.64.154.156.in-addr.arpa Hostname: ns1.hostingsvcs.com Name servers: ns3.hostingsvcs.com >> 156.154.66.25 ns1.hostingsvcs.com >> 156.154.64.25 ns2.hostingsvcs.com >> 156.154.65.25 ns4.hostingsvcs.com >> 156.154.67.25

Furthermore, analyzing www.formanmills.com domain through http://www.accessify.com/f/formanmills.com discloses page size, programing languages and other poor results of technology resources that FMM relies upon (More detailed information are shared via slides).

Lastly, a Google hack of Site:formanmills.com -www.formanmills.com of the company unveils several more critical data. For example, people can understand that FMM is utilizing Monster.com and Indeed.com for recruiting purposes. This is something that can help determine when the retail store is experiencing shortage in staff in a certain area. In addition, this hacking query can help identify the type of personal information FMM collects from job applicants via http://formanmills.com/corporatecareers/apply-page.htm. Other websites that FMM either owns or associates with are also publicly displayed with this Google search command.

“Google Cache” would beat FMM’ website security to successfully access Formanmills.com’s text format without leaving a footprint in the hosting server logs. This is something that would make it difficult to track down an attacker after hacking into the website.

 

Part II – Mitigation Strategy Recommendations

A good analysis report constitutes of not only finding potential problems, but at least offer good mitigation methods too. The following are essential steps managerial decision-makers at FMM can take to ensure an effective first line of defense of its website. First, it would be a clever idea to think like a hacker. In other words, study and use the similar methods as attackers, but in an ethical fashion. Secondly, it would be critical that the company evaluates and tests its systems regularly. Next, FMM should rely on multiple systems such as Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), Firewalls, apply vulnerability scanner programs (Nessus would be a good choice), etc. in order to maintain safer online presence. Last of all, make it a FMM culture to consider IT Security as a vital part of its network because refrain from doing so would lead to catastrophic problems. The clear advantage of applying these is to ensure a better first line of defense and safer online presence against hackers. On the other hand, implementing these are associated with disadvantages such as: Give up critical network or PII information to third party testers, systems could be difficult and costly to maintain, also systems crash or failure of production environment.

mis-5211-analysis-report-1-pp

mis-5211-analysis-report-1

 

 

 

Cybersecurity: Two-thirds of CIOs say threats increasing, cite growth of ransomware

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Over the past few years, it is no secret that Malware, Denial of Service Attacks and Zero Day Exploits have been among the most popular ways hackers launch cyber-attacks. Also, as cyber threats is becoming a more growing concern, so does the type of attacks that are available today. According to the author of “Cybersecurity: Two-thirds of CIOs say threats increasing, cite growth of Ransomware,” Alison DeNisco, Ransomware is rapidly multiplying and more than 718,500 users were hit with encryption Ransomware over a one-year period (2015 – 2016). The writer continues to add that this is an increase of 550% compared to the same period in 2014-2015 according to Kaspersky Lab.

As stated in the title, two-thirds of CIOs now believe threats increasing, cite growth of Ransomware. This is true because Ransomware is developed as one of the quickest ways for hackers to get money. For example, LA Times’ Richard Winton reported on February 18 this year that, “Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center paid a $17,000 ransom in bitcoin to a hacker who seized control of the hospital’s computer systems and would give back access only when the money was paid, the hospital’s chief executive said Wednesday.”

Ransomware is an issue that the FBI and the U.S. Homeland Security need to address rapidly before it becomes more popular. For example, they can invite malware researchers to work with organizations to legally get paid if they can prove that known vulnerabilities exist or can be exploited.

Below are the two articles:

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/cybersecurity-two-thirds-of-cios-say-threats-increasing-cite-growth-of-ransomware/

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-me-ln-hollywood-hospital-bitcoin-20160217-story.html

5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired over 2 million phony accounts

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As often discussed, a company’s most critical threat is no other than its own employees. IT Security threat is most likely to come from within whether it is negligence, honest mistake or intentional wrongdoing. All of these will lead to one result, data breach which in turn can cause extraction of information, financial loss or system manipulation. In the case of Wells Fargo’s incident occurred this week, the financial giant had to let go 5,300 of its workforce for financial fraud orchestrated internally. According to CNN’s Matt Egan in “5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired over 2 million phony accounts,” Wells Fargo employees submitted applications for more than 565,000 credit card accounts without their customers’ knowledge or consent from which interest charges and overdraft-protection fees, the author states.

Who knows for how long this scam has been really going on? Regardless the time, I give Wells Fargo a lot of credit for uncovering something like this as that proves at least the organization has business/IT governance and security in place against fraud. It can be difficult and time consuming to investigate crimes of this nature. IT and business controls obviously need to be reviewed and improved as they should on regular basis, but at least something exists already to help catch the bad guys. However, that does not prevent Wells Fargo’s reputation from being hurt, loss a lot of money and probably will have to deal will many lawsuits in the process. A much closer monitoring system should be implemented to avoid such an un unfortunate circumstance.

Article can be accessed via:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/investing/wells-fargo-created-phony-accounts-bank-fees/

Protect yourself from one of the easiest ways people can steal your personal data in public

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It becomes a common approach for many large organizations to allow people to work remotely. In fact, companies from industries such as: IT Health Care, Manufacturing, Finance etc. have adopted this method to give certain people the freedom to work conveniently. It is nice for an organization to provide freedom for its workforce; however, security represents a major con to that strategy. This is when it becomes crucial to teach those particular workers the best ways to protect PII or PHI while in public. Most security people are so focused on sophisticated ways to protect software and application programs that they often times neglect about physical protection for laptops. Physical protection is the area of focus of this article as it explains in details the benefits and side benefits to ensure privacy and data protection while working on the road.

 

The article can be accessed via this link below:

http://www.businessinsider.com/protect-yourself-from-one-of-the-easiest-ways-people-can-steal-your-personal-data-in-public-2016-9