InfoSec Week 18, 2018

Multiple tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Google and others formed an industry coalition and have joined security experts in criticizing encryption backdoors, after Ray Ozzie’s CLEAR key escrow idea was widely derided. He basically proposed a scheme where the users have no control over their own devices, but the devices can be securely forensically analyzed by the government agencies.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/coalition-of-tech-giants-hit-by-nsa-spying-slams-encryption-backdoors/
https://github.com/rayozzie/clear/blob/master/clear-rozzie.pdf

There is an information leaking vulnerability via crafted user-supplied CDROM image.
“An attacker supplying a crafted CDROM image can read any file (or device node) on the dom0 filesystem with the permissions of the qemu device model process.”
QubesOS operationg system is not affected due to the properly compartmentalized architecture.
http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2018/q2/71

Great in-depth blog about the reconstruction of the exploit created by the CIA’s “Engineering Development Group” targeting MikroTik’s RouterOS embedded operating system. This exploit was made public by the WikiLeaks last year.
http://blog.seekintoo.com/chimay-red.html

Bypassing authentication and impersonating arbitrary users in Oracle Access Manager with padding oracle. The guy basically broke Oracles home grown cryptographic implementation.
https://www.sec-consult.com/en/blog/2018/05/oracle-access-managers-identity-crisis/

There is a critical privilege escalation vulnerability affecting Apache Hadoop versions from 2.2.0 to 2.7.3.
http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2018/q2/82

According to the Arbor Networks’ security researchers have claimed that the anti-theft software Absolute LoJack is serving as an espionage software modified by the Russia-based Fancy Bear group.
https://asert.arbornetworks.com/lojack-becomes-a-double-agent/

Wired wrote an article about the famous Nigerian 419 scammers, their culture and why they are still flourishing.
https://www.wired.com/story/nigerian-email-scammers-more-effective-than-ever/

Matrix and Riot instant messenger applications are confirmed as the basis for the France’s government initiative to implement federated secure messenger.
https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed-as-the-basis-for-frances-secure-instant-messenger-app/

Amazon threatens to suspend Signal’s secure messenger AWS account over censorship circumvention. They are using different TLS Server Name Indication - “domain fronting” - when establishing connection to circumvent network censorship, but Amazon says it is against their terms of services.
https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-on-the-front/

Respected German CT-Magazine says that there are 8 new Spectre vulnerabilities found in the Intel processors.
https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Exclusive-Spectre-NG-Multiple-new-Intel-CPU-flaws-revealed-several-serious-4040648.html