MasterCard SDP Program Changes

MasterCard announced new SDP Program changes to drive consistency and quality of Merchant QSA Training in the December 15, 2009 Global Security Bulletin. Tha main change is the fact that from 30 June 2011, Level 1 merchants that choose to conduct an annual onsite assessment using an internal auditor must ensure that primary internal auditor staff engaged in validating PCI DSS compliance attend PCI SSC-offered merchant training programs and pass any PCI SSC associated accreditation program annually in order to continue to use internal auditors.
For a more detailed information, please refer to http://www.mastercard.com/us/sdp/merchants/merchant_levels.html

Backtrack Applications for Your Ubuntu

This post is for those among us who use Ubuntu as they main operating system and would like to install their favourite forensic and/or information security tools.

First step is to create a .list file for the Backtrack repository: sudo echo http://deb repo.offensive-security.com/dist/bt4 binary/ > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/backtrack.list

Then, we need to download and import the GPG key wget http://repo.offensive-security.com/dist/bt4/binary/public-key && sudo apt-key add public-key

Finally, update the sources: sudo apt-get update

Just keep in mind Backtrack is Backtrack and Ubuntu is Ubuntu. Don't try to make Backtrack out of Ubuntu.

SHODAN - Computer Search Engine

SHODAN is a search engine that allows you to find servers/routers/etc. It scans the Internet and indexes the headers that come back. What this means is that instead of finding an exploit that works on a target system, you can grab any exploit then find a system vulnerable to it

To demonstrate, let us find an FTP server in China with anonymous access. To do that, I typed FTP port:21 country:CN. In response, SHODAN gives a list of systems matching the criteria:

Running an FTP command with a IP address from the list confirms that the server exists:

Please remember that it is illegal (in most countries) to scan and/or fingerprint a system without proper authorisation from the owner. Considering SHODAN capabilities, one should consider a question of ethical aspects of the "cloud hacking".

URL: http://shodan.surtri.com/

PCI SSC "Ask the Council" Webminar

This session will offer a brief update on PCI SSC initiatives, followed by a live Q&A session with opportunities to address Bob Russo, PCI SSC General Manager, and other members of the PCI SSC team. The updates will cover:

• Community Meeting outcomes
• Next steps in the lifecycle process
• Recently published Council resources

Questions many also be submitted in advance through the online registration tool.

To register for the Tuesday, December 8, 2009 session, please use the following link:
http://register.webcastgroup.com/l3/?wid=0801208094997
To register for the Wednesday, December 9, 2009 session, please use the following link: http://register.webcastgroup.com/l3/?wid=0801209094998

The webinars will be recorded and available for download on the Participating Organization’s area of the Council’s Web site for those Participating Organizations who cannot attend any of the sessions.

For more information, please refer to https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pdfs/pr_091130_open_mic.pdf

OWASP Top 10 -2010 RC

Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), an open-source application security project, has published a release candidate version of the OWASP Top 10 Project for comments and feedback. You can download it from http://www.owasp.org/images/0/0f/OWASP_T10_-_2010_rc1.pdf.

It was always perceived that OWASP Top 10 is about 10 most common weaknesses in web applications; this release makes it clear that OWASP Top 10 Project is about Top 10 risks. As a result, OWASP reshuffled the order of the items on the list since now it is based on the estimate risk, instead the frequency of the associated weakness. In addition, there are two new items: ADDED: A6 –Security Misconfiguration ADDED: A8 –Unvalidated Redirects and Forwards REMOVED: A3 –Malicious File Execution REMOVED: A6 –Information Leakage and Improper Error Handling.

Please review and contribute your thought and comments.

Ubuntu 9.10 Is Out!

Ubuntu 9.10 (nicked named Karmic Kuala) is out and it has number of security improvements (over the previous version) that I would like to highlight: AppArmor - AppArmor was introduced earlier that Karmic Kuala; In this release, it features an improved parser that uses cache files, greatly speeding up initialisation on boot making it less likely to be switched off by users, and a bunch of additional profiles. Uncomplicated Firewall - Another "not new" feature which now supports filtering by interface and egress filtering. Non-eXecutable Emulation - Non-eXecutable (NX) memory protection, also known as eXecute-Disable (XD), can help block many exploits an attacker might run from stack or heap memory. The 32-bit PAE desktop kernel (linux-image-generic-pae) now also provides the PAE mode needed for hardware with the NX CPU feature. For systems that lack NX hardware, the 32-bit kernels now provide an approximation of the NX CPU feature via software emulation. Blocking Module Loading - To block the loading of any further modules after boot, the /proc/sys/kernel/modules_disabled one-way sysctl flag now exists to add another layer of protections against attackers loading kernel rootkits. Position-Independent Executables - All programs built as Position Independent Executables (PIE) with "-fPIE -pie" (gcc -pie -fPIE) can take advantage of the exec Address Space Layout Randomisation(ASLR). This protects against "return-to-text" and generally frustrates memory corruption attacks.

A full list of Ubuntu security features can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Features.

Information Disclosure at it Best!

Wanted to share this example of OWASP Top 10 2007-Information Leakage and Improper Error Handling vulnerability. Considering the amount of resources available (OWASP Top 10, SANS 25, etc) freely on the Internet, I am quite surprised to see those appear as often as they are.

New Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft has announced the launch of the free anti-malware Security Essentials. It uses the Dynamic Signature Service, a Microsoft technology that ensures users are protected by the most current virus definitions available without having to wait for the next scheduled download. In addition, it is designed to run quietly in the background and limits CPU and memory usage. Unfortunatly, it is a still in beta and available to customers in the United States, Israel, China and Brazil only.

Although I think that the age of the "Signature Based" security is over and the furure lays with concepts such as profiling (AppArmor), labeling (SELinux and Solaris Trusted Extensions) and Mandatory Access Control, that is a still welcomed edition to the information security domain.

Security Development Lifecycle Tools from Microsoft

Microsoft has released two additional tools to supplement secure development life cycle (SDLC) tools portfolio which includes well known AntiXSS, FxCop and Cat.NET.

The BinScope Binary Analyzer is a Microsoft verification tool that analyzes binaries to verify that required compiler/linker flags are being set, strong-named assemblies are in use, and up-to-date build tools are in place.

MiniFuzz is a basic testing tool designed to help detect code flaws that may expose security vulnerabilities in file-handling code. This tool creates multiple random variations of file content and feeds it to the application to exercise the code in an attempt to expose unexpected application behaviors.

Both tools (and others) are available to download for free from the Microsoft Security Development Life cycle Tools Repository.

How we protect you... Yeah, how?

Seriously, I don't get it. It is 2009, the network firewalls have been here fore more that twenty years and people (information security professionals, no more no less!) still make those amateur assumptions that they will solve all their security problems.

I've been reading HSBC's "Security guarantee" on their website (http://www.offshore.hsbc.com/1/2/international/internet-banking/how-we-protect-you) which states that they use the most advanced security systems and software to protect customer accounts including: Combination of user name and password Encryption (that would be https) Network firewalls SSL certificate (that still would be https)

Now that is secure, is not it? Well, no… Since application has access to the database, a skilled hacker would use encryption to bypass network firewalls (since firewall can not inspect the encrypted traffic) and user name/password fields could be used perform phishing, Cross Site Scripting (XSS) and SQL injections (diagram above).

In a year 2009, application security should be on the CISO agenda and network firewalls should be left to network administrators. Web applications should be protected by Web Application Firewalls (WAF), by constantly reviewing the source code to detect vulnerabilities and by training software architects and developers.