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Daily Digs – 07.30.2009

What better way to start off with some fresh content then the close of Black Hat 2009 and the start of DEFCON 17? Too bad I'm not in attendance, that's all I have to say about it.

First up to bat is the OpenDNSSEC project. At a high level, and to quote the site, "OpenDNSSEC takes in unsigned zones, adds the signatures and other records for DNSSEC and passes it on to the authoritative name servers for that zone."  From the looks of it it's based on the PKCS#11 abstraction layer.  Let's just hope it's not solely based on X.509 certs (we'll get to that)!
[OpenDNSSEC Project]

Keeping this one simple we'll call it like it is - Cisco BGP DoS.
[Cisco BGP DoS]

Who doesn't have an iPhone these days, right?  Well, Apple is staking a bold claim that those who jailbreak pose a, I kid you not, "national security threat".  All your baseband belong to jailbroken phones is what I'm thinkin'!
[Jailbreaking iPhone Could Pose Threat to National Security]

Rootkits abound thanks to chipmaker Intel.  El Reg ran an article about how chipzilla is warning of rootkit-style attacks that lead to privilege escalation.  BIOS: 0 / EFI: 1
[Intel Warns Over Baremetal BIOS Bug]

Moxie Marlinspkie and Dan Kaminsky collided today in both unveiling an X.509 bug.  Basically what it comes down to is the way the certificate is parsed.  Null characters stop the parsing dead in it's tracks and only what had been parsed (from left to right - www.bankofamerica.com<NULLCHAR>.yourdomain.com) is used in the validation method.  I'm not sure why anyone hasn't figured out a fix yet -- right to left anyone? (Save the comment, I know it's not *that* easy.)  Moxie went on to describe how easy it would be to push malicious code to FireFox using this technique.
[SSL Exploit Turns Firefox Into Malware Distributor]

Felix "FX" Lindner is at it again with Cisco.  This time he's focused on all the insecure web goodness Cisco is cranking out in their monolithic monopoly.  He couldn't have said it better when Linder made the comment "I think it's well established that infrastructure is where attackers want to be".
[New Cisco Bugs]

The antiquated domain name system (circa early 80's) takes a beating again due to a vulnerability found in the popular BIND software by ISC.  Really?  Like nobody thought something would be broke about DNS again this year?  If you're running a primary ('master' is so dominatrix) without the update you're more than likely pushing your luck at this point.
[BIND Crash Bug]

Today Charlie Miller basically told the world the iPhone doesn't deal well with squares.  Something about the sharp edges I think.  The bug reportedly can give total control to an evil-doer quite simplisticly.  The fix?  Shut your phone off if you think you've been had (for now).
[How to Hijack Every iPhone in the World]

Martin McKeay interviews Babak Javadi and Deviant Ollam from Toool.  The "Emergency Credit Card Lockpick Set" version 2 has just what you need in a bind and comes in a credit card form factor.
[Black Hat Microcast with Babak and Deviant]

If you can pack it into a framework / kit then you're a trendy hacker these days.  An article over on Dancho Danchev's blog about a web malware kit that's emphasis is on social engineering talks about just this and how the efficiencies of running these types of attacks directly correlate to the "template-ization" (uh framework?).
[Social Engineering Driven Web Malware Kit]

If you, or anyone you know, has a Volatility bug they've forgotten to submit the last call is out for 1.3 currently.  Volatility is an open collection of tools for the extraction of digital artifacts from volatile memory (i.e. RAM).
[Last Call for Volatility 1.3 Bugs]

Italian security researchers Andrea Barisani and Daniele Bianco's research has led to a new skimming technique to pull PINs from an ATM using just the "mains grid's earth lead" (I think this references the ground).  While interesting I'm not really sure of the practicality.  I might be missing something but I'm going to make a bold assumption that the card is still needed for the PIN to be of any value.
[Intercepting PINs at the Socket]

Everybody loves the Pwnies!  For 2009 the winners have been announced.  I'll save the suspense for the click through.
[Pwnies 2009]

In non-Black Hat / DEFCON news Ars ran a story about a cheerleader in Mississippi suing the school because the coach forced her to disclosure Facebook login credentials.  How someone is in a teaching position and clearly doesn't understand basic constitutional rights is baffling.  And fired.
[Cheerleader Sues School]

By this point if you haven't read about 'ZF05" you've really been living under a rock.  Rock stars Dan Kaminsky and Kevin Mitnick were of the many that were publicly disclosed.  Dan was quoted as wanting to have a beer with the perpetrator(s), fat chance.  The pasty-white-boy-skiddie-wannabes would be waiting in the wings to pounce I'm sure.
[Security Experts Hacked]
[ZF05 Digs]

Apparently MasterCard thinks that they are MastersOfTheUniverse.  In a most elegant move level 2 and 3 merchants are now being actively fined if they're not "compliant".  The only way some of these merchants found out was through the first $25,000 fine they received.  Don't even get me started.  Someone call Obama, we need to talk about this over a beer.
[MasterCard Fines Start NOW]

Project Quant, developed by Rich Mogull's company Securosis, has been unveiled by Microsoft this week.  The project is a new methodology aimed at calculating costs around evaluating and deploying patches.  Kudos to Rich and team!  I highly recommend heading on over to Securosis to take a peek and sumbit some feedback.
[Microsoft's Project Quant]
[Securosis Project Quant]

I'll be honest, when I started to read the article about "Vanish" I thought it was a joke.  Nope, it's for real.  Washington University has developed a simple way to expire data that you publish through a browser-plugin mashed up with, what looks to be, certificate based encryption technologies.
[Vanish - Self Destructing Digital Data]

News today of a leak pertaining to the safehouse of the President got suits in DC all up in a frenzy over P2P networks.  I'm sure they all understand the more you push the harder the resistance becomes.  We'll let them figure that out on their own though.
[Secret Obama Safe House Leaked]

We'll leave you tonight with something quite fun to laugh at.  Over on the innismir.net site is an article about an Internet lawyer who, honestly, knows little about the Internet or law.  Note to John W. Dozier: GET A CLUE.  Kthxbai.
[Internet Lawyer on DEFCON]
[Please Don't Hire This Jackass]

That's all for today folks as we've run out of time.  Check back soon or subscribe to the feed!  Comments are appreciated.

--windexh8er