Excellent Shodan blog posts announces and mainstreams IPV6 support on exposed RDP servers!

There's so much here - IPV6!  COVID-19 and security connection!  Vulnerable RDP servers!  Bad IT support!  Security by Obscurity!  ( Exposed servers aren't safer by changing 3388 to 3389 ! )

Trends in Internet Exposure

29 MARCH 2020 on research, Shodan

Edit: The original data for RDP in March, 2020 included IPv6 results whereas the historical analysis only looked at IPv4. I've changed the numbers to reflect the new counts. Tl;dr: we're still seeing growth but significantly less than before.

More companies are going remote due to COVID-19 and as a result there's been a lot of speculation around how this impacts the exposure of companies and the Internet as a whole (in terms of publicly-accessible services). I was actually already working on creating trends for various services due to a presentation I gave late last year so let me share with you some updated charts on how the Internet has evolved over the past few years (up to March 29, 2020).

https://blog.shodan.io/trends-in-internet-exposure/

Free Book from Google “Building Secure and Reliable Systems”

Google has released a book and put the electronic versions on their web site

“Building Secure and Reliable Systems”

It's getting good reviews from my colleagues, isn't that what resilience is all about?

Perry

Zoom is a good product, and performs a great service in these days of social distancing. Can they PLEASE not give the keys to China?

I know it makes me sound like a horrible person, but there really are concerns about keys that are really easy for authoritarian governments to "request". 

Especially when they're asked "which one do you want"?  And the answer is haha "all of them" forever.

( Profound apologies to people who I told they could sorta trust zoom. )

Slashdot again: Zoom's Encryption Is 'Not Suited for Secrets' and Has Surprising Links To China, Researchers Discover

links to theintercept.com

ZOOM’S ENCRYPTION IS “NOT SUITED FOR SECRETS” AND HAS SURPRISING LINKS TO CHINA, RESEARCHERS DISCOVER
sometimes using keys issued by servers in China

Come on Zoom, what are you thinking?  And don't blame the Corona Virus for this one.  Your paying customers don't want this...

Perry

Developers! It's way past time! Install your products secure by default with random admin passwords!

It's PERFECTLY ALL RIGHT to make DBA's and SYSADMINS dig for the administrator password (within reason). 

If they took the time to install the thing, through multiple missteps and retries, once your thing finally works you know they're just going to load it up and go. 

Let them, but later, if they want to make any changes or see their data, make them find the password.  They won't delete it.

DO you want this to happen?  From Slashdot:

A Hacker Has Wiped, Defaced More Than 15,000 Elasticsearch Servers (zdnet.com)

   For the past two weeks, a hacker has been breaking into Elasticsearch servers that have been left open on the internet without a password and attempting to wipe their content, while also leaving the name of a cyber-security firm behind, trying to divert blame. From a report:
According to security researcher John Wethington, one of the people who saw this campaign unfolding and who aided ZDNet in this report, the first intrusions began around March 24. The attacks appear to be carried with the help of an automated script that scans the internet for ElasticSearch systems left unprotected, connects to the databases, attempts to wipe their content, and then creates a new empty index called nightlionsecurity.com. The attacking script doesn't appear to work in all instances, though, as the nightlionsecurity.com index is also present in databases where the content has been left intact.

Look at all the routers at Best Buy, there's a sticker on them with the admin password !  Brilliant!

Perry

So is there any question we're in an active Cyberwar?

It's bad enough that we're in the middle of a global pandemic, but the Chinese are actively attacking our government and commercial organizations.  The good thing is that they're being called out by FireEye and shedding some light on their antics.

Beginning this year, FireEye observed Chinese actor APT41 carry out one of the broadest campaigns by a Chinese cyber espionage actor we have observed in recent years. Between January 20 and March 11, FireEye observed APT41 attempt to exploit vulnerabilities in Citrix NetScaler/ADC, Cisco routers, and Zoho ManageEngine Desktop Central at over 75 FireEye customers. Countries we’ve seen targeted include Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, UK and USA. The following industries were targeted: Banking/Finance, Construction, Defense Industrial Base, Government, Healthcare, High Technology, Higher Education, Legal, Manufacturing, Media, Non-profit, Oil & Gas, Petrochemical, Pharmaceutical, Real Estate, Telecommunications, Transportation, Travel, and Utility. It’s unclear if APT41 scanned the Internet and attempted exploitation en masse or selected a subset of specific organizations to target, but the victims appear to be more targeted in nature.

 https://www.fireeye.com/blog/threat-research/2020/03/apt41-initiates-global-intrusion-campaign-using-multiple-exploits.html

More information about APT41 can be found on the MITRE ATT&CK site
https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0096/

Cool Dashcam has a security flaw

From Slashdot: Dashcam Flaw Allows Anyone To Track Drivers In Real-Time Across the US

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard:BlackVue is a dashcam company with its own social network. With a small, internet-connected dashcam installed inside their vehicle, BlackVue users can receive alerts when their camera detects an unusual event such as someone colliding with their parked car. Customers can also allow others to tune into their camera's feed, letting others "vicariously experience the excitement and pleasure of driving all over the world," a message displayed inside the app reads. Users are invited to upload footage of their BlackVue camera spotting people crashing into their cars or other mishaps with the #CaughtOnBlackVue hashtag. But what BlackVue's app doesn't make clear is that it is possible to pull and store users' GPS locations in real-time over days or even weeks. Motherboard was able to track the movements of some of BlackVue's customers in the United States.

Ordinarily, BlackVue lets anyone create an account and then view a map of cameras that are broadcasting their location and live feed. This broadcasting is not enabled by default, and users have to select the option to do so when setting up or configuring their own camera. Motherboard tuned into live feeds from users in Hong Kong, China, Russia, the U.K, Germany, and elsewhere. BlackVue spokesperson Jeremie Sinic told Motherboard in an email that the users on the map only represent a tiny fraction of BlackVue's overall customers. But the actual GPS data that drives the map is available and publicly accessible. By reverse engineering the iOS version of the BlackVue app, Motherboard was able to write scripts that pull the GPS location of BlackVue users over a week long period and store the coordinates and other information like the user's unique identifier. One script could collect the location data of every BlackVue user who had mapping enabled on the eastern half of the United States every two minutes. Motherboard collected data on dozens of customers.Following the report, BlackVue said their developers "have updated the security measures" to prevent this sort of tracking.

Motherboard confirmed that previously provided user data stopped working, and they said they have "deleted all of the data collected to preserve individuals' privacy."

Augmented Reality Contact Lenses are real!

WANT!

[ What does this have to do with info security?  What DOESN'T it have to do with IS?! ]


From Slashdot Augmented Reality In a Contact Lens: It's the Real Deal 

Tekla Perry writes:
Startup Mojo Vision announced a microdisplay mid-2019, with not a lot of talk about applications. Turns out, they had one very specific application in mind -- an AR contact lens. Last week the company let selected media have a look at working prototypes, powered wirelessly, though plans for the next version include a battery on board. The demos included edge detection and enhancement (intended for people with low vision) in a darkened room and text annotations. The lenses are entering clinical trials (company executives have been testing them for some time already).Steve Sinclair, senior vice president of product and marketing, says the first application will likely be for people with low vision -- providing real-time edge detection and dropping crisp lines around objects. Other applications include translating languages in real time, tagging faces, and providing emotional cues.

"People can't tell you are wearing it, so we want the interaction to be subtle, done using just your eyes," Sinclair said. He also noted the experience is different from wearing glasses. "When you close your eyes, you still see the content displayed," he says. Mojo Vision is calling the technology Invisible Computing.