Hacking News (29 Posts)

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How to secure your mobile phone and check for spyware?

#146 - Posted on 08 November 2024 - Author: SM - Category: Guides, Hacking, Security

To effectively detect if your mobile phone has been compromised or infected with spyware, as well as to secure it from potential future attacks, it is important to follow some security best practices.
Below, we will cover a thorough guide aimed at personal and work phones, which are often unprotected compared to corporate laptops with more advanced security tools (EDR/XDR) which are not often found on mobile phones.

Detecting potential compromise on your Mobile device

Review device configuration:

Installed Apps: Unrecognized applications, especially those in foreign languages or from unknown developers, could indicate potential spyware. If you discover suspicious apps, consider a full device reset.

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Can a pen and paper really save you from a Cyber Incident?

#145 - Posted on 01 March 2023 - Author: SM - Category: Hacking, Security

We all know the adage:
It is not a question of "IF" you will be hacked, but "WHEN".

This is true for all companies in all industries.

The ultimate answer to this problem is, to quote a famous French film:
"What is important is not the fall, but the landing." (*)

However, when speaking to upper management about cyber risks and the cost to implement remediation or prevention security controls, the answer we often get is a "Don't worry, we will be fine. We can just operate manually with pen and paper until we fix everything again”.

It might be true for (very few) companies, but the reality is unfortunately often much more complicated than that.

A recent example is a cyber-attack that occurred in the Indian Ocean region this week:
Leal Réunion, a car dealership on the Réunion island, got attacked by a hacker group.
This attack is impacting their ability to use their IT systems and some sensitive financial informati...
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HOW TO PROTECT AGAINST THE NEW PHISHING ATTACKS GETTING AROUND MFA (CONSENT PHISHING)

#138 - Posted on 20 August 2020 - Author: SM - Category: Security, Hacking

There is a growing type of phishing attack which has been quite successful since the beginning of 2020, it is called a "Consent Phishing"

Traditional email phishing attacks will try to get the victim's credentials through a dangerous URL with a fake login webpage, a malware attachment or some other clever social engineering tactics.
Hopefully companies have some anti-phishing tools/technology to detect and protect them against most of those type of emails (some always manage to get through, no matter what technology you use and what vendors promise you!)

However, there is a new type of phishing attacks that leverages the OAuth authorisation framework used by some applications to access your account. Basically, there are a lot of legitimate applications that will request access to your O365 account (it could also be another type of Cloud app provider) through the generation of an OAuth token, so they don't need to know (and store) your O365 password.
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How to build a Red Team and Why?

#115 - Posted on 11 November 2015 - Author: SM - Category: Conferences, Security, Hacking, Guides

I recently gave a talk at the Rant Forum in London on the topic of "RedTeam, why this is more than a buzz word?". It was an interesting experience and whilst different from traditional security events, as the crowd can and will interrupt you at any time, it was very enjoyable.
Many attendees asked if I could produce some "slides" after the talk. As no slides were used, below is a collection of notes from wich the talk was based on.

In this post we will explain what RedTeam is, how does it fit with other similar security services and what advantages does it bring to an organisation. We will also look into what works? what doesn’t? And where is this “new” type of service going?
1. DEFINITION
A Red Team is part of a trio of services which increases in sophistication: Vulnerability Assessment, Penetration Testing and then Red Teaming. We will d...
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RANT FORUM - Red Team Recipes Presentation

#114 - Posted on 27 October 2015 - Author: SM - Category: Conferences, Security, Hacking, Misc

I will be giving a talk tomorrow evening, the 28th of November at around 6pm, in London at the Risk and Network Threat (RANT) Forum .

The topic is:
Why RedTeam is more than just a buzz word? What works? What doesn't? And where is this "new" type of service might be going? All those questions answered by someone who is actually delivering Red Team activities.

Registration is free, you get free drinks and food... plus you get to hear me talk, so what is not to like?! :)

You can register HERE

The RANT Forum is quite different from your typical free security briefing, for a start it is not a sales forum. However, the company behind it is a recruitment agency, so they are still interested in taping the UK Security professional community!
...
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IDS used as a Network Forensic Tool

#113 - Posted on 26 October 2015 - Author: SM - Category: IDS, Security, Hacking

Note: This is the second post of a two parts series on how to use IDS in a different way.

Intrusion Detection Systems are traditionally seen as Defensive tools. They can however be used for different purposes than initially designed for as highlighted in the previous post , where we discussed how IDS could be used as an offensive tool.
The popularity of pre-configured/packaged IDS environments such as SELKS or Security Onion provide various software packages and Graphical User Interfaces to navigate through large volume of data by parsing/categorising/filtering it automatically.

More importantly, such systems are starting to provide mo...
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IDS used as an Offensive Security Tool

#112 - Posted on 26 October 2015 - Author: SM - Category: IDS, Security, Hacking

Note: This is the first post of a two parts series on how to use IDS in a different way.

Intrusion Detection Systems such as Snort and Suricata are traditionally seen as Defensive tools, and in essence they are. They can alert on security issues occurring on your network such as Botnet Activities, network based attacks, hosts/servers activities and vulnerabilities.

That last point is important.

It is important because that same information used for defence activities, could be used by an attacker as part of an attack reconnaissance. For example, being able to identify a list of hosts that use outdated SSH/SSL servers, a vulnerable Flash Client or other vulnerable software/services; HTTP logs highlighting users web activities, clear text passwords, etc.
When looking at an IDS that way, it becomes a passi...
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iOS Backdoors

#95 - Posted on 24 July 2014 - Author: SM - Category: Hacking, Security

In the last few days there has been an increasing noise related to some iOS backdoors. Apple does not deny they exist, but contests how they can be used.

This is not new, and the security researcher who presented his findings did highlight that, it is likely related to methods being used by certain forensic software sold to law enforcement.
What is “concerning” is the following:
– These backdoors are actively maintained and developed by Apple, how much more data will they allow to be extracted from iOS device in future;
– Those backdoors provide access to SMS, Contact, and other potential sensitive data on the phone; they also allow to bypass full disk encryption. This highlight the fact that unless you phone is off, the data on your phone is no longer encrypted per say, but only protected by access control (PIN);
– If it can be used by law enforcement, it can be used by “greyer” parties ...
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Bluetooth under attack

#92 - Posted on 4 February 2014 - Author: SM - Category: Hacking

I have heard of Ubertooth for a while now and it seems it use to attack bluetooth devices keep growing. Once recent attack described HERE can leverage the Ubertooth sniffing capability to crack the encryption algorithm used by the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) standard. BLE is also referred to as Bluetooth Smart.

Sure, BLE/Bluetooth Smart is different from Bluetooth, but it issupported by most recent mobile devices (i.e.: the latest iPads and iPhone as well as some Android devices), and will be increasingly used in “smart” appliances, from toothbrushes to fridge if you believe this ...
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Using a phone as a keylogger, next it will be a smartwatch!

#89 - Posted on 30 October 2013 - Author: SM - Category: Hacking, Security

There is an interesting paper from Georgia Tech College describing a clever proof of concept where a phone is used to eavesdrop on keystrokes.
This is done by leveraging the phone motion sensor capability and placing it next to a keyboard. They managed to create a dictionary of words/vibrations that is able to recognise words typed on a keyboard just by analysing the vibrations made from typing.
Of course, you are likely to notice someone’s else phone sitting next to your keyboard but what if your phone got hacked and that software loaded onto it?

They conducted their proof of concept on an iPhone 4 but this is likely to be also possible on other platforms/devices.

In fact, with upcoming smart watches this concept will be even more relevant! Now I can see a use for that Apple M7 chip! ;)

As I am typing this note, my phone is next to my keyboard. Maybe I should move it awayR...
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