Ethical Hacking

Wade Mackey

Ethical Hacking

MIS 5211.001 ■ Fall 2019 ■ Wade Mackey

Main Content

“OceanLotus” targets BMW and Hyundai networks

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APT hacker group “OceanLotus” apparently compromised network systems of automaker BMW and Hyundai by installing some hacking tool which would control and spy their systems. What they did was nothing new but it was sophisticated.

According to the article

“Created Fake Websites

To get access to other computers, the hackers created a fake website that gave the impression of belonging to the BMW branch in Thailand, as they can monitor networks and find out which folders and files that users logged in.

Hackers Observed for Months

The security team at BMW allowed hackers to stay active with an intention to know more details like, who they were, how many systems they managed to compromise, and what kind of data they were after.

Based on sources, no sensitive information was accessed by hackers during the incident and no primary computers were compromised.

BMW declined to provide additional information on the attack.

“We have implemented structures and processes that minimize the risk of unauthorized external access to our systems and allow us to quickly detect, reconstruct, and recover in the event of an incident,” BMW said in a statement.”

Source Article: https://www.cisomag.com/apt-hacker-group-targets-bmw-and-hyundai-networks/

 

Qualcomm Chip Flaws Let Hackers Steal Private Data From Android Devices

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The article states serious vulnerabilities which were found in Andriod smartphones using Qualcomm chipsets. Qualcomm’s Secure Execution Environment or QSEE is a hardware-isolated secure area on the main processor that aims to protect sensitive information and provides a separate secure environment (REE) for executing Trusted Applications. According to vulnerabilities, hackers can exploit system to gain credential and private data.

Source: https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/qualcomm-android-hacking.html

AI tool to predict life expectancy in heart failure patients

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New York, Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to predict life expectancy in heart failure patients.

The machine learning algorithm based on de-identified electronic health, records data of 5,822 hospitalised or ambulatory patients with heart failure at UC San Diego Health in the US.

“We wanted to develop a tool that predicted life expectancy in heart failure patients, there are apps where algorithms are finding out all kinds of things, like products you want to purchase,” said Avi Yagil, Professor at University of California.

“We needed a similar tool to make medical decisions. Predicting mortality is important in patients with heart failure. Current strategies for predicting risk, however, are only modestly successful and can be subjective,” Yagil added.

From this model, a risk score was derived that determined low and high risk of death by identifying eight readily available variables collected for the majority of patients with heart failure:Diastolic blood pressure, Creatinine, Blood urea nitrogen, White blood cell count, Platelets, Albumin and Red blood cell distribution.

https://cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/enterprise-services-and-applications/ai-tool-to-predict-life-expectancy-in-heart-failure-patients/72056335

Just a Third of Global Firms Are PCI DSS Compliant

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The number of global organizations fully compliant with PCI DSS regulations has fallen for the second year in a row to just under 37%, according to a new report from Verizon.

The firm’s annual Payment Security Report (PSR) has tracked compliance levels for several years. This year’s was compiled from 302 PCI DSS engagements by Verizon Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs) with a range of organizations, including Fortune 500 and large multinationals firms, in over 60 countries.

The global compliance figure fell from 53% in last year’s report — a significant drop. APAC organizations appeared to be the best prepared, with 70% fully compliant. The figure fell to 48% in Europe and a disappointing 20% in the Americas.

Rodolphe Simonetti, global managing director for security consulting at Verizon, warned that while 2010-16 saw an increase in compliance levels, the trend is now reversing.

Featuring data from Verizon’s Threat Research Advisory Center (VTRAC), the report claimed that a compliance program without proper controls has a 95% chance of not being sustainable and is therefore a major target for attack.

“Many organizations spend a lot of time and money creating data protection compliance programs, but often these are ineffective — looking good on paper but not able to withstand the scrutiny of a professional security assessment,” Simonetti explained.

iOS 13 memory loss bug

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It has been revealed that with the new release of iOS 13 there comes a small but not so small problem for people who like multi-tasking – i.e. switching between apps frequently. Let’s say you have two apps open – you switch from the first app to second app and then go back to the first one – that apps reloads and then likely stops losing whatever you were doing. Unlike Android and Microsoft, iOS was never good with the multitasking feature.

“The issue appears to be down to memory management issues, with iOS not retaining the app’s information in memory long enough when it is sent to the background. This could be a bug, or it could be a feature and Apple being overly aggressive in maximizing the amount of RAM available for apps in the foreground so as to improve performance.”

Source Link: https://www.zdnet.com/article/ios-13-has-a-huge-bug-that-makes-me-want-to-dump-my-iphone-and-ipad/

5 best practices for identity governance and administration

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https://techbeacon.com/security/5-best-practices-identity-governance-administration-success

I thought this was a nice list of concepts to keep in mind, when dealing with identity management systems and access control systems.

  • Make identify your foundation
  • Create a strategic plan
  • Build an agile system
  • Help stakeholders make decisions
    • Analytics are your friend
  • Don’t forget unstructured data
    • Collaboration is key

Hackers Can Use Lasers to ‘Speak’ to Your Amazon Echo or Google Home

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Cybersecurity researcher Takeshi Sugawara found that it’s possible to make microphones respond to light as if it were sound. By pointing a laser at the microphone and changing the intensity, the light somehow influences the microphone’s membrane at the same frequency as the laser. The researchers then changed the intensity of the laser to match the frequency of a human’s voices to “speak” to the voice-activated devices. They found that all almost all the smart devices tested registered commands from up to 164 feet away. This has the potential to allow threat actors to purchase items and unlock doors silently through your window. The researchers even tried using infrared lasers, which are invisible to the naked eye, and found that it worked to activate certain smart devices. There are technical controls to prevent this, such as voice authentication and PIN numbers, but the best thing to do is keep the device out of the line of sight of any potential threats.

https://www.wired.com/story/lasers-hack-amazon-echo-google-home/

Amazon’s Ring Video Doorbell Lets Attackers Steal Your Wi-Fi Password

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The article states that researchers from Bitdefender have found that Amazon’s Ring Video Doorbell Pro device has IT vulnerabilities which attackers are able to exploit the system in order to hack WiFi password and launch a variety of cyberattacks using MitM against other devices connected to the same network. If hackers can gain unauthorized access to the system, they possibly can interact with all devices within the household network, intercept network traffic and run man-in-the-middle attacks, or access all local storage like NAS.

Another One Bytes the Dust!! Capital One replaces security chief after data breach

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Capital One has replaced its cybersecurity chief four months after the company disclosed a massive data breach involving the theft of sensitive data on more than 100 million customers. Capital One continues to assess the aftermath from its July data breach, which saw a hacker take PII from millions of customers applying for credit cards. The data leaked also included names, addresses, postal addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth and self-reported income, as well as credit scores and credit limits.

 

Capital One replaces security chief after data breach

Chronicle, Google’s moonshot cybersecurity startup that was supposed to completely change the industry, is imploding

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Chronicle Is Dead and Google Killed It

Alphabet announced, in early 2018, their new start-up that helps business to realize their data security. The moonshot project involved machine learning technology and security telemetry data about known malware and internet infrastructure. Not long, one and half year, after the breaking announcement, however, Chronicle has been thrown back to Google’s cloud department and reports of management flaws and staff leaving started appearing.

Vice.com

 

Rogue TrendMicro Employee Responsible for Data Breach

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While many companies are spending a significant amount of their IT budget to protect assets from external attacks, many companies fail to recognize that internal attacks can be just as damaging as external attacks. An internal threat can be an employee holding a sensitive position that may act with malicious or unwitting intent.

In this article, we have an internal threat acting with malicious intent.

Trend Micro announced a security incident where an employee gained access to the personal data of thousands of its customers and sold it to a malicious third-party tech support scammers.

Per Trend Micro,  68,000 of the company’s 12 million customers were impacted by this internal attack, and the stolen data contained customers’ names, email addresses, Trend Micro support ticket numbers, and phone numbers.

Trend Micro became aware of the breach in August 2019 when customers reported receiving calls by criminals who purchased the stolen data and were impersonating Tren Micro employees.

https://thehackernews.com/2019/11/insider-threat-data-breach.html