Preface: CFB8 was created to have good error propagation properties over a noisy channel. It is well known that it is not fast; it is actually 16 times as slow, as it requires a block encrypt for each byte.

Details: CVE-2020-1472, also known as “Zerologon,” was given a “critical” security rating from Microsoft. It has possibility let attacker gain fully control all identity services in the AD domain. As a result, any device under the domain will run malicious programs. But this headache will be expand to other 3rd party solution provider. The US government issued an emergency order requiring the Zerologon patch to be completed by next week.

My observation: If you have windows policy applied – accounts locked after invalid login attempts for 3 times. Perhaps it will avoid this attack.

Remediation on Samba server: In samba server config (smb.conf) modify ‘server schannel = yes

Samba official announcement – https://www.samba.org/samba/security/CVE-2020-1472.html

Attached diagram can provide information to you for reference.

Preface: Companies large and small are using Rust in production all over the world, including Mozilla, Dropbox, npm, Postmates, Braintree and others.

Vulnerability details: An issue was discovered in the sized-chucks crate through 0.6.2 for Rust CVE-2020-25791…CVE-2020-25796.
Chunk:
– Array size is not checked when constructed with unit() and pair()
– Array size is not checked when constructed with From<InlineArray<A, T>>.
– Clone and insert_from are not panic-safe (memory safety issues)
InlineArray:
– Generates unaligned references for types with a large alignment requirement.

Rust does not implement Default for all arrays because it does not have non-type polymorphism. Rust does not implement Default for all arrays because it does not have non-type polymorphism. If the design do not contain check array mechanism fo constructing structures (“structs”) by specify type. Perhaps there is no proof of concept to exploit this vulnerability in the moment. However it looks that it provides a way for attacker exploit this design limitation in future. In the moment, it require to waiting for the developer do the remediation.

Preface: The popularity of NFC mobile payments is owed to its ease of use and improved security options. Near-field communication (NFC) enables smartphones to exchange data and function as a payment device. It stores the customer’s credit card details and allows the user to pay at NFC POS terminals through smartphones.

Vulnerability details: In NFC, there is a possible permission bypass due to an unsafe “PendingIntent”. This could lead to local escalation of privilege with User execution privileges needed. User interaction is not needed for exploitation.

By giving a “PendingIntent” to another application, you are granting it the right to perform the operation you have specified as if the other application was yourself (with the same permissions and identity). As such, you should be careful about how you build the “PendingIntent”: almost always, for example, the base Intent you supply should have the component name explicitly set to one of your own components, to ensure it is ultimately sent there and nowhere else.

Reference: A PendingIntent is a token that you give to a foreign application (e.g. NotificationManager, AlarmManager, Home Screen AppWidgetManager, or other 3rd party applications), which allows the foreign application to use your application’s permissions to execute a predefined piece of code.

Affected products: AndroidVersions – Android-11Android ID: A-156251602

CVE reference: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-0374

Preface: The firewall does not display the Captive Portal web form to users until you Configure Authentication Policy rules that trigger authentication when users request services or applications.

Vulnerability details: A buffer overflow vulnerability in PAN-OS allows an unauthenticated attacker to disrupt system processes and potentially execute arbitrary code with root privileges by sending a malicious request to the Captive Portal or Multi-Factor Authentication interface.

When a program (or subroutine) executes, it has a certain area of memory set aside called a stack (used for storing dynamically allocated variables). The stack also stores a return address to the program that invoked it. This allows a return to the code that was executing before the subroutine was called.

The goal of a buffer overflow attack is to overwrite the area of the stack where the return address is stored. The overwritten data will contain a new memory address pointing to the code that give a way for attacker to execute arbitrary code with privileges.

Official announcement: https://security.paloaltonetworks.com/CVE-2020-2040

Security Focus:
By sending a number of Netlogon messages in which various fields are filled with zeroes, an attacker can change the computer password of the domain controller that is stored in the AD (refer to Index 1). This can then be used to obtain domain admin credentials and then restore the original DC password.

Index 1: 0 xor 0 = 0 agian, all subsequent blocks fed to AES will be all-zero. And therefore 00 will keep being xorred to the next plaintext bytes.

Important notice by US Homeland Security:
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is aware of publicly available exploit code for CVE-2020-1472, an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Microsoft’s Netlogon. Although Microsoft provided patches for CVE-2020-1472 in August 2020, unpatched systems will be an attractive target for malicious actors. Attackers could exploit this vulnerability to obtain domain administrator access.

Reference: https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/current-activity/2020/09/14/exploit-netlogon-remote-protocol-vulnerability-cve-2020-1472

Preface: Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a low power wireless communication technology that can be used over a short distance to enable smart devices to communicate. … Today, the majority of Android and iOS devices on the market incorporate BLE for communication and interaction with other devices.

Ref I: CTKD pairing allows the devices to pair once using either transport method while generating both the BR/EDR and LE Long Term Keys (LTK) without needing to pair a second time.
Ref II: Bonding: First, do Pairing to have a secure link, then exchange keys for the next time we meet, so that we don’t need to perform Pairing again to have a secure link.

Vulnerability details: Multiple devices supporting both Bluetooth BR/EDR and LE using Cross-Transport Key Derivation (CTKD) for pairing could allow a remote malicious user to conduct a man-in-the-middle attack.

Remedy:The affected devices include all products using Bluetooth 4.0 to 5.0. Bluetooth after version 5.1 will not be affected due to the addition of restrictions on CTKD.

Reference:https://kb.cert.org/vuls/id/589825

Synopsis: The hackers behind the scenes used different vulnerabilities to obtain private information from the iPhone. In fact, they built a complete iPhone vulnerability attack chain. And then use the vulnerability to obtain all unencrypted or APP data on the victim’s device and send it to the attacker’s server.

Technical details: According to below design definition.
XPCService – You can connect to an XPCService strictly through a name
Mach Service – You can also connect to a Mach Service strictly through a name
NSXPCEndpoint – Communicate between two application processes.
The design concept of “com[.]apple[.]cfprefsd[.]daemon” is an XPC service hosted by the cfprefsd daemon.

Vulnerability details: An application may be able to gain elevated privileges. The CFPreferencesSetAppValue function, which is reachable from most unsandboxed processes, can be exploited with a race condition in order to overwrite an arbitrary file as root.

Reference:https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-9839

Preface: NVD published date on 09/03/2020. Strongly believe that technical matter was resolved by vendor completely. However we should recording this issue in notes. As we know, hacker jump to client network will hide himself for a period of time. Sometimes such action cater for their data exfiltration activities or ….

Techincal background: Slogan of Thomson Reuters Eikon. Access an incredible depth and breadth of financial analysis data to make smarter decisions. Reuters Eikon is a financial data platform which includes data on financial markets, companies’ (especially listed companies’) financial data, financial news, macro data etc. The product is analogous to the Bloomberg Terminal aka “Open Bloomberg”. It allow client install the Eikon software on their company workstation.

Vulnerability details: The current file permissions of the directory C[:]\Program Files (x86)\Thomson Reuters)\Eikon allow users of the group Authenticated Users to modify files in the folder. As these files are executed by the service that runs with SYSTEM privileges, it is possible to escalate privileges and create a new user with administrator privileges.

If a user has write permission in a folder used by a service, he can replace the binary with a malicious one. When the service is restarted the malicious binary is executed with higher privileges. Please refer to the attached picture for details.

Since Reuters and related terminal will be installed in Investment bank or broker firm dealing room. Perhaps this is the area which lure the hacker interest. And is a typical example of insider threats.
For my point of view, apply advanced cyber security filter and scanning function in this area not a possible solution. It was because it will encounter false alarm and therefore interrupt the services. In order to avoid unknown incident happen in this place, SIEM + (Predictive analysis tools like Darktrace) are the appropriate solution.

Preface: The current Linux desktop market share is between 1.74 – 2.18%, according to the usage share of operating systems. In April 2019, Linux’s desktop market share was estimated to be 1.63%. Of all Linux users, 38.2% use Ubuntu as of May 2019. 21.5% of users rely on Debian.

Background: PPA – Personal Package Archives allow you to upload Ubuntu source packages to be built and published as an apt repository by Launchpad.

Vulnerability details: Versions of add-apt-repository before 0.98.9.2, 0.96.24.32.14, 0.96.20.10, and 0.92.37.8ubuntu0.1~esm1, printed a PPA (personal package archive) description to the terminal as-is, which allowed PPA owners to provide ANSI terminal escapes to modify terminal contents in unexpected ways.

Design limitation: A terminal escape sequence is a special sequence of characters that is printed. If the terminal understands the sequence, it won’t display the character-sequence, but will perform some action. Please refer to the attached drawings for details.

Official reference: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2020-15709