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Internet Security In the News Articles in the news from the past month • “Security shockers: 75% of US bank websites Internet Security have flaws” • “Blank robbers swipe 3,000 ‘fraud-proof’ UK passports” • “Korean load sharks feed on hacked data” • “Worms spread via spam on Facebook and Nan Niu ([email protected]) MySpace” CSC309 -- Fall 2008 • “Beloved websites riddled with crimeware” • “Google gives GMail always-on encryption” http://www.theregister.co.uk 2 New Targets of 2007 Scenario 1 • Cyber criminals and cyber spies have • The Chief Information Security Officer shifted their focus again of a medium sized, but sensitive, federal – Facing real improvements in system and agency learned that his computer was network security sending data to computers in China. • The attackers now have two new targets • He had been the victim of a new type of spear phishing attack highlighted in this – users who are easily misled year’s Top 20. – custom-built applications • Once they got inside, the attackers had • Next, 4 exploits scenarios… freedom of action to use his personal • Reported by SANS (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, computer as a tunnel into his agency’s Security), http://www.sans.org systems. 3 4 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 • Hundreds of senior federal officials and business • A hospital’s website was compromised executives visited a political think-tank website that had been infected and caused their computers to because a Web developer made a become zombies. programming error. • Keystroke loggers, placed on their computers by the • Sensitive patient records were taken. criminals (or nation-state), captured their user names and passwords when their stock trading accounts and • When the criminals proved they had the their employers computers, and sent the data to data, the hospital had to choose between computers in different countries. paying extortion or allowing their • Bank balances were depleted; stock accounts lost money; servers inside their organizations were patients health records to be spread all compromised and sensitive data was copied and sent to over the Internet. outsiders. • Back doors were placed on some of those computers are still there. 5 6 1 Scenario 4 Top 20 Internet Security Risks of • A teenager visits a website that exploits the old 2007 Reported by SANS version of her media player that she never updated. • She didn’t do anything but visit the site; the video • Client-side • Server-side started up automatically when the page opened. Vulnerability in: Vulnerability in: – C1. Web Browsers – S1. Web Applications • The attackers put a keystroke logger on her – C2. Office Software – S2. Windows Services computer. – C3. Email Client – S3. Unix and Mac OS • Her father used the same computer to access the – C4. Media Players Services family bank account. – S4. Backup Software • The attackers got his user name and password and – S5. Anti-virus Software emptied his bank account (the bank reimbursed him). – S6. Management • US law enforcement officials followed the money Servers and found that it ended up in an account being used – S7. Database Software by a terrorist group that recruits suicide bombers. 7 8 Top 20 of 2007 (Cont’d) C1. Web Browsers • Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) – World’s most popular Web browser • Security Policy and • Application Abuse: – Un-patched or older versions of IE: memory Personnel: – A1. Instant Messaging corruption, spoofing and execution of arbitrary – H1. Excessive User – A2. Peer-to-peer scripts or code Rights and Programs – The most critical issue: allowing remote code Unauthorized Devices • Network Devices: – H2. Phishing/Spear execution without any user interaction when a user – N1. VoIP Servers and visits a malicious Web page or reads a malicious Phishing Phones – H3. Unencrypted email Laptops and Removable • Zero Day Attacks: – IE has been leveraged to exploit vulnerabilities in Media – Z1. Zero Day Attacks other core Windows components such as HTML Help and the Graphics Rendering Engine and hundreds of vulnerabilities in ActiveX controls installed by Microsoft and other software vendors • Mozilla Firefox, the 2nd most popular browser, 9 has its fair share of vulnerabilities too 10 C1. Web Browsers (Cont’d) S1. Web Applications • Increase in the number of Browser Helper Object and third-party plug-ins – Inspired by the offering of rich content in websites – Used to access various MIME file types (multimedia documents) – Plug-ins often support client-side Web scripting languages • Web application/framework security defects • Macromedia Flash or Shockware – Ranging from insufficient validation to application logic – Installed (semi-)transparently by a website errors • Users may not even be aware that an at-risk – Frameworks: PHP, .NET, J2EE, ColdFusion, etc. helper object or plug-in is installed on his/her • Most exploited types of vulnerabilities system – SQL Injection • The additional plug-ins introduce more avenues for – Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) hackers to exploit and compromise users’ – Cross-Site Request Forgeries (CSRF) computers while visiting malicious websites – PHP Remote File Inclusion 11 12 2 S7. Database Software Z1. Zero-day Attack • The most common vulnerabilities in database • A computer threat that exposes undisclosed or systems are: unpatched computer application vulnerabilities – Use of default configurations with default user • Zero-day attack take advantage of computer names and passwords security holes for which no solution is – SQL Injection via the database’s own tools, third- currently available party applications or Web front-ends added by users • A.k.a. Zero-hour Attack • Huge number of vulnerabilities in this class are announced every year • Use of weak passwords for privileged accounts • Buffer overflows in processes that listen on well-known ports 13 14 Passerby Attack (Shoulder- Common Attacks Overview surfing) • What is it? • Using direct observation techniques, such as • What are commonly used techniques? looking over someone’s shoulder, to get information • What are the damages caused by the attack? • What are the responses to the attack? – Social – Technical – Legal – … 15 16 Malware and Spam Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks • Distribution of malware • Common attack method – Virus, Trojans, keyloggers, spyware, adware, – Saturating the target (victim) machine with external rootkits communications requests • Spam – Such that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic in reasonable time – Unsolicited or undesired bulk of electronic messages – Email spam • Common implementations – Mobile phone spam – Forcing the targeted computer(s) to reset, or consume its resources such that it can no longer – Forum spam provide its intended service – Messaging spam (SPIM) – Obstructing the communication media between the – … intended users and the victim so that they can no longer communicate adequately 17 18 3 Spoofing Attacks Phishing Attack • A situation in which one person or program • Attempts to lure users into revealing her passwords or successfully masquerades as another by other confidential information by masquerading as a falsifying data and thereby gaining an trustworthy entity in an electronic communication – The word “phishing” was first used around 1996 when hackers illegitimate advantage began stealing AOL accounts by sending email to AOL users, – In the network security context that appeared to come from AOL – Variant of “fishing”: alludes to baits used to “capture” financial • Sample methods information and passwords – Man-in-the-Middle attack • A form of Identity Theft – Phishing – Most major banks in US, UK, and AUS have been hit – Login spoofing • Phishing technqiues – Link manipulation – Filter evasion – Phone phishing 19 – … 20 Identity Theft Spear Phishing Attack • Describe an action where a person uses the • A highly targeted phishing attack identity of another to fraudulently obtain • Spear phishers send emails that include credit, goods, services, or to commit crimes information about stuff or current • Examples of these crimes are bank and credit organizational issues that make it appear card fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, money genuine to employees or members within a laundering, bankruptcy fraud, and computer certain company, government agency, crimes organization, or group • Anti-phishing • UofT alert (http://www.news.utoronto.ca/campus- news/u-of-t-computer-staff-warn-of-phishing-scams.html) – April-May 2008, more than 2,000 UTORmail customers received an email that looked as if it came from the university’s help desk – Asking for user IDs and passwords 21 22 SQL Injection A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words • Injections are possible due to intermingling of user supplied data within dynamic queries or within poorly constructed stored procedures – Incorrectly filtered escape characters – Incorrect type handling • Examples – statement := “SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = ‘ ” + userName + “ ‘; ” – userName being “ a’; DROP TABLE users’ ” • SQL injections allow attackers: – To create, read, update, or delete any arbitrary data available to the application – In the worst case, to completely compromise the database system and systems around it 23 24 4 Attack Prevention Measures JavaScript Security Policy • You cannot control that which you cannot • Set of rules governing what scripts can measure! do under what circumstances – JavaScript Security Model – For example, to prohibit JavaScript Web pages from accessing to the local file system – Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) • If not, any Web page you visit could potentially – Secure Java Programming steal or
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