sslstrip - so much for SSL

This tool will transparently hijack HTTP traffic on a network, watch for HTTPS links and redirects, then map those links into either look-alike HTTP links or homograph-similar HTTPS links. It also supports modes for supplying a favicon which looks like a lock icon, selective logging, and session denial. For more information on the attack, see the video from the presentation.

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Zenmap's Network Topology feature

Zenmap's new Network Topology feature gives you a visual representation of Nmap's findings.

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Nmap - big changes coming

Check out the cool new features in the latest BETA release...

Associative Word List Generator (AWLG)

"The Associative Word List Generator (AWLG) is a tool that generates a list of words relevant to some subjects, by scouring the Internet in an automated fashion.

Inclusion Example: A search string including the words (without quotes): "steve carell" would give us a word list with lots of words associated with the actor Steve Carell. This includes all of the words from his MySpace page, words from the Wikipedia article on him, etc.

Exclusion Example: We know that Steve Carell is an actor for lots of things, including a show called "The Office". A search string: "steve carell" with omissions: "office" and "michael scott" would find words from websites that mention Steve Carell, but do not mention the word "office", "michael", or "scott".

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Mac users beware! Clever Trojan on the loose...

"One of the ways in which the OSX/RSPlug-F Mac Trojan horse is being distributed by hackers is in the form of a poisoned HDTV/DTV program called MacCinema.

As you'll see in this video, visiting a website that gives many of the signs of legitimacy, can lead to you downloading a Trojan horse. Even for the Apple Mac.

And don't try and tell me that this couldn't affect Mac OS X users because they would have to enter their administrator username and password to install the package. If they were prepared to download this program from this website, I feel pretty confident that they would enter their administrator details to allow installation too!

Mac users are no different to Windows users in this regard - this is social engineering, plain and simple.

Oh, and Windows users shouldn't feel too smug about this either. If you visit the site on a Windows computer, it will serve up a malicious Windows executable from the Zlob family of malware rather than a Mac OS X Trojan horse.

By the way, we tried this on both Firefox and Safari on the Apple Mac. It makes no difference. The attack does not depend on a browser vulnerability - it works by the user being convinced that this is a program that they would like to run on their computer." Read more...

Network Monitor 3.2 has arrived!

I've never been a big fan of Microsoft's NetMon in the past but this latest release looks very useful!

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USB stick with secret personal data of 12 million is found in a pub car park

"Ministers have been forced to order an emergency shutdown of a key Government computer system to protect millions of people's private details.

The action was taken after a memory stick was found in a pub car park containing confidential passcodes to the online Government Gateway system, which covers everything from tax returns to parking tickets.

An urgent investigation is now under way into how the stick, belonging to the company which runs the flagship system, came to be lost." Read more...

Spies Want to Scan Your Iris From Afar

There's software that's smart enough to recognize people by their faces, or by their irises. But those algorithms are finicky. To work properly, subjects usually have to be willing to play along -- looking straight into the camera, when the light is just right.

The new uber-geek arm of American spy agencies, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, is looking to change that. Researchers there want to do iris and face-scans from far away, and "under uncontrolled acquisition conditions." So they're launching a new project, "Biometrics Exploitation Science and Technology" (BEST) to find new ways to get this face and eye data, even when the subject is moving and the lighting is all wrong. "The minimum objective is to exceed by a factor of three what is commercially available today, with recognition performance similar to that achieved with the cooperative or conditioned individual under controlled acquisition," a recent announcement to industry notes.

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Epic Social Engineering Example

A teenager impersonating a Chicago police officer played a minor role in an arrest on January 24, according to Police Superintendent Jody Weis.

On Tuesday, Supt. Weis called on the U.S. Secret Service for a review of the security breach, which he called "outrageous, angering, disturbing and unforgettable."

"In my mind it's almost incomprehensible it could have happened. Unfortunately it did. It's very disturbing, and that's why we want to send a message that this can't happen again," said Supt. Jody Weis, Chicago Police Dept.

Weis said an internal investigation shows seven Chicago police officers broke department rules during the incident. All districts will be re-trained, according to Weis.

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NSA's smart phone could become government issue

"A new mobile phone specifically designed for the National Security Agency looks like any other commercial smart phone, with a decent-size screen for Web browsing and a full keyboard for data entry." Read more...

Trojan Horse - awesome!

KeePass & YubiKey

You can now use Yubikey with KeePass. Check it out...

SheevaPlug: A $99 Linux PC Crammed Inside a Wall Plug

Great for physical access tests.

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