security

automotive, News, security April 22, 2020

A brief history of software vulnerabilities in vehicles

Car Hacking News Timeline 2017-2019 [1] 2019: Hack of an OEM’s automotive cloud via third-party services and tier-1 supplier network 2019: Memory vulnerability at a cloud provider exposed data incl. passwords, API keys, and tokens 2019: A malware infection caused significant production disruption at a car parts manufacturer 2019: Vehicle data exposed during registration allowed for remote denial-of-service attacks on cars 2019: Malware infected the back end, making laptops installed in police cars unusable 2018: An ex-employee breached the company network and downloaded large volumes of personal information 2018: Cloud servers hacked and used for cryptomining 2018: Researchers exploited vulnerabilities of some infotainment systems and gained control of microphones, speakers, and navigation systems 2018: Security issues discovered in 13 car-sharing apps 2018: Researchers demonstrated >10 vulnerabilities in various car models, gaining local and remote access to infotainment, telematics, and CAN buses 2018: EV home chargers could be controlled by accessing the home Wi-Fi network 2017: Rental car companies exposed personal data 2017: Ransomware caused the stop of production across several plants Car Hacking News Timeline 2002-2015 [2] 2015: Researchers remotely sent commands to the CAN bus of a specific car that had an OBD2 dongle installed to control the car’s…

General, News March 26, 2020

How to stay safe when being exclusively online

EN https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/safe-at-home_final.pdf DE https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/safe-at-home_de.pdf RO https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/safe-at-home_ro.pdf More here: https://www.europol.europa.eu/activities-services/public-awareness-and-prevention-guides/make-your-home-cyber-safe-stronghold    Recommendations: Wi-Fi: always change the default router password Install antivirus software on all devices connected to the internet Choose strong and different passwords  for your email and social media accounts Review your apps’ permissions and delete those you don’t use Back up your data and run regular  software updates Secure electronic devices with passwords, PIN or biometric information Review the privacy  settings of your social media accounts Online shopping safety tips Buy from reliable online vendors and check individual ratings Think twice: if an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is Use credit cards when shopping online for stronger customer protection Check your bank account often for suspicious activity   DO NOT: Reply to suspicious messages or calls Open links and attachments in unsolicited emails and text messages Share your bank card details or personal financial information Buy things online that seem to be sold out everywhere else Send money upfront to someone you don’t know Share news that doesn’t come from official sources Make donations to charities without double-checking their authenticity                              …

Educational July 29, 2019

The Ultimate Parent Guide for Protecting Your Child on the Internet Series

You can see in the next 8 weeks a post per week about this topic. The short versions of these posts will be published here (from the RSS feed). The full version will always be on Improve-your-security.org Start reading here: The Ultimate Parent Guide for Protecting Your Child on the Internet Series   Happy reading and try to apply some of these.    

CSSLP, Educational, News February 28, 2018

Microsoft Updates Guideline on Windows Driver Security

Microsoft has released an updated guide on driver security. This new guide offers advice that developers could use to ensure Windows drivers are secured against basic attacks and preventable flaws.   Driver Security Guidance This section contains information on enhancing driver security. In this section Topic Description Driver security checklist This topic provides a driver security checklist for driver developers. Threat modeling for drivers Driver writers and architects should make threat modeling an integral part of the design process for any driver. This topic provides guidelines for creating threat models for drivers. Windows security model for driver developers This topic describes how the Windows security model applies to drivers and explains what driver writers must do to improve the security of their devices. Use the Device Guard Readiness Tool to evaluate HVCI driver compatibility This topic describes how to use the tool to evaluate the ability of a driver to run in a Hypervisor-protected Code Integrity (HVCI) environment.   The nice part is that all this is also available as PDF. I am starting to like these new initiatives from Microsoft. I wrote that they are taking a clear stance on PUA and now I see that they are actually…

General December 4, 2017

Results of the experiment “HTTPS and HSTS for ITSecurityNews.info”

I wrote 4 months ago (Aug 14) about the switch to HTTPS per default on the new site ITSecurityNews.info. A week ago I wrote about the experiment of enhancing the headers of the website to show full compatibility with HSTS. Experiment started: HTTPS for ITSecurityNews.info Moving to HSTS   Now it is too early to say what impact the HSTS has over the traffic, but we can have a look on the traffic for HTTPS. Here is the shape:   The red vertical line is the point when I switched to HTTPS. There is a 10% increase in September, but then the traffic goes to the normal patterns. Does this mean that the switch to HTTPS failed?  Or is November the result of switching HSTS on? Let’s have a deeper look:   As can be seen in the screenshot above, the trend is to lose visits than to gain. So, I can say that SSL + HSTS is making me lose visitors. But, then we need to look deeper, because a “visitor” is a page visit, which it is not the same as “eyeballs”. In that week of October I’ve had 2.5 views per visitor, while in November I’ve never…

automotive, News, security October 26, 2017

Cybersecurity Engineering in the Automotive industry

A lot is happening in the Automotive industry these days. It has to do with connectivity, autonomous driving, autonomous parking, and so on. All these have one thing in common: they are producing extremely large amounts of data which needs to be processed in the backend by very powerful computers. When we talk connectivity, we MUST talk about cybersecurity.   This is why the Automotive industry has started to take this very seriously: We have the  ISO/SAE AWI 21434 : Road Vehicles — Cybersecurity engineering which is in the preparation stage We have the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) who have released the “Principles of Automobile Cybersecurity“ ACEA represents currently the 15 Europe-based car, van, truck and bus manufacturers (Source): BMW Group, DAF Trucks, Daimler, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Ford of Europe, Hyundai Motor Europe, Iveco, Jaguar Land Rover, Opel Group, PSA Group, Renault Group, Toyota Motor Europe, Volkswagen Group, Volvo Cars, and Volvo Group ACEA and its members have identified a set of six key principles to enhance the protection of connected and automated vehicles against cyber threats. 1. Cultivating a cybersecurity culture 2. Adopting a cybersecurity life cycle for vehicle development 3. Assessing security functions through testing phases: self-auditing & testing 4. Managing a…

General October 16, 2017

How to browse the web really anonymously

I’ve seen a lot of articles on the web about how to browse the web while keeping your privacy. By that I mean, nobody knows who you are, what you are browsing, no history kept, no temporary files remaining on the machine. Most of the articles on the web are created to make advertising to some VPN products. What is the solution? I think that the only solution is to use Tor, more specifically, the Tor Browser. The Tor software protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location, and it lets you access sites which are blocked. Tor Browser lets you use Tor on Microsoft Windows, Apple MacOS, or GNU/Linux without needing to install any software. It can run off a USB flash drive, comes with a pre-configured web browser to protect your anonymity, and is self-contained (portable). There is no other solution… VPN is just a part of the solution. In the end, the VPN provider records every single action you make online. By setting (temporarily) the…

privacy, security June 29, 2017

Lack of security made simple: Casual Insecurity

I am travelling quite a lot because of my job, working with Avira’s customers to integrate their OEM Technologies. For this reason, I am very often in hotels and airports. Almost everywhere these days, I can find free WiFis: wireless networks with free of charge access. We all know that accessing resources through free WiFis is not the best ideas. Especially, if these networks do not have any kind of password set.   This is how I think that the Lack of Security is made so simple: offer something everybody needs for free and make that as unsecure as possible. Maybe at the beginning it is going to be few which don’t access the free unprotected wifi. But in time, everybody will think that it is absolutely normal that a WiFi is supposed to be free and unprotected. And this is how you convert masses of people to lower their security expectations. I call this concept: “Casual insecurity”.   Read here in my free eBook how to “Improve your security“.  

General, security February 7, 2017

Google Search Console fail over notifications for the WordPress updates

I have quite a lot of WordPress based websites which I run and maintain. One of these is this blog: www.SorinMustaca.com All my WordPress websites are configured to autoupdate to the latest WordPress update. The same applies to their plugins and themes. Google Search Console (GSC) is a tool I used to manage better the registration of my websites with the search engine and their advertising platform Adsense. Yesterday evening I received a couple of emails, one for each of my websites registered with the GSC : Here is the text: Recommended WordPress update available for http://sorinmustaca.com/ To: Webmaster of http://sorinmustaca.com/, Google has detected that your site is currently running WordPress 4.7.0 or 4.7.1, an older version of WordPress. Outdated or unpatched software can be vulnerable to hacking and malware exploits that harm potential visitors to your site. Therefore, we suggest you update the software on your site as soon as possible. Following are one or more example URLs where we found pages that have outdated software. The list is not exhaustive. http://www.sorinmustaca.com/set-up-an-ad-filter-with-privoxy-on-raspberry-pi-for-free/ Recommended Actions: 1 Update to the latest release of WordPress Visit the WordPress site for instructions on how to download and install the latest release. WordPress Update…

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