June 2018 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

OpenBSD Disables Intel CPU Hyper-Threading Due To Security Concerns
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jun '18

21 Jun '18

'The OpenBSD project announced today plans to disable support for Intel CPU hyper-threading due to security concerns regarding the theoretical threat of more "Spectre-class bugs." Bleeping Computer reports: Hyper-threading (HT) is Intel's proprietary implementation of Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT), a technology that allows processors to run parallel operations on different cores of the same multi-core CPU. The feature has been added to all Intel CPUs released since 2002 and has come enabled by default, with Intel citing its performance boost as the main reason for its inclusion. But today, Mark Kettenis of the OpenBSD project, said the OpenBSD team was removing support for Intel HT because, by design, this technology just opens the door for more timing attacks. Timing attacks are a class of cryptographic attacks through which a third-party observer can deduce the content of encrypted data by recording and analyzing the time taken to execute cryptographic algorithms. The OpenBSD team is now stepping in to provide a new setting to disable HT support because "many modern machines no longer provide the ability to disable hyper-threading in the BIOS setup." ' -- source: https://bsd.slashdot.org/story/18/06/19/2327212 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Widely used D-Link modem/router under mass attack by potent IoT botnet
by Peter Reutemann 21 Jun '18

21 Jun '18

'Malicious hackers are mass exploiting a critical vulnerability in D-Link DSL routers in an attempt to make them part of Satori, the potent Internet-of-things botnet that is used to take down websites and mine digital coins, researchers said. Since making its debut late last year, Satori has proven to be a particularly versatile and sophisticated botnet. It made a name for itself in December when it infected more than 100,000 Internet-connected devices in just 12 hours by exploiting remote code-execution vulnerabilities in Huawei and RealTek routers. A month later, Satori operators released a new version that infected devices used to mine digital coins, proving that the IoT botnet could also take control of more traditional computing devices. In February, Satori resurfaced when it infected tens of thousands of routers manufactured by Dasan Networks.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/06/widely-used-d-link-m… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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TPP Versus Free-Software Licensing
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 20 Jun '18

20 Jun '18

Seems like the “CPTPP” aka “TPP-11” (TPP minus the USA) may not be entirely free of objectionable provisions. A submission to the Australian ratification process <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180615/09090440050/open-source-industry…> has pointed out the following problematic clause: No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory. As you may know, such an access requirement is an integral part of copyleft licences like the GPL. What this clause seems to be saying is that such a requirement is unenforceable under the TPP.

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meeting next Monday?
by Peter Reutemann 19 Jun '18

19 Jun '18

Hi everyone Any suggestions for next week's meeting? Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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macOS Breaks Your OpSec by Caching Data From Encrypted Hard Drives
by Peter Reutemann 18 Jun '18

18 Jun '18

'Apple's macOS surreptitiously creates and caches thumbnails for images and other file types stored on password-protected / encrypted containers (hard drives, partitions), according to macOS security experts Wojciech Regula and Patrick Wardle. From a report: The problem is that these cached thumbnails are stored on non-encrypted hard drives, in a known location and can be easily retrieved by malware or forensics tools, revealing some of the content stored on encrypted containers. On macOS, these thumbnails are created by Finder and QuickLook. Finder is the default macOS file explorer app, similar to Windows Explorer. Whenever a user navigates to a new folder, Finder automatically loads icons for the files located in those folders. For images, these icons are gradually replaced by thumbnails that show a preview of the image at a small scale.' -- source: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/18/06/18/1336248 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Linux 4.18 Preparing Many New Features While Dropping 100k+ Lines of Code
by Peter Reutemann 18 Jun '18

18 Jun '18

'Linux 4.18 development is going strong with recent 4.18-rc1 release. This kernel cycle has dropped 107,210 lines of code so far but Linux 4.18 is adding many new features. The kernel is coming in lighter as a result of the LustreFS code being removed and other code cleanups. On the feature front, Phoronix reports, "ew AMDGPU support improvements, mainlining of the V3D DRM driver, initial open-source work on NVIDIA Volta GV100 hardware, merging of the Valve Steam Controller kernel driver, merging of the BPFILTER framework, ARM Spectre mitigation work, Speck file-system encryption support, removal of the Lustre file-system, the exciting restartable sequences system call was merged, the new DM writecache target, and much more."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/06/18/1334205 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Another Reason To Move To GPLv3?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 18 Jun '18

18 Jun '18

Red Hat has decided <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/18/red_hat_gpl_violation/> that it prefers the more lenient remediation provisions in GPLv3 for licence violators. So as a matter of policy, it is going to adhere to them even for products it has licensed GPL/LGPLv2.x. [Licensing export Paul] Berg said the GPL and LGPL version 3 have more lenient termination clauses for good reason: Most people have no idea they've violated the terms and would comply if made aware of the problem. The article mentions the case of a Linux kernel developer who has been exploiting--some say abusing--his contributions to extract money from various firms. This has been a great annoyance to the kernel community--the same community that made it clear some years ago that they were against moving to GPLv3.

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Another Day, Another Intel CPU Security Hole: Lazy State
by Peter Reutemann 15 Jun '18

15 Jun '18

'The latest Intel revelation, Lazy FP state restore, can theoretically pull data from your programs, including encryption software, from your computer regardless of your operating system. Like its forebears, this is a speculative execution vulnerability. In an interview, Red Hat Computer Architect Jon Masters explained: "It affects Intel designs similar to variant 3-a of the previous stuff, but it's NOT Meltdown." Still, "it allows the floating point registers to be leaked from another process, but alas that means the same registers as used for crypto, etc." Lazy State does not affect AMD processors. This vulnerability exists because modern CPUs include many registers (internal memory) that represent the state of each running application. Saving and restoring this state when switching from one application to another takes time. As a performance optimization, this may be done "lazily" (i.e., when needed) and that is where the problem hides. This vulnerability exploits "lazy state restore" by allowing an attacker to obtain information about the activity of other applications, including encryption operations' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/06/14/1553255 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Decades-old PGP bug allowed hackers to spoof just about anyone’s signature
by Peter Reutemann 15 Jun '18

15 Jun '18

'For their entire existence, some of the world's most widely used email encryption tools have been vulnerable to hacks that allowed attackers to spoof the digital signature of just about any person with a public key, a researcher said Wednesday. GnuPG, Enigmail, GPGTools, and python-gnupg have all been updated to patch the critical vulnerability. Enigmail and the Simple Password Store have also received patches for two related spoofing bugs. Digital signatures are used to prove the source of an encrypted message, data backup, or software update. Typically, the source must use a private encryption key to cause an application to show that a message or file is signed. But a series of vulnerabilities dubbed SigSpoof makes it possible in certain cases for attackers to fake signatures with nothing more than someone’s public key or key ID, both of which are often published online. The spoofed email shown at the top of this post can't be detected as malicious without doing forensic analysis that's beyond the ability of many users.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/06/decades-old-pgp-bug-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Russian Censorship Of Telegram
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 14 Jun '18

14 Jun '18

Bruce Schneier <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/06/russian_censors.html>: Iran attempts to block Telegram have been more successful than Russia's, less because Iran's censorship technology is more sophisticated but because Telegram is not willing to go as far to defend Iranian users. The reasons are not rooted in business decisions. Simply put, Telegram is a Russian product and the designers are more motivated to poke Russia in the eye. ... In 1993, John Gilmore famously said that "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." That was technically true when he said it but only because the routing structure of the Internet was so distributed. As centralization increases, the Internet loses that robustness, and censorship by governments and companies becomes easier.

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