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CVE-2018-0692 – The installer of Baidu Browser may insecurely load Dynamic Link Libraries

Preface:

Baidu Spark Browser is based on Chromium, the same engine which runs Google Chrome.

Vulnerability findings:
Baidu Browser provided by Baidu, Inc. is a Web browser. The installer of Baidu Browser contains an issue with the DLL search path, which may lead to insecurely loading Dynamic Link Libraries.

Impact:
Arbitrary code may be executed with the privilege of the user invoking the installer.

Observation:
The threat actor can placing a malicious version of the dll file in the “C:\Program Files (x86)\baidu\spark\” folder. When the victim starts the browser, the browser execute file will load the malicious version of dll library file. How does the malicious dll file implant? It looks that a reserve engineering was happened in the original installer.

Reference URL:

http://jvn.jp/en/jp/JVN77885134/index.html

VMware Releases Security Updates – November 20, 2018

Preface:
vSphere Data Protection is a backup and recovery solution designed for vSphere environments.It provides agentless, image-level virtual-machine backups to disk.
VMware vSphere 6.5 is the last release which includes the VDP product. All existing vSphere Data Protection installations with active Support and Subscription (SnS) will continue to be supported until their End of General Support (EOGS) date.

Vulnerability findings:
An attacker could exploit some of these vulnerabilities in VDP and thus to take control of an affected system.

Official remedy solution (see below URL):
https://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2018-0029.html

Appendix: VMware vSphere 6.5 is the last release which includes the VDP product. Meanwhile VMware announced the End of Availability (EOA) of the VMware vSphere Data Protection (VDP) product on April 5th, 2017. (See below URL)

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2149614

Status update – Multiple Vulnerabilities in Some ZTE CPE Terminal Products 19th Nov 2018

Preface: GPON stands for Gigabit Passive Optical Networks. GPON is defined by ITU-T recommendation series G.984.1 through G.984.6.

ZTE model F670 is a GPON Optical Network Terminal designed for Fiber to the home (FTTH) scenario. Therefore, it is very popular in today’s Internet home use.

Vulnerability findings:
Some ZTE CPE terminal products encountered below vulnerability. For more detail please refer to official announcement.
1. Heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability, which may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code.
2. May allow an unauthenticated attacker to get the GPON SN information via appviahttp service.
3. May allows an attacker to cause a denial of service via appviahttp service.
4. May allows an unauthorized user to perform unauthorized operations on the router.
5. An attacker can be allowed to brute force account credentials.

Vulnerabilities and remedy details:
http://support.zte.com.cn/support/news/LoopholeInfoDetail.aspx?newsId=1009383

Comments: We aware that there are plenty of IoT devices expose their vulnerabilities on internet. It such a way to let the cyber criminals form their cyber attack army (Botnet). So staying alert and following the vendor recommendation to execute the remedy.

Supercomputer – Who’s running fastest in the world? Nov 2018

Preface:

When executing a process by switching it between various CPU cores is that, when switching a process to a new CPU core, the “L1” cache of the new core has to be updated and the previous core’s “L1” cache might requires to be deleted etc. Whereby in a somewhat unnecessary cache activity that ultimately downgrade the performance. But the traditional mainframe vector processor and crossbar switch did not have above technical limitation.

What technologies have changed the world? The success of the PCR clusters was followed by the purchase of the Multiprogrammatic Capability Resource (MCR) cluster in July, 2002 from Linux NetworX. The PCR cluster debuted as the Top 500 Supercomputers list in November, 2002.

Who’s running fastest in the world?

1. Summit – IBM Power System AC922, IBM POWER9 22C 3.07GHz, NVIDIA Volta GV100, Dual-rail Mellanox EDR Infiniband , IBM DOE/SC/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
United States
Cores – 2,397,824, Rmax (TFlop/s)143,500.0
….

3. Sunway TaihuLight – Sunway MPP, Sunway SW26010 260C 1.45GHz, Sunway , NRCPC National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi China
Cores – 10,649,600 Rmax (TFlop/s) 93,014.6

Who knows who is the winner tomorrow?

AWS S3 Misconfigurations how to Avoid?

Preface:
AWS cloud business keep running strong in the market. Amazon S3 or Amazon Simple Storage Service is a “simple storage service” offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that provides object storage through a web service interface.

Synopsis:
S3 buckets can be configured with public access. But S3 looks like a burden for AWS reputation. Since the access permission is similar do it yourself service type.
So, AWS customer must be confirm the access permission themselves in order to cope with their business function access permission policy.
However if customer apply the services with mistaken permission setup. It will be jeopardizing AWS company reputation as well.

Former records:
Alteryx S3 leak leaves 123m American households exposed1 – Dec 19, 2017
Open AWS S3 bucket exposes private info on thousands of Fedex customers2 – Feb 15, 2018
Sensitive medical records on AWS bucket found to be publicly accessible3 – Jan 22, 2018
Domain Name Registrar was exposed Online (31,000 GoDaddy servers) – Aug 2018

How to avoid?
Hints can find in the following document (Identifying Public Buckets Using Bucket Permissions Check).

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/user-guide/set-bucket-permissions.html

SWIFT Customer Security Controls Framework

 

Preface:

All SWIFT users must comply with the mandatory security controls by the end of 2018.

Objective:

Introduction of new controls or guidelines will take account of strong cybersecurity practices that address the currently known new and arising threats in order to pragmatically raise the security bar.

Technical details:

Mandatory Security Controls
1. Restrict Internet Access and Protect Critical Systems from General IT Environment
2. Reduce Attack Surface and Vulnerabilities
3. Physically Secure the Environment
4. Prevent Compromise of Credentials
5. Manage Identities and Segregate Privileges
6. Detect Anomalous Activity to Systems or Transaction Records
7. Plan for Incident Response and Information Sharing

Observation:
Swift system is on the way do the enhancement continuously. But do you think such continuous program will be effectively avoided cyber security attack? For instance Bangladesh heist.
It is hard to tell what is the next cyber attack challenge in the moment. Let’s keep our eye open. Stay tuned!

Reference:

Bank Negara Malaysia (Bank) detected and foiled a cybersecurity incident involving attempted unauthorized fund transfers using falsified SWIFT messages.

Security Focus (Microsoft Edge) – Critical vulnerabilities fixed in November 2018 Patch Tuesday

Preface:
Chakra is a JavaScript engine developed by Microsoft for its Microsoft Edge web browser. It is a fork of the JScript engine used in Internet Explorer.

Description:
The technical details issued by patch Tuesday not describe explicitly (see below).

A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way that the Chakra scripting engine handles objects in memory in Microsoft Edge.This vulnerability could also be exploited through Microsoft Edge via specially crafted web sites or advertisements..

Speculation:
Remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system caused by a ballout error in the JavaScript JIT compiler when inling ‘Array.prototype.push’ with multiple arguments.
Remark: The push() method adds oneor more elements to the end of an array and returns the new length of the array.

Remedy:

CVE-2018-8541
https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2018-8541
CVE-2018-8542
https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2018-8542
CVE-2018-8543
https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2018-8543
CVE-2018-8551
https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2018-8551
CVE-2018-8555
https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2018-8555
CVE-2018-8556
https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2018-8556
CVE-2018-8557
https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2018-8557
CVE-2018-8588
https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2018-8588

Adobe Releases Security Updates – 13th Nov 2018

Preface:
Integrated Windows Authentication utilizes Negotiate/Kerberos or NTLM to authenticate users based on an encrypted ticket/message passed between a browser and a server. This is the standard authentication algorithm for Microsoft products.

Design weakness:
Hacker steal the NTLM Credentials via PDF Files. They exploit NTLM hash leaks stealing a Windows user’s NTLM hashes.

Official announcement:
Updates for Photoshop CC for Windows and macOS
https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/photoshop/apsb18-43.html

Security updates for Adobe Acrobat and Reader for Windows
https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/acrobat/apsb18-40.html

Security updates for Adobe Flash Player for Windows, macOS, Linux and Chrome OS
https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsb18-39.html

Node.js third-party modules vulnerability – Nov 2018

Preface:
Node.js is an open source, cross-platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime for fast and scalable server-side and networking applications.

Known technical concerns:
Node.js has a set of built-in modules which you can use without any further installation.
In order to enhance the function and effectiveness, the 3rd party modules are available to operate with node.js framework. Since node.js is a runtime environment for the JavaScript-based applications. JavaScript is built into your browser software (IE, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari). JavaScript is used by HTML code to provide two-way communication between your browser and the web server without you needing to refresh the web page.
So, in certain circumstances, it is bring out the security concerns.

Known vulnerability modules:

Prototype Pollution Vulnerability in cached-path-relative Package
https://hackerone.com/reports/390847

[tianma-static] Stored xss on filename
https://hackerone.com/reports/403692

[takeapeek] Path traversal allow to expose directory and files
https://hackerone.com/reports/403736

Security Updates for SIPROTEC and SICAM Products (Oct 2018)

Preface:

SIPROTEC and SICAM – Siemens products and solutions for protection engineering, station automation, power quality, and measurement – can be connected directly and easily to MindSphere and other cloud-based platforms.

What is MindSphere?
MindSphere is an open cloud platform or “IoT operating system” developed by Siemens for applications in the context of the Internet of Things. MindSphere stores operational data and makes it accessible through digital applications to allow industrial customers to make decisions based on valuable factual information.

Product Updates:
SICAM Q200 V2.40 firmware released with security-relevant updates
SICAM Q100 V1.30 firmware released with security-relevant updates

Question?
OpenSSL sources modified by Siemens issued on 11th Sep 2018.
However OpenSSL DSA signature algorithm has been shown to be vulnerable to a timing side channel attack (use variations in the signing algorithm recover the private key).
Above vulnerability with reference number CVE-2018-0734 announced on 30th Oct 2018.
It looks that there is a gap in between version. But it cannot confirm whether there is an impact?
Regarding to above technical details. Do you have any doubt?