- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Firefox 62 Arrives With Variable Fonts, Automatic Dark Theme on macOS, and Better Scrolling on Android
by Peter Reutemann 05 Sep '18

05 Sep '18

'Mozilla today released Firefox 62 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The release builds on Firefox Quantum, which the company calls "by far the biggest update since Firefox 1.0 in 2004." Version 62 brings variable fonts, automatic dark theme on macOS, and better scrolling on Android. Firefox 62 for the desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play. The latest iOS version is available on Apple's App Store.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/09/05/1423259 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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Official Chrome Extension of Cloud Storage Service Mega Caught Stealing Passwords, Cryptocurrency Private Keys
by Peter Reutemann 05 Sep '18

05 Sep '18

'The official Chrome extension for the MEGA.nz file sharing service has been compromised with malicious code that steals usernames and passwords, but also private keys for cryptocurrency accounts, ZDNet reports. From the report: The malicious behavior was found in the source code of the MEGA.nz Chrome extension version 3.39.4, released as an update earlier today. Google engineers have already intervened and removed the extension from the official Chrome Web Store, and also disabled the extension for existing users. According to an analysis of the extension's source, the malicious code triggered on sites such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, GitHub, the MyEtherWallet and MyMonero web wallet services, and the IDEX cryptocurrency trading platform. The malicious code would record usernames, passwords, and other session data that attackers would need to log in and impersonate users. If the website managed cryptocurrency, the attacker would also extract the private keys needed to access users' funds.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/09/05/1841240 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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Mobile Spyware Maker mSpy Leaks Millions of Sensitive Records
by Peter Reutemann 05 Sep '18

05 Sep '18

'mSpy, the makers of a software-as-a-service product that claims to help more than a million paying customers spy on the mobile devices of their kids and partners, has leaked millions of sensitive records online, including passwords, call logs, text messages, contacts, notes and location data secretly collected from phones running the stealthy spyware. Krebs On Security reports: Less than a week ago, security researcher Nitish Shah directed KrebsOnSecurity to an open database on the Web that allowed anyone to query up-to-the-minute mSpy records for both customer transactions at mSpy's site and for mobile phone data collected by mSpy's software. The database required no authentication. Before it was taken offline sometime in the past 12 hours, the database contained millions of records, including the username, password and private encryption key of each mSpy customer who logged in to the mSpy site or purchased an mSpy license over the past six months. The private key would allow anyone to track and view details of a mobile device running the software, Shah said. In addition, the database included the Apple iCloud username and authentication token of mobile devices running mSpy, and what appear to be references to iCloud backup files. Anyone who stumbled upon this database also would have been able to browse the Whatsapp and Facebook messages uploaded from mobile devices equipped with mSpy. Other records exposed included the transaction details of all mSpy licenses purchased over the last six months, including customer name, email address, mailing address and amount paid. Also in the data set were mSpy user logs -- including the browser and Internet address information of people visiting the mSpy Web site. ' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/09/04/2236213 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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Chrome 69 Arrives With Revamped Design, More Powerful Omnibox, and Better Password Manager
by Peter Reutemann 04 Sep '18

04 Sep '18

'Google today launched Chrome 69 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Android, and iOS, just a few days after the browser's 10-year anniversary. The release includes a new design, more powerful omnibox, updated password manager, more accurate autofill, plenty of developer-specific changes, and a slew of security improvements. You can update to the latest version now using Chrome's built-in updater, download it directly from google.com/chrome, or grab it from Google Play and Apple's App Store.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/09/04/1711250 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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MikroTik Routers Are Forwarding Owners' Traffic To Unknown Attackers
by Peter Reutemann 04 Sep '18

04 Sep '18

'Attackers have been exploiting vulnerabilities in MikroTik routers to forward network traffic to a handful of IP addresses under their control. "The bug is in Winbox management component and allows a remote attacker to bypass authentication and read arbitrary files," reports Bleeping Computer. "Exploit code is freely available from at least three sources from at least three sources." From the report: 360Netlab announced in a blog post today that more than 7,500 MikroTik routers across the world are currently delivering their TZSP (TaZmen Sniffer Protocol) traffic to nine external IP addresses. According to the researchers, the attacker modified the device's packet sniffing settings to forward the data to their locations. "37.1.207.114 is the top player among all the attackers. A significant number of devices have their traffic going to this destination," Qihoo experts inform. The analysis shows that the attacker is particularly interested in ports 20, 21, 25, 110, and 144, which are for FTP-data, FTP, SMTP, POP3, and IMAP traffic. An unusual interest is in traffic from SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) ports 161 and 162, which researchers cannot explain at the moment. The largest number of compromised devices, 1,628, is in Russia, followed by Iran (637), Brazil (615), India (594) and Ukraine (544). The researchers say that security outfits in the affected countries can contact them at netlab[at]360.cn for a full list of IPs. ' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/09/04/2116202 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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How Do Spectre/Meltdown Fixes Affect The Linux Kernel?
by Peter Reutemann 01 Sep '18

01 Sep '18

'"Using the newly minted Linux 4.19 feature code, fresh benchmarks were carried out looking at the performance cost of Spectre/Meltdown/Foreshadow mitigations on Intel Xeon v. AMD EPYC CPUs," writes an anonymous Slashdot reader: Workloads affected by these CPU vulnerabilities mainly deal with I/O and frequent kernel calls while CPU bound tests are still found to be minimally impacted. When toggling these mitigations on Linux 4.19, Intel Xeon CPUs were found to be 10~15% slower with the default kernel while AMD EPYC CPUs dropped to about 5% slower.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/09/01/1727238 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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Intel Blocked Collaboration On Spectre/Meltdown Fixes, Says Linux Kernel Developer
by Peter Reutemann 01 Sep '18

01 Sep '18

'This week in Vancouver, Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman criticized Intel's slow initial response to the Spectre and Meltdown bugs in a talk at the Open Source Summit North America. An anonymous reader quotes eWeek: Kroah-Hartman said that when Intel finally decided to tell Linux developers, the disclosure was siloed.... "Intel siloed SUSE, they siloed Red Hat, they siloed Canonical. They never told Oracle, and they wouldn't let us talk to each other." For an initial set of vulnerabilities, Kroah-Hartman said the different Linux vendors typically work together. However, in this case they ended up working on their own, and each came up with different solutions. "It really wasn't working, and a number of us kernel developers yelled at [Intel] and pleaded, and we finally got them to allow us to talk to each other the last week of December [2017]," he said. "All of our Christmas vacations were ruined. This was not good. Intel really messed up on this," Kroah-Hartman said... "The majority of the world runs Debian or they run their own kernel," Kroah-Hartman said. "Debian was not allowed to be part of the disclosure, so the majority of the world was caught with their pants down, and that's not good." To Intel's credit, Kroah-Hartman said that after Linux kernel developers complained loudly to the company in December 2017 and into January 2018, it fixed its disclosure process for future Meltdown- and Spectre-related vulnerabilities... "Intel has gotten better at this," he said. An interesting side effect of the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities is that Linux and Windows developers are now working together, since both operating systems face similar risks from the CPU vulnerabilities. "Windows and Linux kernel developers now have this wonderful back channel. We're talking to each other and we're fixing bugs for each other," Kroah-Hartman said. "We are working well together. We have always wanted that."' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/18/09/01/1736228 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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Android Bug Allows Geolocation Tracking of Users
by Peter Reutemann 30 Aug '18

30 Aug '18

'Researchers have discovered a weakness in all version of Android except 9, the most recent release, that can allow an attacker to gather sensitive information such as the MAC address and BSSID name and pinpoint the location of an affected device. The vulnerability is a result of the way that Android broadcasts device information to apps installed on a device. The operating system uses a mechanism known as an intent to send out information between processes or applications, and some of the information about the device's WiFi network interface sent via a pair of intents can be used by an attacker to track a device closely. A malicious app -- or just one that is listening for the right broadcasts from Android -- would be able to identify any individual Android device and geolocate it. An attacker could use this weaknesses to track a given device, presumably without the user's knowledge. Although Android has had MAC address randomization implemented since version 6, released in 2015, Yakov Shafranovich of Nightwatch Cybersecurity said his research showed that an attacker can get around this restriction.' -- source: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/08/30/1725225 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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What Dropbox Dropping Linux Support Says
by Peter Reutemann 29 Aug '18

29 Aug '18

'Jack Wallen, writing for TechRepublic: For a company to support Linux, they have to consider supporting: Multiple file systems, multiple distributions, multiple desktops, multiple init systems, multiple kernels. If you're an open source developer, focusing on a single distribution, that's not a problem. If you're a company that produces a product (and you stake your living on that product), those multiple points of entry do become a problem. Let's consider Adobe (and Photoshop). If Adobe wanted to port their industry-leading product to Linux, how do they do that? Do they spend the time developing support for ext4, btrfs, Ubuntu, Fedora, GNOME, Mate, KDE, systemd? You see how that might look from the eyes of any given company? It becomes even more complicated when companies consider how accustomed to the idea of "free" (as in beer) Linux users are. Although I am very willing to pay for software on Linux, it's a rare occasion that I do (mostly because I haven't found a piece of must-have software that has an associated cost). Few companies will support the Linux desktop when the act of supporting means putting that much time and effort into a product that a large cross-section of users might wind up unwilling to pay the price of admission. That's not to say every Linux user is unwilling to shell out the cost for a piece of software. But many won't.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/08/29/0949228 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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The Linux Foundation Is Changing The Fabric Of Networking
by Peter Reutemann 29 Aug '18

29 Aug '18

'Will Townsend, a senior analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy research firm, writes: As it relates to networking, the Linux Foundation is currently focused on a number of projects that are bringing top networking vendors, operators, service providers, and users together. Among the top initiatives are the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) and Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK). In this article, I would like to dive into both of these initiatives and share my perspective on how each is transforming the nature of networking [Editor's note: the website may have auto-playing videos; an alternative link was not available]. It makes sense that ONAP's releases are named after global cities, considering the platform's growing global footprint. ONAP is aimed at bringing real-time automation and orchestration to both physical and virtualized network functions. The first release in the fall of 2017, named Amsterdam, delivered a unified architecture for providing closed-loop networking automation. The underlying framework ensured a level of modularity to facilitate future functionality as well as standards harmonization and critical upstream partner collaboration. Initial use cases centered on Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) services as well as Virtualized Consumer Premise Equipment (vCPE). Both are extremely cost disruptive from a deployment and management perspective and deliver enhanced service provider agility. What I find extremely compelling is that Amsterdam was only an eight-month development cycle from start to release. That's an amazing feat even in the fast-paced technology industry. [...] DPDK was an effort initially led by Intel at its inception nearly eight years ago, but became a part of the Linux Foundation back in 2017. At a high level, the technology accelerates packet processing workloads running on a variety of CPU architectures. DPDK is aimed at improving overall network performance, delivering enhanced encryption for improved security and optimizing lower latency applications that require lightning-fast response time. The transformative power of 5G networks lies in their potential to deliver low latency for applications such as augmented/virtual reality and self-driving cars -- DPDK will further extend that performance for next-generation wireless wide area networks. I had the opportunity recently to speak to project chair Jim St. Leger after the fifth DPDK release, and I was impressed with the depth and breadth of the open source project. Over 25 companies and 160 technologists are involved in advancing the effort. With the proliferation of data, cord cutting at home, and growing consumption of video over wired and wireless networks, high-quality compression techniques will dramatically improve performance and reliability. DPDK appears to be poised to contribute significantly to that effort.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/08/29/1646231 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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