BlackBerry CEO Cryptically On Assistance To Canadian Police

BlackBerry CEO John Chen has responded at a news that BlackBerry Canadian police would have the encryption key to the encrypted BlackBerry messages could decrypt. Chen does not want to confirm or deny the report.

Last week Vice Magazine came out with a report showing that Canadian police were able to decrypt encrypted BlackBerry messages. At that BlackBerry did not respond, but last night there appeared a blog posting by Chen . In it he argues that tech companies must meet reasonable court orders to give investigators access to data. He also repeated his earlier statement that it is objectionable as companies put their reputation over the public interest.

He then briefly discusses the case of the Canadian police, but would not say whether the Canadian police indeed received the encryption key. Chen said the only thing is that BlackBerry has held in this case to its own principles. "For BlackBerry, there is a balance of what is right, such as helping in the detection of criminals, and prevent government violate the privacy of citizens. We have found this balance, even though governments have pressured us to our ethical principles change."

Cisco Fixes Problems Again With Standard SSH Keys

Cisco offers weather updates for different products released due to the use of standard SSH-keys. Using the default SSH keys, an attacker remotely without valid credentials on a login system with root privileges. The only thing that is required is that the attacker can connect to the platform.

According to Cisco, the problem is that all installations of the Web Security Virtual Appliance (WSAV), Email Security Virtual Appliance (Esau) and Content Security Management Virtual Appliance (SMAV) share the same authorized SSH key for the remote support functionality. Also, an attacker via the SSH host key can also all appliances is the same, and all communications between virtual appliances decrypt and mimic.

Cisco has released updates to fix the problems. Last October there appeared an update of a similar problem in the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Domain. The networking giant has announced that to their knowledge the newly discovered problems are not yet attacked or were previously known on the Internet.

McAfee: Lock Gate And Scan Zip Files Against Ransomware

Companies and organizations that want to protect themselves against ransomware are wise to block Tor and some files and staff to continuously train. This enables anti-virus company McAfee in a new quarterly report ( pdf ). In the first three months of this year the number of new ransomware variants with 165% and also for the future expected the virus fighter many new ones.

To protect themselves against ransomware can companies do take various measures. Besides making backup is recommended to block Tor. "Blocking Gate frequent the ransomware can get the RSA public key of the control server, which will block the encryption process of ransomware," the researchers said.

Furthermore, companies are advised to use a spam filter to block certain file types. Most ransomware generally starts with an e-mail containing a link or attachment. When it comes to unusual formats like .scr is it is easy to block those. In case companies do not block zip files is recommended to scan at least on two levels.

Users

Finally it is advisable to keep users continuously train. "Most ransomware attacks start with phishing emails, awareness of users is essential and necessary. For every ten emails sent to attackers statistics show that at least one will be successful," said the researchers. Which therefore advise not to open any e-mail or attachments from unknown or unverified senders.

TrueCrypt Vulnerability Patched In Vera Crypt

Last week, scientists know that they are in an audit found no backdoors TrueCrypt of popular encryption software and the results of the study are already being used by the creator of a TrueCrypt alternative. It is the program Vera Crypt , which was launched last year and is based on the original TrueCrypt source code.

The developer decided to develop the software because TrueCrypt is no longer supported. Before the development of TrueCrypt by the developers ceased had several cryptography experts raised money to let the lights encryption software. The last part of the study was completed last week. The researchers had no backdoor, but several problems, including a large problem in the Windows version. In very special cases, the software to generate the encryption key would not work well.

TrueCrypt is no longer supported so that the problems found herein remain but Vera Crypt be based on the same source code.This program is the problem in the generation of encryption keys in version 1.0f-2 resolved. There are several other problems are solved and the performance improved. Thereby mounting encrypted volumes should now be accelerated to 20%. Vera Crypt is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Researchers Found No Backdoor In TrueCrypt

Researchers have completed the investigation into the cryptographic functionality of TrueCrypt and found no backdoors or other intentional introduced vulnerabilities in the encryption software. However, the software is not perfect and contains some errors. TrueCrypt is a popular program for encrypting files and computers. Despite the popularity of the source code and cryptographic functionality of the software has never been audited.

Several experts therefore decided to raise money through crowdfunding for an audit. Last January, the TrueCrypt boot loader and Windows kernel driver audited, with the audit report was presented in April of the same year. There were no backdoors to be present in the software. The second part of the audit would focus on the cryptographic operation of the encryption program.

End of May 2014 decided the TrueCrypt developers suddenly stop the development of the software and advised users to stop using. This ensured that the audit of the cryptographic operation was delayed, but early this year was yet started. The results have just been published ( pdf ) showing that TrueCrypt is a well-designed encryption program.

There were no intentional backdoors or other serious design errors encountered that would infest the software. However, the software is not perfect, says cryptography professor Matthew Green . The auditors discovered "Programming imprudent" several errors and that in some cases can lead to problems that TrueCrypt guarantee less than desirable.

Biggest problem

The biggest problem was found for the "random number generator" (RNG) of the Windows version. TrueCrypt used to generate the keys that TrueCrypt volumes are encrypted. An important part, because if the RNG is predictable, this may undermine the security of the system. The RNG in TrueCrypt is based on a design from 1998 by Peter Guttman. This RNG is trying "unpredictable" values ​​from disconnecting it and used here include the Windows Crypto API.

In very special cases, the Crypto API could not be initialized. If this happens TrueCrypt would have to stop and give a warning, but the program seems to accept this quietly and continues to generate keys. According to Green, this is not the end of the world, because the probability of this happening is very small. Addition, it would TrueCrypt, in addition to the Crypto API, also retrieve values ​​from other parts of the system, such as mouse movements. This is probably good enough to protect users, notes the professor. "But it is a bad design and should definitely be resolved in divestitures of TrueCrypt."

Research Into TrueCrypt Encryption Start Soon

The investigation into the cryptographic operation of the encryption program TrueCrypt has been somewhat delayed, but will soon really begin, as the initiators announced. The end of 2013 decided cryptography professor Matthew Green and White a scientist Kenn Crowdfunding Initiative to start. The two wanted the website IsTrueCryptAuditedYet? fetch $ 25,000 to verify the cryptographic functionality of TrueCrypt and to have an audit. In total there were collected 62 104 dollars and 32.6 Bitcoins.

Despite the popularity of TrueCrypt, which makes it possible to encrypt files and hard drives, the source code and cryptographic software operation had never been audited. January last year decided security iSEC Partners to conduct the audit of the TrueCrypt boot loader and Windows kernel driver. In April it was audit report presented. Although there are several problems were found, the researchers found no backdoors. The second part of the audit would focus on the cryptographic operation of the encryption program.

Six weeks after the appearance of the first audit report, the TrueCrypt developers pulled the plug on the project. A day later showed Green and White, however, know that the crypto-audit they would still be, but then it jealously kept quiet. According to Green threw the sudden disappearance of TrueCrypt plans somewhat confused. As was given to whether the money could be better spent on different TrueCrypt successors.

Eventually there was a "Plan B" drawn up within budget and also makes sense. As part of this plan was a few weeks ago a contract with the just-launched Cryptography Services of NCC Group closed. Here the original TrueCrypt 7.1a will be audited.This version also forms the basis for various successors.

Green now reports that the audit will take place soon. In addition, let the promoters of the audit plan that they also look at parts of the code, including the Random Number Generator (RNG) TrueCrypt and other parts of the cryptographic implementation. "This will hopefully complement the work of NCC / iSEC and give a little more confidence in the implementation," said Green. He notes that it took a little longer than planned, but the results really come. Results of which he hopes she " really boring "will be.