- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

MacOS High Sierra Bug Allows Login As Root With No Password
by Peter Reutemann 04 Dec '17

04 Dec '17

'A trivial-to-exploit flaw in macOS High Sierra, aka macOS 10.13, allows users to gain admin rights, or log in as root, without a password. The security bug is triggered via the authentication dialog box in Apple's operating system, which prompts you for an administrator's username and password when you need to do stuff like configure privacy and network settings. If you type in "root" as the username, leave the password box blank, hit "enter" and then click on unlock a few times, the prompt disappears and, congrats, you now have admin rights. You can do this from the user login screen. The vulnerability effectively allows someone with physical access to the machine to log in, cause extra mischief, install malware, and so on. You should not leave your vulnerable Mac unattended until you can fix the problem. And while obviously this situation is not the end of the world -- it's certainly far from a remote hole or a disk decryption technique -- it's just really, really sad to see megabucks Apple drop the ball like this. Developer Lemi Orhan Ergan was the first to alert the world to the flaw. The Register notes: "If you have a root account enabled and a password for it set, the black password trick will not work. So, keep the account enabled and set a root password right now..."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/11/28/2135236 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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Researchers Run Unsigned Code on Intel ME By Exploiting USB Ports
by Peter Reutemann 04 Dec '17

04 Dec '17

'A pair of security researchers in Russia are claiming to have compromised the Intel Management Engine just using one of the computer's USB ports. The researchers gained access to a fully functional JTAG connection to Intel CSME via USB DCI. The claim is different from previous USB DCI JTAG examples from earlier this year. Full JTAG access to the ME would allow making permanent hidden changes to the machine. "Getting into and hijacking the Management Engine means you can take full control of a box," reports the Register, "underneath and out of sight of whatever OS, hypervisor or antivirus is installed." They add that "This powerful God-mode technology is barely documented," while The Next Web points out that USB ports are "a common attack vector."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/11/11/237236 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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Is Open Source Innovation Now All About Vendor On-Ramps?
by Peter Reutemann 03 Dec '17

03 Dec '17

'InfoWorld published an interesting essay from Matt Asay, former COO at Canonical (and an emeritus board member of the Open Source Initiative), about innovation from the big public cloud vendors, which "even when open-sourced, doesn't really help the community at large... All this innovation is available to buy; none of it is available to build. Not for mere mortals, anyway." Google in particular has figured out how to both open-source code in a useful way and make it pay. As Server Density CEO David Mytton has underlined, Google hopes to "standardize machine learning on a single framework and API," namely TensorFlow, then supplement it "with a service that can [manage] it all for you more efficiently and with less operational overhead," namely Google Cloud. By open-sourcing TensorFlow and backing it with machine-learning-heavy Google Cloud, Google has open-sourced a great on-ramp to future revenue. My question: why not do this with the rest of its code? The simple answer is "Because it's a lot of work." That is, Google could open-source everything tomorrow without any damage to its revenue, but the code itself would provide other providers and enterprises only limited ability to increase their revenue unless Google did all the necessary prep work to make it useful to mere mortals not running superhuman Google infrastructure. This is the trick that AWS, Microsoft, and Google are all racing to figure out today. Not open source, per se, because that's the easy table stakes. No, the AWS/Microsoft Azure/Google Cloud trio are figuring out how to turn their innovations into open source on-ramps to their proprietary services. Companies used to lock up their code to sell it. Today, it's the opposite: They need to open it up to make their ability to operate the code at scale more valuable. For them.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/12/02/0833217 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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Understanding the New Red Hat-IBM-Google-Facebook GPL Enforcement Announcement
by Peter Reutemann 03 Dec '17

03 Dec '17

'Bruce Perens co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric Raymond -- and he's also Slashdot reader #3872. Bruce Perens writes: Red Hat, IBM, Google, and Facebook announced that they would give infringers of their GPL software up to a 30-day hold-off period during which an accused infringer could cure a GPL violation after one was brought to their attention by the copyright holder, and a 60 day "statute of limitations" on an already-cured infringement when the copyright holder has never notified the infringer of the violation. In both cases, there would be no penalty: no damages, no fees, probably no lawsuit; for the infringer who promptly cures their infringement. Perens sees the move as "obviously inspired" by the kernel team's earlier announcement, and believes it's directed against one man who made 50 copyright infringement claims involving the Linux kernel "with intent to collect income rather than simply obtain compliance with the GPL license." Unfortunately, "as far as I can tell, it's Patrick McHardy's legal right to bring such claims regarding the copyrights which he owns, even if it doesn't fit Community Principles which nobody is actually compelled to follow."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/12/02/2024240 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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'24 Pull Requests' Suggests Contributing Code For Christmas
by Peter Reutemann 03 Dec '17

03 Dec '17

'"On December 1st, 24 Pull Requests will be opening its virtual doors once again, asking you to give the gift of a pull request to an open source project in need," writes UK-based software developer Andrew Nesbitt -- noting that last year the site registered more than 16,000 pull requests. "And they're not all by programmers. Often the contribution with the most impact might be an improvement to technical documentation, some tests, or even better -- guidance for other contributors." This year they're even touting "24 Pull Requests hack events," happening around the world from Lexington, Kentucky to Torino, Italy. (Last year 80 people showed up for an event in London.) "You don't have to hack alone this Christmas!" suggests the site, also inviting local communities and geek meetups (as well as open source-loving companies) to host their own events. Contributing to open source projects can also beef up your CV (for when you're applying for your next job), the site points out, and "Even small contributions can be really valuable to a project." "You've been benefiting from the use of open source projects all year. Now is the time to say thanks to the maintainers of those projects, and a little birdy tells me that they love receiving pull requests!"' -- source: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/17/12/03/2018213 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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Net Un-Neutrality ... For Real
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Dec '17

01 Dec '17

Some of those who have been following the net neutrality debate may remember a spoof poster that showed what might happen if ISPs were allowed to charge you differently, based on which sites you were allowed to visit. Well, in Spain, which has no laws against this sort of thing, a similar situation has actually happened: one ISP is selling you addons to a basic broadband cap based, not on the amount of extra data you want, but on what you want to use it for. Their “Vodafone Pass” product offers tiers like €3/month extra for a “Social Pass”, or €5/month for a “Music Pass”. <https://pplware.sapo.pt/informacao/vodafone-portugal-pacotes-smartnet/>, referenced from <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171030/12364538513/portugal-shows-inter…>

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30 Years Of HyperCard
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Nov '17

30 Nov '17

Just came across this item <https://blog.archive.org/2017/08/11/hypercard-on-the-archive-celebrating-30…> at archive.org about an online emulator that runs HyperCard stacks. HyperCard, in case you didn’t know, was an application created by Apple Macintosh engineer Bill Atkinson for that platform in 1987, and it was always hard to describe exactly what it was for. But it allowed users to create their own applications, aka “stacks”, around a card-based paradigm. One of the commenters points out that the basic idea is still alive and well, in the form of LiveCode, which is available as a paid online service <https://livecode.com/> and also in the form of Free Software <https://github.com/livecode/>.

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A Surge Of Sites And Apps Are Exhausting Your CPU To Mine Cryptocurrency
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 29 Nov '17

29 Nov '17

Noticed your machine getting slow after visiting certain websites? They could be running cryptocurrency miners in your browser. <https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/a-surge-of-sites-and…>: Coinhive's massive Web audience isn't lost on other companies. Collin Mulliner, a security researcher and developer of TelStop, said he recently received an e-mail from a startup called Medsweb inviting him to integrate a Monero miner into his creation. I got one of those e-mails too...

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Internet-paralyzing Mirai botnet comes roaring back with new strain
by Peter Reutemann 29 Nov '17

29 Nov '17

'Mirai, the Internet-of-things malware that turns cameras, routers, and other household devices into potent distributed denial-of-service platforms, may be lying low, but it's certainly not dead. Last week, researchers identified a new outbreak that infected almost 100,000 devices in a matter of days. In September of last year, Mirai emerged as a force to be reckoned with when it played a key role in silencing one of the most intrepid sources of security news in then-record-setting DDoS attacks topping 620 gigabits per second. Within a few weeks, Mirai's developer published the source code, a feat that allowed relatively unsophisticated people to wage the same types of extraordinarily big assaults. The release almost immediately helped touch off a series of large-scale attacks. The most serious one degraded or completely took down Twitter, GitHub, the PlayStation network, and hundreds of other sites by targeting Dyn, a service that provided domain name services to the affected sites. Last week, researchers from China-based Netlab 360 say they spotted a new, publicly available Mirai variant. The changes allowed the malware to spread to networking devices made by ZyXEL Communications that could be remotely accessed over telnet using default passwords. One of the exploits was published on October 31. Over a span of 60 hours starting on November 22, the new Mirai strain was able to commandeer almost 100,000 devices. Virtually all of the infected devices used IP addresses local to Argentina, a possible indication the outbreak targeted customers of a regional service provider who were assigned unsecured modems.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/internet-paralyzing-… 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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66 Percent of Popular Android Cryptocurrency Apps Don't Use Encryption
by Peter Reutemann 29 Nov '17

29 Nov '17

'High-Tech Bridge used its free mobile app analysis software, called Mobile X-Ray, to peek under the hood of the top 30 cryptocurrency apps in the Google Play store at three different popularity levels: apps with up to 100,000 downloads, up to 500,000 downloads, and apps with more than 500,000 downloads. So, a total of 90 apps altogether. Of the most popular apps, 94 percent used outdated encryption, 66 percent didn't use HTTPS to encrypt user information in transit, 44 percent used hard-coded default passwords (stored in plain text in the code), and overall 94 percent of the most popular apps were found to have "at least three medium-risk vulnerabilities."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/11/29/1610245 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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