So we got these shiny new BlackBerry Q10 and Z10 device laying on the desk one morning. It’s my first BlackBerry, I have to admit, but never the less, the hole wushy GUI and touchy glass stuff wasn’t my main concern, instead i took a look at the stuff going on while you connect the phone (do i have to call it blackberry? its a phone, isn’t it?) to your computer.
Continue reading Continue readingSome Notes on Types of Security Controls & the Way they’re Implemented in Enterprise Environments
Welcome back, Dear Reader,
in this post I’d like to share some reflections on the (potentially inefficient) way some security controls can be observed to be deployed in complex organisations and what this may mean for the future of those controls.
In general the space of security controls can be categorized according to different schemes, such as:
- By fundamental principle (preventive, detective, reactive, corrective, deterrent, compensating etc. security controls. see for example this overview or this one or some illustration here).
- By “state of matter” (e.g. components, implementation, operations. again, for some supplemental information look at this one).
- By type of admission: whitelisting vs. blacklisting (some general discussion here, the respective Schneier-Ranum Face-Off to be found here, and this is only Bruce’s half, but with a number of comments).
- Related to the overall architecture of implementation: centralized vs. distributed.
For today’s topic I’ll just focus on the latter two and will introduce those shortly.
Continue reading Continue readingGanz Gallien?
“Nein! Ein von unbeugsamen Galliern bevölkertes Dorf hört nicht auf, dem Eindringling Widerstand zu leisten.”
This is a famous quote pretty much every German kid used to know. Not sure if this still applies though, my three haven’t touched Asterix comics so far. Anyhow, you might ask why I cite this.
Simple answer: see this recent article from the Guardian on a Utah-based ISP “resisting some pressure”. That’s the spirit…
Have a great Sunday everybody,
Continue reading Continue readingPre-Weekend Goody: TROOPERS13 Video
Enjoy! After seeing this I personally feel like signing up for the TROOPERS14 Enthusiast Package 😉
Carry on
Florian & Team
Reverse Engineering Tools Part 1: BinDiff
When teaching courses on topics like Reverse Engineering or Malware Analysis we always emphasize the need to minimize unneeded work. Because reversing an unknown binary is a time consuming and complex process, tools that simplify the RE process are invaluable when working under time pressure. In this blogpost series I will present multiple tools and techniques that can help to reverse an unknown binary. Please note that these articles do not contain cutting edge research but rather target at newcomers. However, I hope to also provide some useful and interesting information for moreexperienced practitioners.
Continue reading Continue readingEMET v4.0 with New Certificate Trust Feature Released
Microsoft released EMET v4.0 with a new (security) feature that enables protection against fraudulent websites or compromised root certification authorities (do you remember Comodo, DigiNotar, DigiCert, Turktrust et al. ;-)?)
EMET defines via “certificate trust“ a trust chain between the domain name of a website (and its associated website certificate) and a root CA certificate. This is done through so called “pinning rules”. Here is one of the default pinning rules of EMET 4.0 for the domain name login.live.com:
Continue reading Continue readingTROOPERS14 Registration Open + TROOPERS13 Photos Online
**Dear blog followers, TROOPERS speakers & attendees,
**we hope you’re doing fine! Today we have a couple of great things to share
with you:
TROOPERS14
Let’s start with a date. Get your calendar and mark March 17th – 21st 2014.
It’s your TROOPERS14 holidays. One week full of high-end education, workshops,
talks, reconnecting with friends, action, delicious food and one or the other
party. You know the drill – more details further down.
Slides & Scripts from Antonios Atlasis’ “Advanced Attack Techniques against IPv6 Networks” Workshop
After his great presentations on IPv6 Extensions Headers and security problems related to fragmentation we had invited Antonios Atlasis to Heidelberg to give this workshop at ERNW. It was a great experience with many fruitful discussions between the participants (mostly security practitioners from very large organizations planning to have their Internet edge IPv6 enabled within the next 6-12 months) and him/us. Antonios thankfully decided to make his slides and scripts available for those interested in further research on the topics (it should be noted that the scripts have not been tested thoroughly and he’s happy to receive feedback of any kind at antoniosDOTatlasisDOTgmailDOTcom). Today Marc (Heuse) gives his workshop on pentesting in the IPv6 age. Hopefully such events help to move things into the right direction in the IPv6 security space…
Continue reading Continue readingMicrosoft Doc “Best Practices for Securing Active Directory”
Hi,
MS just released a new guide on securing Active Directory. At the first glance seems a fairly comprehensive document to me.
At this occasion I may furthermore draw your attention to our (German language) newsletter no. 40 covering hardening MS Windows Server 2008 + AD.
have a good one,
Enno
Continue readingImpressions from the Google I/O Con
From
15th – 17th of May, the sixth Google I/O conference took place in San Francisco,
California and I was one of the lucky guys attending. More then 5500 people,
primarily web, mobile, and enterprise developers, attended this annual event. A
lot of presentations included announcements of new and exciting technologies,
APIs as well as of two new devices.
During the first minutes of the keynote some of Google’s managers announced that by now over 900 million Android devices are activated and that 48 billion apps are installed, which demonstrates that this market is still heavily growing. As the major part of the audience were (app-) developers, these numbers were received quite greatfully and euphoric.
Continue reading Continue reading