InfoSec Week 45, 2018

A default VirtualBox virtual network device has a vulnerability allowing an attacker with root privilege to escape guest OS, execute commands in ring3 on a host.
All operating systems affected.
https://github.com/MorteNoir1/virtualbox_e1000_0day

Researchers at Radboud University in the Netherlands have revealed encryption vulnerabilities in the solid-state drives (SSD).
Samsung nor Crucial manufacturers are producing buggy firmware where anybody who steals your drive is able to decrypt it on their own.
https://www.ru.nl/publish/pages/909275/draft-paper_1.pdf

Police in the Netherlands were able to decrypt more than 258,000 messages sent using proprietary IronChat end-to-end (probably not) encrypted messaging application.
Lessons learned: do not use custom, proprietary, “exclusive” application nobody else except your gang members have…
https://www.politie.nl/en/news/2018/november/02-apeldoorn-police-have-achieved-a-breakthrough-in-the-interception-and-decryption-of-crypto-communication.html

The first release of 5G (3GPP Release 15) includes protection against an active IMSI catching.
“But in a typical case where 5G UE also supports LTE, it is still vulnerable to LTE IMSI catchers.”
https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.02293

New “PortSmash” CPU side channel vulnerability impacts all CPUs that use a Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT).
The vulnerability has been discovered by researchers from the Tampere University of Technology in Finland and Technical University of Havana, Cuba.
https://github.com/bbbrumley/portsmash

Troy Hunt published blog on how passwords are superior to many alternative methods, primarily because “everyone understands how to use it”.
https://www.troyhunt.com/heres-why-insert-thing-here-is-not-a-password-killer/

US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) starts uploading unclassified foreign APT malware samples to VirusTotal.
https://www.cybercom.mil/Media/News/News-Display/Article/1681533/new-cnmf-initiative-shares-malware-samples-with-cybersecurity-industry/

Iran found CIA spies by Googling their online communication channels after double agent told them modus operandi.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cias-communications-suffered-catastrophic-compromise-started-iran-090018710.html

Some explanation by Doug Madory of Oracle on how and when China Telecom hijacked BGP routing to send US-to-US traffic via mainland China.
https://internetintel.oracle.com/blog-single.html?id=China+Telecom%27s+Internet+Traffic+Misdirection

Early version of an open source, free WireGuard for iOS VPN tunneling implementation is in public testing.
https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2018-November/003526.html

Microsoft releases a Linux version of their ProcDump Sysinternals Tool.
https://github.com/Microsoft/ProcDump-for-Linux