Alas, poor Intel. What a mess you’ve made. On November 17, 2017 I wrote an article describing the work Positive Technologies had done in researching the Intel Management Engine and discovering the NSA’s HAP (High Assurance Program) boot mode. They found a bunch of flaws in the Intel architecture which has the industry buzzing. The […]
Hacking VoIP Phones
Business Insider has an interesting article on how they were able to attack and exploit Cisco VoIP phones. After all, as they point out, what is a VoIP phone? It’s a computer with a microphone! Their article can be viewed here: http://www.businessinsider.com/hackers-can-turn-office-phone-into-remote-listening-device-cybersecurity-hack-cisco-spying-tap-2017-11 Yes, your VoIP phones fall squarely into the category of Internet of Things. and […]
40 Websites Hacked in 7 Minutes
I came across this article written by a Greek EE student named Georgios Konstantopoulos. It was published in Hackernoon here: https://hackernoon.com/how-i-hacked-40-websites-in-7-minutes-5b4c28bc8824. It is aptly titled: “How I Hacked 40 Websites in 7 minutes”. The key takeaways here are: If content can be uploaded, take precaution to prevent any execution of data within the upload folders. This is […]
BOLO: 17-Year Old MS-Office Bug in Equation Editor
This post is worthy of a BOLO. Fixed earlier this month in the Patch Tuesday updates is a bug that has existed in all versions of Microsoft Office. This bug, CVE-2017-11882, exists in the Equation Editor, which allows users to enter mathematical formulas in Office documents. These formulas exists as OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) objects […]
Fun With Windows 10 Fall Creator’s Update (FCU)
So, I set about in October with great hopes of updating my Windows 10 boxes to the new Fall Creator’s Update. I was most interested in the enhanced security in Windows Defender. I had mixed success with the update (NOTE: #1). Here’s some of the features therein: Windows Mixed Reality When actual reality just isn’t […]
New VMware Vulnerabilities
VMware has fixed critical vulnerabilities, releasing these versions: Horizon View Client 4.6.1, Workstation Pro 12.5.8, Workstation Player 12.5.8, Fusion Pro / Fusion 8.5.9. These address issues ranging from Client O/S being able to run commands on the Host O/S, crashing Client VMs (Virtual Machines), and unprivileged users crashing their VMs. Note that Workstation 14.X and Fusion 10.X versions […]
Microsoft Security Bulletin: Quakbot and Emotet Trojans
Earlier this month, Microsoft released a security bulletin with comprehensive information about the Quakbot and Emotet Banking Trojans. They release their own variant of this malware’s Kill Chain: To guard against this problem, Microsoft has two solutions; (1) Use Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with Office 365/Exchange Online email services, and (2) Activate the Windows Defender […]
Patch Tuesday: November 2017
Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday for this month includes 53 updates. There are four Zero-Days fixed, although no known exploits for these exist in the wild. CVE-2017-8700 (ASP.NET Core information disclosure) CVE-2017-11827 (Microsoft browser memory corruption) CVE-2017-11848 (Internet Explorer information disclosure) CVE-2017-11883 (ASP.NET Core denial of service) The Dot.Net fixes always present some challenges for business customers. […]
Intel AMT/ME, MINIX, and NSA’s HAP
MINIX (Mini-Unix) is a micro-kernel O/S based upon the AT&T’s 1979 release of Unix Version 7. It was developed by Andrew Tanenbaum in 1987 for use on PC platforms. Version 7 is significantly older than AT&T’s Unix System 5 Release 3/Release 4 variants that are the basis for most Unix, Linux, and BSD systems today. However, […]
Top Attacking Countries: October 2017
The top three countries countries are Russia, United States, and China. Russia remains at #1. China moved back up to #3. September 2017’s report can be found here.