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Internet Encryption Algols are flawed- too little too late!

February 15, 2012 1:48 am / Leave a Comment

Some news from a paper I am reading- not surprised that RSA has a problem .

http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/064.pdf

Abstract. We performed a sanity check of public keys collected on the web. Our main goal was to test the validity of the assumption that di erent random choices are made each time keys are generated.We found that the vast majority of public keys work as intended. A more disconcerting fi nding is that two out of every one thousand RSA moduli that we collected off er no security.

 

Our conclusion is that the validity of the assumption is questionable and that generating keys in the real world for multiple-secrets” cryptosystems such as RSA is signi cantly riskier than for single-secret” ones such as ElGamal or (EC)DSA which are based on Die-Hellman.

Keywords: Sanity check, RSA, 99.8% security, ElGamal, DSA, ECDSA, (batch) factoring, discrete logarithm, Euclidean algorithm, seeding random number generators, K9.

and

 

99.8% Security. More seriously, we stumbled upon 12720 di erent 1024-bit RSA moduli that o ffer no security. Their secret keys are accessible to anyone who takes the trouble to redo our work. Assuming access to the public key collection, this is straightforward compared to more

traditional ways to retrieve RSA secret keys (cf. [5,15]). Information on the a ected X.509 certi cates and PGP keys is given in the full version of this paper, cf. below. Overall, over the data we collected 1024-bit RSA provides 99.8% security at best (but see Appendix A).

 

However no algol is perfect and even Elliptic Based Crypto ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_curve_cryptography#Fast_reduction_.28NIST_curves.29 )has a flaw called Shor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm

Funny thing is ECC is now used for Open DNS

http://dnscurve.org/crypto.html

The DNSCurve project adds link-level public-key protection to DNS packets. This page discusses the cryptographic tools used in DNSCurve.

ELLIPTIC-CURVE CRYPTOGRAPHY

DNSCurve uses elliptic-curve cryptography, not RSA.

RSA is somewhat older than elliptic-curve cryptography: RSA was introduced in 1977, while elliptic-curve cryptography was introduced in 1985. However, RSA has shown many more weaknesses than elliptic-curve cryptography. RSA’s effective security level was dramatically reduced by the linear sieve in the late 1970s, by the quadratic sieve and ECM in the 1980s, and by the number-field sieve in the 1990s. For comparison, a few attacks have been developed against some rare elliptic curves having special algebraic structures, and the amount of computer power available to attackers has predictably increased, but typical elliptic curves require just as much computer power to break today as they required twenty years ago.

IEEE P1363 standardized elliptic-curve cryptography in the late 1990s, including a stringent list of security criteria for elliptic curves. NIST used the IEEE P1363 criteria to select fifteen specific elliptic curves at five different security levels. In 2005, NSA issued a new “Suite B” standard, recommending the NIST elliptic curves (at two specific security levels) for all public-key cryptography and withdrawing previous recommendations of RSA.

Some specific types of elliptic-curve cryptography are patented, but DNSCurve does not use any of those types of elliptic-curve cryptography.

No wonder college kids are hacking defense databases easily nowadays!!

Analytics for Cyber Conflict -Part Deux

February 8, 2012 3:28 am / 1 Comment

Part 1 in this series is avaiable at http://www.decisionstats.com/analytics-for-cyber-conflict/

The next articles in this series will cover-

  1. the kind of algorithms that are currently or being proposed for cyber conflict, as well as or detection

Cyber Conflict requires some basic elements of the following broad disciplines within Computer and Information Science (besides the obvious disciplines of heterogeneous database types for different kinds of data) -

1) Cryptography – particularly a cryptographic  hash function that maximizes cost and time of the enemy trying to break it.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function

The ideal cryptographic hash function has four main or significant properties:

  • it is easy (but not necessarily quick) to compute the hash value for any given message
  • it is infeasible to generate a message that has a given hash
  • it is infeasible to modify a message without changing the hash
  • it is infeasible to find two different messages with the same hash

A commercial spin off is to use this to anonymized all customer data stored in any database, such that no database (or data table) that is breached contains personally identifiable information. For example anonymizing the IP Addresses and DNS records with a mashup  (embedded by default within all browsers) of Tor and MafiaaFire extensions can help create better information privacy on the internet.

This can also help in creating better encryption between Instant Messengers in Communication

2) Data Disaster Planning for Data Storage (but also simulations for breaches)- including using cloud computing, time sharing, or RAID for backing up data. Planning and creating an annual (?) exercise for a simulated cyber breach of confidential just like a cyber audit- similar to an annual accounting audit

3) Basic Data Reduction Algorithms for visualizing large amounts of information. This can include

  1. K Means Clustering, http://www.jstor.org/pss/2346830 , http://www.cs.ust.hk/~qyang/Teaching/537/Papers/huang98extensions.pdf , and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6372397/k-means-with-really-large-matrix
  2. Topic Models (LDA) http://www.decisionstats.com/topic-models/,
  3. Social Network Analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network_analysis,
  4. Graph Analysis http://micans.org/mcl/ and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19407357
  5. MapReduce and Parallelization algorithms for computational boosting http://www.slideshare.net/marin_dimitrov/large-scale-data-analysis-with-mapreduce-part-i

In the next article we will examine

  1. the role of non state agents as well as state agents competing and cooperating,
  2. and what precautions can knowledge discovery in databases practitioners employ to avoid breaches of security, ethics, and regulation.

Using Opera Unite to defeat SOPA?

January 17, 2012 6:18 am / 1 Comment

Lets assume that the big bad world of American electoral politics forces some kind of modified SOPA to be passed, and the big American companies have to abide by that law (just as they do share data  for National Security under Patriot Act but quitely).

I belive Opera Unite is the way forward to sharing content on the Internet.

From-

http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-unite-developer-primer-revisited/

Opera Unite features a Web server running inside the Opera browser, which allows you to do some amazing things. At the touch of a button, you can share images, documents, video, music, games, collaborative applications and all manner of other things with your friends and colleagues

I can share music, and files , and the web server is actually my own laptop. try beating 2 billion new web servers that sprout!! File system sharing is totally secure- you can create private, public, or password protected files, a messaging system that can be used for drop messages (called fridge), a secure messaging system and your own web server is ready to start at a click. the open web may just use opera instead of chromium, and US regulation would be solely to blame. even URL blocking is of limited appeal thanks to software like MafiaWire Extension

Throw in Ad block, embedded bit torrent sharing and some more  Tor level encryption within the browser and sorry Senator, but the internet belongs to the planet not to your lobbyist.

see-http://dev.opera.com/web

Secure Browsing from Mobile and PC ( Tor ,PeerNet, WasteAgain)

November 19, 2011 7:20 am / Leave a Comment

While Tor remains the tool of choice with pseudo-techie hacker wannabes , there is enough juice and smoke and mirrors on the market to confuse your average Joe.

For a secure browsing experience on Mobile – do NOT use either Apple or Windows OS

Use Android  and this app called Orbot in particular

Installing Tor with a QR code

Orbot is easy to install by simply scanning the following QR code with your Android Barcode scanner.

Android QR code

Installing Tor from the Android Market

Orbot is available in the Android Market.

ENTER PEERNET

If you have a Dell PC, well just use PeerNet to configure and set up your own network around the neighbourhood. This is particularly applicable if you are in country that is both repressive and not so technologically advanced. Wont work in China or USA.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/network/p70008/EN/vista_7/peernet.htm

What is a peer network?

A peer network is a network in which one computer can connect directly to another computer. This capability is accomplished by enabling access point (AP) functionality on one of the computers. Other computers can then connect to this computer in the same way that they would connect to a physical AP. If Internet Connection Sharing is enabled on the computer that has the AP functionality, computers that connect to that computer have Internet connectivity as well.

A basic peer network, which requires no networking knowledge or experience to set up, should meet the needs of most home users and small businesses. By default, a basic peer network is configured with the strongest available security (see How do I set up a basic peer network?).

For users who are familiar with wireless networking technology, advanced configuration features are available to do the following:

• Change security settings (see How do I configure my peer network?)
• Choose which method (push button or PIN) computers with Wi-Fi Protected Setup™ capability can join your peer network (see How do I allow peer devices to join my peer network using Wi-Fi Protected Setup technology?)
• Change the DHCP Server IP address (see How do I configure my peer network?).
• Change the channel on which to operate your peer network (see How do I configure my peer network?)

 If you are really really in a need for secure browsing (like you are maybe a big hot shot in the tech world), I suggest go over to VMWare

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

create a seperate Linux (Ubuntu for ease) virtual disc, then download the Tor Browser Bundle from

https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en for surfing and a Peernet (above) or  a prepaid one time use disposable mobile pre-paid wireless card. It is also quite easy to delete your virtual disc in times of emergencies (but it is best to use encryption even when in Ubuntu https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EncryptedHome)

IRC chat is less secure than you think it is thanks to BOT  Trawlers- so I am hoping someone in the open source community updates Waste Again for encrypted chats http://wasteagain.sourceforge.net/

What is “WASTE again”?

“WASTE again” enables you to create a decentralized and secure private mesh network using an unsecure network, such as the internet. Once the public encryption keys are exchanged, sending messages, creating groupchats and transferring files is easy and secure.

Creating a mesh

To create a mesh you need at least two computers with “WASTE again” installed. During installation, a unique pair of public and private keys for each computer is being generated. Before the first connection can be established, you need to exchange these public keys. These keys enable “WASTE again” to authenticate every connection to other “WASTE again” clients.

After exchanging the keys, you simply type in the computers IP address to connect to. If that computer is located behind a firewall or a NAT-router, you have to create a portmap first to enable incoming connections.

At least one computer in your mesh has to be able to accept incoming connections, making it a “public node”. If no direct connection between two firewalled computers can be made, “WASTE again” automatically routes your traffic through one or more of the available public nodes.

Every new node simply has to exchange keys with one of the connected nodes and then connect to it. All the other nodes will exchange their keys automatically over the mesh.

Interview Markus Schmidberger ,Cloudnumbers.com

September 20, 2011 10:38 am / 1 Comment

Here is an interview with Markus Schmidberger, Senior Community Manager for cloudnumbers.com. Cloudnumbers.com is the exciting new cloud startup for scientific computing. It basically enables transition to a R and other platforms in the cloud and makes it very easy and secure from the traditional desktop/server model of operation.

Ajay- Describe the startup story for setting up Cloudnumbers.com

Markus- In 2010 the company founders Erik Muttersbach (TU München), Markus Fensterer (TU München) and Moritz v. Petersdorff-Campen (WHU Vallendar) started with the development of the cloud computing environment. (more…)

Top 25 Errors in Programming that lead to hacker attacks

July 2, 2011 7:10 am / Leave a Comment

I am elaborating an earlier article on http://decisionstats.com/top-25-most-dangerous-software-errors/ based on my continued research into cyber conflict and strategy. My inputs are in italics – the rest is a condensed article for further thought.

This is thus a very useful initiative for the world to follow and upgrade their cyber security.

It is in accordance with the US policy to secure its cyber infrastructure (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-securing-our-nations-cyber-infrastructure)  and countries like India, and even Europe as well as other nations could do well to atleast benchmark their own security practices in software and digital infrastructure with it. There seems to much better technical coordination between rogue hackers than patriotic hackers imho ;)


The Department of Homeland Security of the United States of America has just launched a list of top 25 errors in programming or creating software that increase vulnerability to hacking attacks. The list which is available at http://cwe.mitre.org/top25/index.html lists down a methodology fo measuring vulnerability called Common Weakness Scoring System (CWSS) and uses that score to rank the various errors as well as suggestions to eliminate these weaknesses or errors.
Measuring Weaknesses

The importance of a weakness (that arises due to software bugs) may vary depending on business usage or project implementation, the technologies , operating systems and computing environments in use, and the risk or threat perception.The Common Weakness Scoring System (CWSS) provides a mechanism for scoring weaknesses. and provides a framework for prioritizing security errors (“weaknesses”) that are discovered in software applications.
Identifying Weaknesses
For example the number 1 weakness is shown with
1CWE-89: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command (‘SQL Injection’).
The rest of the weaknesses are

RANK SCORE ID NAME
[1] 93.8 CWE-89 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command (‘SQL Injection’)
[2] 83.3 CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command (‘OS Command Injection’)
[3] 79.0 CWE-120 Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input (‘Classic Buffer Overflow’)
[4] 77.7 CWE-79 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation (‘Cross-site Scripting’)
[5] 76.9 CWE-306 Missing Authentication for Critical Function
[6] 76.8 CWE-862 Missing Authorization
[7] 75.0 CWE-798 Use of Hard-coded Credentials
[8] 75.0 CWE-311 Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data
[9] 74.0 CWE-434 Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type
[10] 73.8 CWE-807 Reliance on Untrusted Inputs in a Security Decision
[11] 73.1 CWE-250 Execution with Unnecessary Privileges
[12] 70.1 CWE-352 Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
[13] 69.3 CWE-22 Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory (‘Path Traversal’)
[14] 68.5 CWE-494 Download of Code Without Integrity Check
[15] 67.8 CWE-863 Incorrect Authorization
[16] 66.0 CWE-829 Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere
[17] 65.5 CWE-732 Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource
[18] 64.6 CWE-676 Use of Potentially Dangerous Function
[19] 64.1 CWE-327 Use of a Broken or Risky Cryptographic Algorithm
[20] 62.4 CWE-131 Incorrect Calculation of Buffer Size
[21] 61.5 CWE-307 Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts
[22] 61.1 CWE-601 URL Redirection to Untrusted Site (‘Open Redirect’)
[23] 61.0 CWE-134 Uncontrolled Format String
[24] 60.3 CWE-190 Integer Overflow or Wraparound
[25] 59.9 CWE-759 Use of a One-Way Hash without a Salt
Details of each weakness is given by http://cwe.mitre.org/top25/index.html#Details
It includes Summary , Weakness Prevalence, Consequences, Remediation Cost, Ease of Detection ,Attacker Awareness and Attack Frequency .In addition the following sections describe each software vulnerability in detail- Technical Details ,Code Examples ,Detection Methods ,References,Prevention and Mitigation, Related CWEs and Related Attack Patterns.
Other important software weaknesses are -

[26] CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
[27] CWE-129: Improper Validation of Array Index
[28] CWE-754: Improper Check for Unusual or Exceptional Conditions
[29] CWE-805: Buffer Access with Incorrect Length Value
[30] CWE-838: Inappropriate Encoding for Output Context
[31] CWE-330: Use of Insufficiently Random Values
[32] CWE-822: Untrusted Pointer Dereference
[33] CWE-362: Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization (‘Race Condition’)
[34] CWE-212: Improper Cross-boundary Removal of Sensitive Data
[35] CWE-681: Incorrect Conversion between Numeric Types
[36] CWE-476: NULL Pointer Dereference
[37] CWE-841: Improper Enforcement of Behavioral Workflow
[38] CWE-772: Missing Release of Resource after Effective Lifetime
[39] CWE-209: Information Exposure Through an Error Message
[40] CWE-825: Expired Pointer Dereference
[41] CWE-456: Missing Initialization
Mitigating Weaknesses
Here is an example of the new matrix for migrations that also list the top 25 errors . This thus shows a way to fix the weaknesses and relative impact on each weakness by the following mitigations.

http://cwe.mitre.org/top25/mitigations.html#MitigationMatrix

Effectiveness ratings include:

  • High: The mitigation has well-known, well-understood strengths and limitations; there is good coverage with respect to variations of the weakness.
  • Moderate: The mitigation will prevent the weakness in multiple forms, but it does not have complete coverage of the weakness.
  • Limited: The mitigation may be useful in limited circumstances, only be applicable to a subset of this weakness type, require extensive training/customization, or give limited visibility.
  • Defense in Depth (DiD): The mitigation may not necessarily prevent the weakness, but it may help to minimize the potential impact when an attacker exploits the weakness.

Within the matrix, the following mitigations are identified:

 

  • M1: Establish and maintain control over all of your inputs.
  • M2: Establish and maintain control over all of your outputs.
  • M3: Lock down your environment.
  • M4: Assume that external components can be subverted, and your code can be read by anyone.
  • M5: Use industry-accepted security features instead of inventing your own.

The following general practices are omitted from the matrix:

  • GP1: Use libraries and frameworks that make it easier to avoid introducing weaknesses.
  • GP2: Integrate security into the entire software development lifecycle.
  • GP3: Use a broad mix of methods to comprehensively find and prevent weaknesses.
  • GP4: Allow locked-down clients to interact with your software.

 

M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 CWE
High DiD Mod CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory (‘Path Traversal’)
Mod High DiD Ltd CWE-78: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command (‘OS Command Injection’)
Mod High Ltd CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation (‘Cross-site Scripting’)
Mod High DiD Ltd CWE-89: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an SQL Command (‘SQL Injection’)
Mod DiD Ltd CWE-120: Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input (‘Classic Buffer Overflow’)
Mod DiD Ltd CWE-131: Incorrect Calculation of Buffer Size
High DiD Mod CWE-134: Uncontrolled Format String
Mod DiD Ltd CWE-190: Integer Overflow or Wraparound
High CWE-250: Execution with Unnecessary Privileges
Mod Mod CWE-306: Missing Authentication for Critical Function
Mod CWE-307: Improper Restriction of Excessive Authentication Attempts
DiD CWE-311: Missing Encryption of Sensitive Data
High CWE-327: Use of a Broken or Risky Cryptographic Algorithm
Ltd CWE-352: Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
Mod DiD Mod CWE-434: Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type
DiD CWE-494: Download of Code Without Integrity Check
Mod Mod Ltd CWE-601: URL Redirection to Untrusted Site (‘Open Redirect’)
Mod High DiD CWE-676: Use of Potentially Dangerous Function
Ltd DiD Mod CWE-732: Incorrect Permission Assignment for Critical Resource
High CWE-759: Use of a One-Way Hash without a Salt
DiD High Mod CWE-798: Use of Hard-coded Credentials
Mod DiD Mod Mod CWE-807: Reliance on Untrusted Inputs in a Security Decision
High High High CWE-829: Inclusion of Functionality from Untrusted Control Sphere
DiD Mod Mod CWE-862: Missing Authorization
DiD Mod CWE-863: Incorrect Authorization

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