thewayne: (Cyranose)
Yet another DefCon demonstration. In this case, the lock is advertised as secure and flexible because it's easy for the owner to reprogram the lock for a house sitter or whatever, then change the lock back when they need to. It's not a digital lock, needs a key like most others. Two vulnerabilities are demonstrated in videos with this article. The first uses a piercing blade and a hammer, the blade is inserted in the keyway and the hammer whacks it until it pierces the thin metal of the back of the lock. A wire with a loop is then inserted to turn the tailpiece, the thing that actually engages as the lock. Once that's turned, the lock is unlocked and unless there's a very close physical inspection, you can't see that the lock is broken because your key still works in it.

There's another technique that's been around for years called Bumping, after you bump a lock any key will work in it and the lock is physically broken. This is different.

The second technique uses a screwdriver and a pair of pliers. The lock is supposedly rated to 300 pounds-force-inch of torque to turn the cylinder, turns out that it will turn with about a hundred.

Kwikset, of course, denies that these vulnerabilities exist.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/08/kwikset-smarkey-lock-vulns/
thewayne: (Cyranose)
Stomping on the brakes of a 3,500-pound Ford Escape that refuses to stop–or even slow down–produces a unique feeling of anxiety. In this case it also produces a deep groaning sound, like an angry water buffalo bellowing somewhere under the SUV's chassis. The more I pound the pedal, the louder the groan gets–along with the delighted cackling of the two hackers sitting behind me in the backseat. Luckily, all of this is happening at less than 5mph. So the Escape merely plows into a stand of 6-foot-high weeds growing in the abandoned parking lot of a South Bend, Ind. strip mall that Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek have chosen as the testing grounds for the day's experiments, a few of which are shown in the video below. (When Miller discovered the brake-disabling trick, he wasn't so lucky: The soccer-mom mobile barreled through his garage, crushing his lawn mower and inflicting $150 worth of damage to the rear wall.) The duo plans to release their findings and the attack software they developed at the hacker conference Defcon in Las Vegas next month–the better, they say, to help other researchers find and fix the auto industry's security problems before malicious hackers get under the hoods of unsuspecting drivers."

I doubt anyone is surprised. If it's a computer, chances are that eventually it will be hacked. Disabling the brakes? Not good. And I believe it's Infiniti is developing a car that has drive-by-wire steering, where the steering wheel is not physically coupled to the front wheels, which means a computer is translating your input (turning the steering wheel) into orders to turn the wheels.

Ford is a little unique in that they have an interface to their car's computer systems that people are allowed to tap in to, someone developed a vibrating shifter for manual transmissions that tells you when to shift, intended for people who are new to stick-shifts. Supposedly this is port doesn't let you in to a modifiable portion of the computer, but still....

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/07/25/1732257/hackers-reveal-nasty-new-car-attacks


In other DefCon news, a hack was demonstrated that easily and totally bypassed Volkswagon's security systems, making it really easy to steal their cars and with leaving no trace, giving the insurance companies a potential out by saying there was no evidence of theft. Volkswagon sued in court to keep the information from being disclosed at DefCon and surprisingly won, so they're going to get a little bit of time to cover their butts before more information on this hack gets in to the wild.
thewayne: (Cyranose)
There's an annual security conference in Las Vegas called DefCon. They talk about all sorts of security vulnerabilities, many of which were pretty much unknown to the general public until they were disclosed at this event. For example, last year someone built a radio-controlled airplane that was a cellular repeater, except it intercepted all cell calls in its area and logged the information. Now after we've learned about PRISM, it seems kind of quaint.

They also played a game called Spot The Fed. If you saw someone whom you thought were FBI or some other TLA, you could accuse them and put them up on the stage for group interrogation. It was all good fun.

Until this year.

The organizer of DefCon, Jeff Moss, posted the following on the DefCon web site:

“For over two decades DEF CON has been an open nexus of hacker culture, a place where seasoned pros, hackers, academics, and feds can meet, share ideas and party on neutral territory. Our community operates in the spirit of openness, verified trust, and mutual respect.

When it comes to sharing and socializing with feds, recent revelations have made many in the community uncomfortable about this relationship. Therefore, I think it would be best for everyone involved if the feds call a ‘time-out’ and not attend DEF CON this year.

This will give everybody time to think about how we got here, and what comes next.”


I'm sure there will be some Feds there, but they'll be a lot more careful about how they interact with the attendees.

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/07/def-con-to-feds-stay-home-this-year/
thewayne: (Cyranose)
Built by two security experts to demonstrate that it is not difficult to intercept phone calls and that the GSM technical body did a really bad job of implementing security. It contains a cellular system capable of spoofing an actual tower, so you can trick AT&T and T-Mobile phones to connect through it and it can listen in directly, plus it will route the call to the ground so the target(s) might never know they've been intercepted. It has a tiny linux computer onboard with 340,000,000 word dictionary for brute-forcing passwords. And 11 antennas. And it's electric, so it would be pretty much silent when operating.

It's going to be shown at the DefCon conference in Las Vegas next week, I really would like to go to that one of these years.

http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2011/07/28/flying-drone-can-crack-wifi-networks-snoop-on-cell-phones/

http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/07/29/1338253/Hackers-Flying-Drone-Now-Eavesdrops-On-GSM-Phones

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