Category Archives: Cell Phone (iPhone, Android, windows mobile)

Application Development, Cell Phone (iPhone, Android, windows mobile)

Android mobile phone user alert! AdUps software,he is a voyeur!

809 Comments

Technical writer (Miss Swati Khandelwal) write a technical article alerts Android users around the world they are under cyber attack. What’s going on? It seems that a suspicious software bundle with mobile phone (ZTE and Huawei) together export to US market. The goal is going to collect the mobile phone data. The data includes SMS texts, Send call logs, end user personally identifiable information, geolocation information to their server. Oh Jesus, US Government with high visibility statement let’s the citizens know they are under surveillance. A open method of NSA is use a tool so called “XKEYSCORE” for real time monitoring (internet activities). Who’s is the party jump over the queue of NSA to do cellphone tracking and Intercept action? A security firm found that the data collection server is located in China.In the mean time it is unclear whether the data is being collected for advertising or other purpose?

Can we uninstall the software?

Yes, it is possible to remove those applications. There are two preload packages of malicious system application (com.adups.fota.sysoper and com.adups.fota) on Android phone. Android’s package manager has commands to get rid of this stuff. For this, let’s become root.

pm disable com.adups.fota.sysoper
pm uninstall com.adups.fota.sysoper
pm disable com.adups.fota
pm uninstall com.adups.fota

The pre-installed apps are located in the following area:

/system/app/
/system/priv-app/

But we are not the Android programmer or security Expert. Seems it is not easy to execute above job on your mobile phone. Do you think what time does the manufacturer release the patch ?

Related articles (headline news)

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/11/15/secret-software-in-some-android-phones-sent-data-to-china-experts-warn.html

 

 

Application Development, Cell Phone (iPhone, Android, windows mobile), Network (Protocol, Topology & Standard), System

Is Single Sign on a Security Risk?

858 Comments

Is Single Sign on a Security Risk?

The majority of computer operators and people alike maintained one user ID and password. The single sign on facility fulfill their operation requirements. From security point of view, there are inherent risks for company deploys single sign-on function on their network infrastructure.

Single sign on infrastructure

Let take a closer look of single-sign on

Benefits:

  1. No need to remember many user IDs and passwords
  2. Simplified operation procedure
  3. Improves the effectiveness/timeliness of disabling all network/computer accounts for terminated users.
  4. Reduces the time taken by users to log into multiple applications and platforms

 

Single-sign on drawback

  1. Same password on all your various web services, it is also dangerous to let one username/password combination unlock all the resources.
  2. Single high-value target (attracts more attackers)
  3. Side channel attack against authentication step
  4. never know how secure your system is or if there is a breach

Single sign on increase the difficulties of application protection

SSO by itself doesn’t really improve security and, in fact, if not deployed properly can degrade security.  There are more techniques to attacks single sign-on application today. For more details, please see below:

  1. Single Sign-On phishing
  2. SSO profile was vulnerable to a Man-in-the-middle attack
  3. Replay Attacks
  4. XML Signature Wrapping vulnerability in SAML protocol

Security Concerns:

GIAC as a pioneer point out single sign on security concerns on their global information assurance certification paper. The article bring an idea to the world that each operating system and application has it own set of security requirement for both user user ID and password. In the sense that SSO by itself doesn’t really improve security and, in fact, if not deployed properly can degrade security.  Since enterprise firm need compliance, fulfill audit requirements. Please be noted that compliance may not equal security. Let’s think it over, one single password that could access all key applications. Does it on a security risk?

Application Development, Cell Phone (iPhone, Android, windows mobile), System

Android bad luck this year! Do you think iPhone is Invulnerability?

816 Comments

Keep heard that vulnerability found on Android phone recently. For instance Dirty Cow attack, Drammer attack and Dangerous Pork Explosion backdoor. Do you think Linux operating system not secure anymore?

As far as I remember vulnerabilities found on Apple IOS not less than Android operation system. Can you imagine in what circumstance, XNU (X is Not Unix) can be compromised by hacker. iPhone architecture and its main components. The architecture uses the Darwin operating system, which includes the XNU kernel and system utilities.

What is XNU?

Darwin is an open source operating system released by Apple in 2000. Apple then built upon Darwin to create OS X and iOS. XNU is the computer operating system kernel developed at Apple Inc for use in OS X and iOS. XNU was a hybrid kernel combining version 2.5 of the Mach kernel developed. The components from 4.3BSD and an Objective-C API for writing drivers called Driver Kit. Up to 2016 iOS version details shown as below:

iOS has many similarities as Mac OSX on kernel components and functions. As mentioned, XNU was a hybrid kernel combining version 2.5 of the Mach kernel developed. In the kernel there are three important components. They are Mach, BSD and IOKit.

  •    Mach: Low level abstraction of kernel
  •    BSD: High level abstraction of kernel
  •    IOKit: Apple kernel extension framework

All the classes have a root object, called OS Object. OS Object mainly overwrite new operator to allocate memory, and declare init method to initialize the object self. Because of this fundamental design, few known vulnerabilities are happened in this area. An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges. Do you think iPhone is invulnerability? No, sure properly not. Found high level of risk vulnerabilities last few month (2016). Seems headline news not intent broadcast in high profile and therefore not to seriously shocks iPhone fans. For more details, please see below CVE for references:

  • CVE-2016-4778: The kernel in Apple iOS before 10, OS X before 10.12, tvOS before 10, and watchOS before 3 allows attackers to execute arbitrary code in a privileged context or cause a denial of service (memory corruption) via a crafted app.

Remark: Impact – An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges

  • CVE-2016-4777: The kernel in Apple iOS before 10, OS X before 10.12, tvOS before 10, and watchOS before 3 allows attackers to execute arbitrary code in a privileged context or cause a denial of service (invalid pointer dereference) via a crafted app.

Remark: Impact – An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges

  • CVE-2016-4738: libxslt in Apple iOS before 10, OS X before 10.12, tvOS before 10, and watchOS before 3 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (memory corruption) via a crafted web site.

Remark: Impact – Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution

Xcode is a development environment which contains a suite of software development tools for the creation of OS X, iOS, WatchOS and tvOS software

  • CVE-2016-2315: revision.c in git before 2.7.4 uses an incorrect integer data type, which allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a (1) long filename or (2) many nested trees, leading to a heap-based buffer overflow.
  • CVE-2016-2324: Integer overflow in Git before 2.7.4 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a (1) long filename or (2) many nested trees, which triggers a heap-based buffer overflow

Current summary:

Due to business requirement, life cycle of products become short and such a way shorten product development life cycle & test cycle. It is a joke!

Cell Phone (iPhone, Android, windows mobile), Network (Protocol, Topology & Standard), System

Edward Snowden Heads up! Stranger, what do you want?

860 Comments

Enterprise firm execute data classification to protect corporate important data. Follow the code of practise, confidential data contained high level of sensitivity label requires encryption. The whistleblower Edward Snowden alerts the people in the world on 2013. But you might have question to ask till now, what sort of personal data we need to protect. Seems end user computing mostly ignore by users. The traditional idea is that we enforce the preventive control from server end. As times go by, mobile phone twisted the IT world. IT Renaissance, literally reborn. The usage of computer not limit to location and time zone. We can execute the remittance or payment on mobile phone. You do a backup or synchronize mobile data when go home. Sure you can upload everything on cloud.

In regards of global surveillance program by US government

It looks that surveillance program is a never ending story! Why? From official perspective domestic surveillance program can effectively monitoring terrorist attacks and criminal activities. NSA web page slogan have the following statement.

“Defending our nation. Securing the citizens.”

We have no objection that collection of internet data, mobile phone voice and data exchange as a weapon fright againts crime. To be honest we don’t have rights! But question raised how to identify the usage of this data?We are not the perpetrator, logically we might not afraid of this control?

Highlight the NSA data collection methoglogy:

  • Real-Time Yahoo Email Scanning
  • Domestic Intercept Stations
  • Bulk Collection of U.S. Citizens’ Phone Records
  • The PRISM Program: Source of Raw Intelligence
  • Google Cloud Exploitation
  • Cellphone Tracking
  • Spying Toolbox: Servers, routers, firewall devices, computers, USB, keyboard, wireless LAN, cell phone network & mobile phone
  • FBI Aviation Surveillance Operations (FBI Hawk Owl Project)
  • XKeyscore: Our Real-Time Internet Monitoring Capability

Above details not a confidential data, you can easy find this information. Please take a visit to NSA front page, for more details please see below:

https://nsa.gov1.info/surveillance/

US Government with high visibility statement let’s the citizens know they are under surveillance. A open method of NSA is use a tool so called “XKEYSCORE”. When an US speaker logs into a Yahoo email address, XKEYSCORE will store “mail/yahoo/login” as the associated appID. This stream of traffic will match the “mail/english” fingerprint (denoting language settings). When a browser visits a site that uses Yield Manager, a cookie will be set. This cookie is used to identify whether the browser has loaded an advert and when and where it loaded it (which detects Yahoo browser cookies).  Yield Manager also collects information such as:

– the date and time of your visit to the website.

– IP address.

– the type of browser you are using.

– the web page address you are visiting.

XKEYSCORE appIDs and fingerprints lists several revealing examples. Windows Update requests appear to fall under the “update_service/windows” appID, and normal web requests fall under the “http/get” appID. XKEYSCORE can automatically detect Airblue travel itineraries with the “travel/airblue” fingerprint, and iPhone web browser traffic with the “browser/cellphone/iphone” fingerprint.

XKEYSCORE features highlight:

  1. Tracking Bridge Users
  2. Tracking Tor Directory Authorities
  3. Tracking Torproject.org Visits

See below part of the XKEYSCORE sourcecode can bring you an idea XKEYSCORE focus on TOR routers.

 

Traffic flows into an XKEYSCORE cluster, the system tests the intercepted data against each of these rules and stores whether the traffic matches the pattern.

But how about the hackers? Hacker also have interest of these data which NSA does. I believed that below checklist details lure hacker interest.

Internet application coding create a loophole make this cyber games become a never ending story.

Example:

  • Email accounts or passwords using session cookies
  • A common use for XSS is stealing cookies to hijack sessions and gain access to restrictedweb content
  • When cookie doesn’t have Secure flag set, then it can be sent over insecure HTTP (provided that HSTS is not used; HSTS is described in the next section). When this is a case, the attacker controlling the communication channel between a browser and a server can read this cookie. If the cookie stores session ID, then disclosure of this cookie over insecure HTTP leads to user impersonation.
  • When a cookie doesn’t have HttpOnly flag set, then JavaScript can read a value of this cookie. That’s why XSS attack leads to user impersonation if there is no HttpOnly flag set for a cookie with session ID. When a cookie has HttpOnly flag set, then attacker can’t read a value of the cookie in case of XSS attack. The problem is that access permissions are not clearly specified in RFC 6265. It turns out, that cookie with HttpOnly flag can be overwritten in Safari 8.

Short term conclusion:

No way because we are living on earth!

Application Development, Cell Phone (iPhone, Android, windows mobile), Network (Protocol, Topology & Standard), System

Is this a hoax? Or it is National Security Agency?

850 Comments

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/chanpicco/chanpicco070/Equation-Group-pic-2_zpsojrksrjr.jpg

I believed that hot topics this week for sure hacking tools available download online. Rumour was told that those tools may develop by NSA (National Security Agency). Since this news make Anti-virus vendors nervous. As of today, their virus repository contained those files and confirm that those so called hacking tools is a genuine hacking tools. The Korean base anti-virus vendor AhnLab also given a malware naming convention to that malicious file. For more details, please refer to below chart for reference.

Status update on 18th Aug 2016 (today)

Kaspersky Confirmed that the leaked Hacking Tools Belong to NSA-tied Group. A former NSA employee told the Washington Post that those tools is a genuine hacking tools from NSA (see below).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/powerful-nsa-hacking-tools-have-been-revealed-online/2016/08/16/bce4f974-63c7-11e6-96c0-37533479f3f5_story.html

Interim Summary:

It looks that the files available download on internet looks outdated. The latest time-stamp of that files create from 2013. The earlier creation date of some files are 2010. To be honest, we can’t ignore the possibility that this files leaked by our Hero whistle blower!  Since the backdoor malicious programs found are the execution files. I was surprised that NSA is not going to use inline hooking technique. As we know, hackers looking for payment to release whole set of files. May be those not open to public files contains inline hooking technique. Hacking Team is known to sell a malware surveillance software known as Da Vinci. Its remote access tools also make it possible to compromise a wide variety of hardware, including Android and Blackberry phones and Windows devices. Yes, we found the descendant of Da Vinci this time.

Remark: Da Vinci (Law enforcement sector deploy malware which supply by Italy-based Hacking Team).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/chanpicco/chanpicco070/NSA-1_zpsd7yypvqf.jpg

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-jeopardizing-world-information-leakage-picco

 

Cell Phone (iPhone, Android, windows mobile)

Tragedy – Android bugs, should we wait or we should take pre-emptive action?

694 Comments

Hot topics within this week for sure that is the technical bugs found on Android. Sounds horrible! There are two patches is waiting for vendor to release however the patch release date is unknown.From users point of view, should we wait for the security patches or we should take the pre-emptive action?

Technical bugs information background:

CVE-2016-2059 found in Qualcomm kernel module

Description: The msm_ipc_router_bind_control_port function in net/ipc_router/ipc_router_core.c in the IPC router kernel module for the Linux kernel 3.x, as used in Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC) Android contributions for MSM devices and other products, does not verify that a port is a client port, which allows attackers to gain privileges or cause a denial of service (race condition and list corruption) by making many BIND_CONTROL_PORT ioctl calls.

CVE-2016-5340 presented in Qualcomm GPU driver

The is_ashmem_file function in drivers/staging/android/ashmem.c in a certain Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC) Android patch for the Linux kernel 3.x mishandles pointer validation within the KGSL Linux Graphics Module, which allows attackers to bypass intended access restrictions by using the /ashmem string as the dentry name.

What’s your risk?

1. The bigger risk right now are the users using non official OS version. In the sense that the jailbreak version is risky now!

2. Visits unknown website through email phishing or open unknown attachment are at risk.

In regards to these bugs, how attacker compromised your phone?

Found that engaged this so called high risk cyber attack must fulfill the following requirements.

i. Have root privileges on your Android phone.

ii. Relies on shared Memory (ashmem)

Category of attack Attack:

Category 1: How to receive root access premisson through privileges escaltion
Found the msm_ipc_router_bind_control_port() function does not check access privileges. An attacker can use the IPC Router of the CAF Linux kernel for MSM, in order to escalate his privileges.

Category 2: Relies on Shared memory (ashmem) design limitation

Android is designed to be used for resource limited embedded hardware. In order to maximize the memory resources. A system entity so called ashmem (anonymous shared memory) located at $AOSP/system/core which take care of the memory resources utilization. The operation of ashmem as simple as handling generic Linux file descriptor and . A file entry was created in the /dev/ashmem/. From technical point of view, it looks like a memory swap file of each process. However Ashmem allows processes which are not related by ancestry to share memory maps by name, which are cleaned up automatically.

Should we wait or we should take preemptive action?

Since CVE-2016-2059 and CVE-2016-5340 are the design limitation. It looks that the appropriate way is re-engineering the whole OS memory function. I speculated that may be this is the reason causes patch release date is unknown. As such, in the meantime Android users should take pre-emptive action (see below).

1. Do not jailbreak your android phone. If yes, the better idea is install the official OS version.

2. Verify your phone applications. Be aware the communication media software like WeCHAT, Whatsapp, Skype,…etc shall install updated version of software.

3. Avoid to visit online game zone and pornography web site.

4. Think it over before you open unknown email message

5. Think it over before your open unknown file attachment

For more details about these vulnerabilities. Please review below url for reference.

https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2016-08-01.html

Status update on 11th Aug 2016

Sound strange! Found that the remediation and mitigation solution released by CodeAurora on Jul 2016. For instance CVE-2016-5340 (Invalid access to ashmem area in cases where someone deliberately set the dentry name to /ashmem)

Objective:
Validate ashmem memory with fops pointer

Solution:
Validate the ashmem memory entry against f_op pointer
rather then comparing its name with path of the dentry.

This is to avoid any invalid access to ashmem area in cases
where some one deliberately set the dentry name to /ashmem.

Comments:

It looks that the solution is available. In the meantime mobile phone users need to wait for the next action of their mobile phone vendor.

Application Development, Cell Phone (iPhone, Android, windows mobile), Network (Protocol, Topology & Standard), System

Mystery Surrounds Breach of NSA-Like Spying Toolset. Reflections: How important of SIEM today.

890 Comments

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/chanpicco/chanpicco070/NSA-Cisco_zpszinq59nd.jpg

The mystery surrounds breach of NSA-Like spying tool set alerts security vendor. The world has been changed even though government without exception! The focus of everyone of this headline news might be the flaw of firewall vendors, right? Not sure whether you have chance to read the mystery NSA-Like spying tool documents? The critical guideline to the spy is that how to avoid people tracing them. To be honest, this is a unprecedented example which government teach the hacking technique. Below details is the example for your reference (For more details about these documents, please use your own way to download.)

!!! WARNING: Firewall logs everything !!!

!!! If you see “info-center loghost X.X.X.X” during a sampleman, DO NOT IMPLANT !!!
!!! Unless we own the syslog server !!!
!!! SNMP traps will also log our activity !!!
!!! SNMP traps going into system-view !!!

Target Firewall vendor

Regarding to the document (sampleman_commands.txt), the target Firewall vendors are Cisco, Juniper & HUAWEI. It is not difficult to understand what’s the reason those brand names are included in the list. Yes, it is because of the market share. They are the tycoon brand name. Besides, their design architecture sometimes has similarity. Per my observation, they make use of the instruction pipeline technique. The instruction in a pipelined processor are performed in several stages. Data hazards occur when instructions that exhibit data dependence modify data in different stages of a pipeline. There are three situations in which a data hazard can occur:

  1. read after write (RAW), a true dependency
  2. write after read (WAR), an anti-dependency
  3. write after write (WAW), an output dependency

I agree with that the firewall system design or flaws are the responsibilities of Firewall vendors. Since hardware vendor not aware they are vulnerable until scandal open to the world. From consumer’s point of view, is there any preventive control to alert customers?

How important of SIEM today?

An hints written on document stated that they are concerning targets to trace their IP locations. The critical point is that  both syslog and SNMP server must compromised. Otherwise they need to find another alternative. The story can tell how important of SIEM today!

SIEM solutions boots cyber safety world today

Key features of SIEM:

Real time alerting

1. Rule-based alerts with dashboard and email notification
2. Alert annotation
3. Pre-configured alerts for hundreds of security and operational conditions

For your choice to select suitable SIEM product  , please refer below.

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Security Information and Event Management analysis report

https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-2JNUH1F&ct=150720&st=sb&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRoiuqTIcu%25252FhmjTEU5z16uwlUa6%25252Fg5h41El3fuXBP2XqjvpVQcNrNL3IRw8FHZNpywVWM8TILNUQt8BqPwzqAGM%25253D

 

Cell Phone (iPhone, Android, windows mobile), Network (Protocol, Topology & Standard), System

Internet traffic governance by firewall (Great wall), what circumstances China still under external Cyber attack?

926 Comments

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/chanpicco/chanpicco070/China-Firewall_zpsutjpv0vx.jpg

The surveillance program in China running in visible level. China government defined traffic monitoring scheme, the People live in China entitled to benefits of citizenship must accept this policy.A well known secret indicated that a giant (Great wall) monitoring the inbound and outbound internet traffic continuously. Sounds great! From technical point of view, workstation located in China is under government protection. The benefits is that overall hit rate with cyber attacks will become lower. We are not a politicians for not going to speculate the reason to establish this security facility. But it looks that there is no perfect defence mechanism in the world. The Internet Security Threat Report on June 2016 provides the following parameters.

Web sites for remote control

  • 3,637 foreign IP addresses through the backdoor arrived to the territory.
  • 6,618 websites encountered cyber attack causes hacker remote control.

Remark: Among them, foreign suspicious IP address is located mainly in the United States, China, Hong Kong and South Korea and other countries or regions.

  • Foreign countries IP address relies on backdoor might came from Russia . They are execute web server remote control. The total suspected IP addresses are 1,667.
  • Website implanted backdoors, ranks in high volume.
  • Besides, implanted backdoor attack IP address covered US and Hong Kong area. The total statistic are 1129 came from US and 808 came from Hong Kong.

Reference: Internet stats for 2016

China, as a country, has the most internet users; with an estimated 640 million internet users, the number of internet users in China is twice the number of the entire U.S population.

What’s the reason?

Major Factor:

1. Enterprise firm Site to Site VPN connection bypass Great Wall governance: If there is security weakness occurs in their server system and network backbone. Hackers are able to relies on those vulnerabilities of the system  activate the cyber attacks.

2. Remote Proxy services bypass Great Wall

A terminology so called internet censorship circumvention, the method is establish a encryption tunnel, the tunnel end point of connection is the foreign countries proxy gateway. It is a onion network, if one of the proxy server not in service, the proxy services application will search another available gateway.
Since the network datagram was encrypted by TLS/SSL. The version update in frequent. From certain point of view, great wall might not decrypt the network traffic and such a way let him go!

3. Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) bypass Great Wall

The PPTP/L2TP/SOCKS5 protocols are provided for devices lacking compatibility with the Private Internet Access application or OpenVPN protocol. PPTP/L2TP/SOCKS5 should be used for masking one’s IP address, censorship circumvention, and geolocation. As far as I know, Great wall have capability to deny this network traffic.

4. Flaw found in ASN.1 compiler – for more details refer below url for reference.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/flaw-found-communications-industry-yet-determined-1-picco

China’s intelligence mobile phone has high growth rate. Since it is intelligence device, it is a mobile computing device. From technical point of view, it looks a workstation with Internet connection feature. China Mobile Phone Users reached 1.306 Billion in 2015. It is hard to guarantee 1.306 Billion mobile phone are compliance. That mean OS is the latest version, anti-virus installed with update pattern. To be honest it is not easy! With so many people dependent on mobile devices to communicate and work, mobile network security is more important than ever.

Additional information – SCMP regarding China Firewall

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1922677/china-blocks-vpn-services-let-users-get-round-its-great

Any other? Is your turn to input. Be my guest!

Cell Phone (iPhone, Android, windows mobile), Network (Protocol, Topology & Standard)

The important thing is to never stop questioning (Albert Einstein)

870 Comments

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/chanpicco/chanpicco071/sat-China_zpsfc8frkuz.jpg

The important thing is to never stop questioning, said Dr. Einstein. View the breaking news today.China has launched the world’s first quantum communications satellite into orbit. Watch TV News program noticed that a group of scientist find a way apply the quantum physics to traditional cryptography replacing RSA cryptosystem. The testing go to final stage in 2015. Competitions everywhere today including employees, business partners, countries. Life is not easy! World looks demanding now! Let’s review in short form in regards to RSA cryptosystem weakness.

RSA cryptosystem weakness:

  • The RSA cryptosystem can be very weak if you do not choose your primes carefully.
  • If the two corresponding ciphertexts are intercepted.
  • If you send the same message to more people with the same RSA encryption exponent e , then the plaintext can always be obtained easily from the intercepted ciphertexts.

Quantum Cryptography benefits:

  • Quantum entanglement – particles can share the same quantum state irrespective of their spatial distance from each other. The entanglement state discard when parameters change.
  • Quantum cryptography would be used in practice to produce one time pads that could be used to securely encrypt any message.

What is the key factors (built a quantum communications satellite):

Avoid eavesdropping – Being monitored

Cyber attack – Being attacked by hackers

Questioning about unknown factors?

In what Layer of the Earth’s Atmosphere install this satellite?

Answer: Exosphere – up to 10,000 km above the Earth

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/chanpicco/chanpicco070/orbit-v4_zpsgkk97mbq.gif

Is there any external interfere to this layer? For instance, SUNSPOT & X-rays?

It was protected by atmosphere. Atoms are no longer gravitationally bound to the Earth and get knocked away by solar wind. As such, without interference caused by Sunspot suspend the network communications. (Remark: Satellite interfere by sunspot periodically. The result is that the satellite will lost electronic communications in short period of time.)

Does it compatible with mobile phone?

Yes, it is compatible with 4G mobile network and provides hack proof communication channel. I believed that it achieves independence from the use of fixed line or existing mobile networks through super fast Ka-band satellite backhaul.

The objective is that avoid eavesdropping on mobile phone. For instance, NSA tapped Angela Merkel’s mobile phone. The scandal expose to public in 2014.

Germany opens inquiry into claims NSA tapped Angela Merkel’s phone

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/04/germany-inquiry-nsa-tapping-angela-merkel-phone

Interim summary:

The space of technology development is to infinite. But like Dr Einstein said, the important thing is to never stop questioning.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/chanpicco/chanpicco070/questioning_zpsyrbxvutm.jpg

Cell Phone (iPhone, Android, windows mobile)

The crypto key change of modern technology world – Mobile computing devices (BYOD)

908 Comments

The scandal of NSA hacking tools and surveillance program. Who’s the hero protect world wide privacy? The the largest market research firm (MarketsandMarkets) forecasts the global BYOD market to grow from $71.93 billion in 2013 to $266.17 billion in 2019. You might have question? How to protect your personal data privacy? Even though law enforcement especially NSA couldn’t cracked under normal circumstance?

The trend of security technology

A cryptographic algorithm, or cipher, is a mathematical function used in the encryption and decryption process. A cryptographic algorithm works in combination with a key—a word, number, or phrase—to encrypt the plaintext. The same plaintext encrypts to different ciphertext with different keys. As times go by, the encryption algorithm becomes more complex. Many encryption algorithm (3DES, AES, AES 256) appears in the world.

Steal crypto Key

If the hacker engage a side-channel attack,he must through brute force or by exploiting a weakness in the underlying algorithm. Since the crypto key store on hard drive. The simple idea is that extract the key and certificate in the disk.

In order to avoid steal crypto keys and certificates, Apple establish defensive mechanism.

Apple secure key store in the chipset. The Apple processor contains an on-board, AES cryptograhic key called the Global ID (GID) that is believed to be shared across all the current ‘iDevices’. This GID key is used to un-wrap the keys that decrypt the corresponding boot firmware code stored in system non-volatile memory .

Chipset architecture shown as below:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/chanpicco/chanpicco071/Apple-A8_zpskwb6hxx4.jpg

Microsoft’s struggle for balance and control (windows OS includes windows phone)

If the encryption key is stored in the operating system itself rather than using a hardware. It’s possible for hacker extract the keys and certificates. BitLocker disk encryption requires a TPM. TPM stands for “Trusted Platform Module”. It’s a chip on your computer’s motherboard that helps enable tamper-resistant full-disk encryption.

BitLocker Drive Encryption is built into the Windows 10 operating system and uses … TPM v1.2 Chip

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/chanpicco/chanpicco071/MS-TPM_zpsbdjwbvbn.jpg

TPM version 1.2 Chip – A very generic description of the TPM is that it performs RSA encryption, decryption, and signing in the hardware.

Atmel AT97SC3204T Trusted Platform Module

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v704/chanpicco/chanpicco071/TPM-block_zpstyneydlm.jpg