January 2020 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Unpatched Citrix Vulnerability Now Exploited, Patch Weeks Away
by Peter Reutemann 14 Jan '20

14 Jan '20

'On December 16, 2019, Citrix revealed a vulnerability in the company's Application Delivery Controller and Gateway products -- commercial virtual-private-network gateways formerly marketed as NetScaler and used by tens of thousands of companies. The flaw, discovered by Mikhail Klyuchnikov of Positive Technologies, could give an attacker direct access to the local networks behind the gateways from the Internet without the need for an account or authentication using a crafted Web request. Citrix has published steps to reduce the risk of the exploit. But these steps, which simply configure a responder to handle requests using the text that targets the flaw, breaks under some circumstances and might interfere with access to the administration portal for the gateways by legitimate users. A permanent patch will not be released until January 20. And as of January 12, over 25,000 servers remain vulnerable, based on scans by Bad Packets. This is not surprising, considering the number of Pulse Secure VPNs that have not yet been patched over six months after a fix was made available, despite Pulse Secure executives saying that they have "worked aggressively" to get customers to patch that vulnerability. And given that vulnerable Pulse Secure servers have been targeted now for ransomware attacks, the same will likely be true for unprotected Citrix VPN servers -- especially since last week, proof-of-concept exploits of the vulnerability began to appear, including at least two published on GitHub, as ZDNet's Catalin Cimpanu reported. "The vulnerability allows the remote execution of commands in just two HTTP requests, thanks to a directory traversal bug in the implementation of the gateway's Web interface," the report adds. "The attacks use a request for the directory '/vpn/../vpns/' to fool the Apache Web server on the gateway to point to the '/vpns/' directory without authentication. The attacks then inject a command based on the template returned from the first request." You can check for the vulnerability here. ' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/01/13/2116206 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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Bing Loses Out To DuckDuckGo in Google's New Android Search Engine Ballot
by Peter Reutemann 14 Jan '20

14 Jan '20

'Google announced last week the alternative search engines it will show to new Android users in the EU, with DuckDuckGo the most frequently offered choice and Bing tied for last place. From a report: EU citizens setting up Android devices from March 1 will given a choice of four search engines to use as their default, including Google. Whichever provider they chose will become the default for searches made in Chrome and through Android's home screen search box. A dedicated app for that provider will also be installed on their device. ' -- source: https://search.slashdot.org/story/20/01/13/2042211 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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ICANN Wants to Let VeriSign Raise Prices on .Com Domains
by Peter Reutemann 14 Jan '20

14 Jan '20

'VeriSign has released a "proposed agreement" with ICANN to amend their exclusive .com registry agreement to allow them to raise the price of dotcom registrations up to 28% every six years. Those new terms "are now open to public comment" -- and the Register points out that ICANN's decision seems to come with a corresponding $20 million for ICANN: Operator of the dot-com registry, Verisign, has decided to pay DNS overseer ICANN $4 million a year for the next five years in order to "educate the wider ICANN community about security threats." Even though the generous $20 million donation has nothing to do with ICANN signing off on an extension of the dot-com contract until 2024, the "binding letter of intent" [PDF] stating the exact amount of funding will be appended to the registry agreement that Verisign has with ICANN to run the dot-com registry. That extension lifts a price freeze put in place several years ago and will allow Verisign to increase prices by seven per cent a year [in each of the last four years of each six year contract renewal]. It's an increase that we calculated was worth $993 million and which the stock market appeared to agree with when it raised the company's share price by 16 per cent when the agreement was first flagged in November 2018... ICANN explains the $20 million this time will be used to "support ICANN's initiatives to preserve and enhance the security, stability and resiliency of the DNS, including root server system governance, mitigation of DNS security threats, promotion and/or facilitation of DNSSEC deployment, the mitigation of name collisions, and research into the operation of the DNS." Which is all entirely above board and not at all shady.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/20/01/13/0512230 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.conf.au: 2020 live streams
by Peter Reutemann 13 Jan '20

13 Jan '20

Hi everyone This just came through on my twitter feed, the live feeds of linux.conf.au 2020: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD8dAKx4J2I45efawJoyCJ0CGjqi7Q78w -- source: https://twitter.com/xfxf/status/1216514835057238016 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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This Year's Y2K20 Bug Came Directly From 'A Lazy Fix' to the Y2K Bug
by Peter Reutemann 13 Jan '20

13 Jan '20

'Slashdot reader The8re still remembers the Y2K bug. Now he shares a New Scientist article explaining how it led directly to this year's Y2020 bug -- which affected more than just parking meters: WWE 2K20, a professional wrestling video game, also stopped working at midnight on 1 January 2020. Within 24 hours, the game's developers, 2K, issued a downloadable fix. Another piece of software, Splunk, which ironically looks for errors in computer systems, was found to be vulnerable to the Y2020 bug in November. The company rolled out a fix to users the same week -- which include 92 of the Fortune 100, the top 100 companies in the US.... The Y2020 bug, which has taken many payment and computer systems offline, is a long-lingering side effect of attempts to fix the Y2K, or millennium bug. Both stem from the way computers store dates. Many older systems express years using two numbers -- 98, for instance, for 1998 -- in an effort to save memory. The Y2K bug was a fear that computers would treat 00 as 1900, rather than 2000. Programmers wanting to avoid the Y2K bug had two broad options: entirely rewrite their code, or adopt a quick fix called "windowing", which would treat all dates from 00 to 20, as from the 2000s, rather than the 1900s. An estimated 80 percent of computers fixed in 1999 used the quicker, cheaper option. "Windowing, even during Y2K, was the worst of all possible solutions because it kicked the problem down the road," says Dylan Mulvin at the London School of Economics.... Another date storage problem also faces us in the year 2038. The issue again stems from Unix's epoch time: the data is stored as a 32-bit integer, which will run out of capacity at 3.14 am on 19 January 2038.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/01/12/0221226 Laziness always bites you in the bum in the end... 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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'Why I Finally Switched from Chrome to Firefox - and You Should Too'
by Peter Reutemann 13 Jan '20

13 Jan '20

'In 2018 an associate technology editor at Fast Company's Co.Design wrote an article titled "Why I'm switching from Chrome to Firefox and you should too." Today shanen shared a similar article from Digital Trends. Their writer announces that after years of experimenting with both browsers, they've also finally switched from Chrome to Mozilla Firefox -- "and you should too." The biggest draw for me was, of course, the fact that Mozilla Firefox can finally go toe-to-toe with Google Chrome on the performance front, and often manages to edge it out as well... Today, in addition to being fast, Firefox is resource-efficient, unlike most of its peers. I don't have to think twice before firing up yet another tab. It's rare that I'm forced to close an existing tab to make room for a new one. On Firefox, my 2015 MacBook Pro's fans don't blast past my noise-canceling headphones, which happened fairly regularly on Chrome as it pushed my laptop's fans to their helicopter-like limits to keep things running. This rare balance of efficiency and performance is the result of the countless under-the-hood upgrades Firefox has rolled out in the last couple of years... Its Enhanced Tracking Protection framework keeps your identity safe by blocking trackers and cookies that otherwise follow you around the internet and collect sensitive information you probably didn't even know you were giving up. On top of that, Firefox can warn if a website is covertly mining cryptocurrency in the background. Most of these protections kick in by default and you have an exhaustive set of options to customize them the way you want. Firefox also lets you look into just how invasive a website is. It actively updates your personal privacy report so you can check how many trackers it has shut overall and for a specific website... What really clinched the switch to Mozilla Firefox was the fact that it's the only cross-platform browser that's not running Google's open-source Chromium platform. Microsoft's Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi -- each of these browsers run on Chromium, accelerating Google's dominance over the web even when you're not directly using a Chrome user. Firefox, on the other hand, is powered by Mozilla's in-house Gecko engine that's not dependent on Chromium in any way. It may not seem like as vital of a trait as I make it sound, but it truly is, even though Chromium is open-source. Google oversees a huge chunk of the web, including ads, browser, and search, and this supremacy has allowed the company to pretty much run a monopoly and set its own rules for the open internet... Mozilla as a company has, despite a rocky journey, often taken bold stances in complex situations. In the Cambridge Analytica aftermath, Mozilla announced it would no longer run Facebook advertisements, cutting off direct marketing to over 2 billion users. In a world of tech companies taking frail, facile shots at protecting user privacy and barely delivering on their commitments, Mozilla is a breath of fresh air and you no longer have to live with any compromises to support it.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/01/11/2246247 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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Linus Torvalds: Avoid Oracle's ZFS Kernel Code Until 'Litigious' Larry Signs Off
by Peter Reutemann 12 Jan '20

12 Jan '20

'"Linux kernel head Linus Torvalds has warned engineers against adding a module for the ZFS filesystem that was designed by Sun Microsystems -- and now owned by Oracle -- due to licensing issues," reports ZDNet: As reported by Phoronix, Torvalds has warned kernel developers against using ZFS on Linux, an implementation of OpenZFS, and refuses to merge any ZFS code until Oracle changes the open-source license it uses. ZFS has long been licensed under Sun's Common Development and Distribution License as opposed to the Linux kernel, which is licensed under GNU General Public License (GPL). Torvalds aired his opinion on the matter in response to a developer who argued that a recent kernel change "broke an important third-party module: ZFS". The Linux kernel creator says he refuses to merge the ZFS module into the kernel because he can't risk a lawsuit from "litigious" Oracle -- which is still trying to sue Google for copyright violations over its use of Java APIs in Android -- and Torvalds won't do so until Oracle founder Larry Ellison signs off on its use in the Linux kernel. "If somebody adds a kernel module like ZFS, they are on their own. I can't maintain it and I cannot be bound by other people's kernel changes," explained Torvalds. "And honestly, there is no way I can merge any of the ZFS efforts until I get an official letter from Oracle that is signed by their main legal counsel or preferably by Larry Ellison himself that says that yes, it's OK to do so and treat the end result as GPL'd," Torvalds continued. "Other people think it can be OK to merge ZFS code into the kernel and that the module interface makes it OK, and that's their decision. But considering Oracle's litigious nature, and the questions over licensing, there's no way I can feel safe in ever doing so."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/01/11/0421238 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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Computer stuff
by Noel Villamor 12 Jan '20

12 Jan '20

Hi, I cleaned my garage and I have some stuff which might be useful to some - see attached pdf. Email me back if you need my address for pickup. I live in Fitzroy. With regards, Noel

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Hundreds of Millions of Cable Modems Are Vulnerable To New Cable Haunt Vulnerability
by Peter Reutemann 11 Jan '20

11 Jan '20

'A team of four Danish security researchers has disclosed this week a security flaw that impacts cable modems that use Broadcom chips. From a report: The vulnerability, codenamed Cable Haunt, is believed to impact an estimated 200 million cable modems in Europe alone, the research team said today. The vulnerability impacts a standard component of Broadcom chips called a spectrum analyzer. This is a hardware and software component that protects the cable modem from signal surges and disturbances coming via the coax cable. The component is often used by internet service providers (ISPs) in debugging connection quality. On most cable modems, access to this component is limited for connections from the internal network. The research team says the Broadcom chip spectrum analyzer lacks protection against DNS rebinding attacks, uses default credentials, and also contains a programming error in its firmware.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/01/10/1914204 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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Firefox gets patch for critical 0-day that’s being actively exploited
by Peter Reutemann 10 Jan '20

10 Jan '20

'Mozilla has released a new version of Firefox that fixes an actively exploited zero-day that could allow attackers to take control of users' computers. In an advisory, Mozilla rated the vulnerability critical and said it was "aware of targeted attacks in the wild abusing this flaw." The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said one or more exploits were "detected in the wild" and warned that attacks could be exploited to "take control of an affected system." The Mozilla advisory credited researchers at China-based Qihoo 360 with reporting the flaw. No other details about the attacks were immediately available. Neither Mozilla nor Qihoo 360 responded to emails asking for more information. CVE-2019-17026, as the vulnerability is indexed, is a type confusion, a potentially critical error that can result in data being written to, or read from, memory locations that are normally off-limits. These out-of-bounds reads may allow attackers to discover memory locations where malicious code is stored so that protections such as address space layout randomization can be bypassed. Out-of-bounds reads can also cause crashes. The flaw is fixed in Tuesday's release of Firefox 72.0.1. The patch came a day after version 72 fixed 11 other vulnerabilities, six of which were rated high. Three of those six bugs might make it possible for attackers to run malicious code on affected computers.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/firefox-gets-patch-f… 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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