Infected Version Of PuTTY Steals Passwords

Cyber criminals are spreading on the Internet an infectious variant of the popular SSH client PuTTY, which is designed to steal passwords. PuTTY is a free open source terminal emulator application as a client for SSH, Telnet, rlogin, and raw TCP protocols can serve.

The now discovered version is not on the official PuTTY download site spreads, but via a hacked another page. The infected version would have been the end of 2013 and then already been distributed over the Internet. Recently, anti-virus company Symantec observed more infections. The infection starts with a user searching through a search engine to PuTTY.

Instead of choosing the official website, the user selects a hacked website. The hacked website sends the user several times and let him finally downloading an infected version. When the user logs in via the infected version on a system, the login information can be sent to the attacker. Users also are advised to check that they only download software from the official website of the supplier or developer.

ISC: Another Port For SSH Is Not Meaningless

Who SSH (Secure Shell) to log on to remote computers and servers will benefit from it to change the default port 22, as late as a handler of the Internet Storm Center (ISC) know. SSH is a popular protocol for managing computers. Standard protocol listens on port 22.

This will also be a lot of scans and attacks on this port. At present, there Reddit , in response to this article , a discussion or change the default port is wise. One of the criticisms is that " security through obscurity "is not a security measure, but only one way to slow an attacker and therefore offers little value. "While it is true that it is difficult to stop a determined attacker to cause you provide, any measure that prevents arbitrary script kiddies and scanners to your SSH look not entirely meaningless," says ISC handler Rick Wanner.

Wanner says more than 15 years SSH on a non-standard port to run, such as port 52222. "Of course this is not the only security measure that I use. I patch daily use hosts.allow where possible, keys and passphrases instead passwords and use Deny Hosts ", he tells. ISC handler notes that he does not use port 22 because of "security through obscurity" benefits, but because it eliminates all noise on port 22.

Port 22 is a favorite target of brute force attacks and port scans rising every year. These activities cause Wanner as much noise in the logs. "Why would you tolerate it if it is not needed?", He notes. The default port change he would attack traffic are much diminished that he occasionally his defense test to see if it still works.

Researcher demonstrates firmware attack on Macbook

In late December, a researcher showed how it is possible to install on an Apple Macbook a bootkit that reinstalling the operating system and replace the hard drive can survive. The bootkit can be installed by someone with physical access to the laptop. For this, the externally accessible Thunderbolt port is used. Once the bootkit is running that can spread virally by infecting other Thunderbolt devices.

According to researcher Trammell Hudson is possible to bypass the control that uses Apple EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) firmware updates. This can add an attacker with physical access of malicious code to the firmware on the ROM of the motherboard, creating a new class of firmware boat kits for Macbooks. The firmware is not cryptographically checked during boot, so the malicious code from the beginning has full control over the system.

Hudson developed a "proof of concept" bootkit Apple's public RSA key in replacing the firmware and prevents attempts to replace the malicious code. Since the boot firmware is independent of the operating system, the bootkit continues after a reinstallation of the operating system to exist. Replacing the hard drive also has no effect. Only through a programming device, the original firmware can be restored.

The researcher notes that can be adjusted by the bootkit and can spread further as the firmware of other Thunderbolt devices. "Although the two year old Thunderbolt firmware leak that this attack used a firmware patch to remedy is the bigger problem of Apple's EFI firmware security and secure booting without solving difficult trusted hardware." Hudson will during his presentation at the CCC conference give more details.