Hoodoo Guru

And the good news is ...

And the good news is?

Security

Government spyware vendor Hacking Team hacked

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Hacking Team, a notorious Italian based company that develops and sells surveillance technology to governments worldwide, has been breached. The attackers have leaked over 400 gigabytes of emails, files and source code allegedly taken from Hacking Team. It contains sensitive information allegedly obtained from the company’s systems.

Hacking Team offers lawful interception services tools, which the company calls “offensive technology,” to law enforcement and intelligence agencies from all over the world including Australia.

Given the amount of data leaked it appears the attackers has access to their systems for quite some time. Some of the emails show that the United Nations has been investigating the reported sale of Hacking Team’s surveillance tools to Sudan. It also shows they have customers in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt and Mongolia. The company denies any involvement with Sudan and has long asserted that it does not sell to oppressive governments , however the leaked emails seem to suggest otherwise.

Spreadsheets contained in the data dump also show the AFP paid for unspecified, offensive-use products from Hacking Team twice: once in November 2009 (A$126,525) and again in February 2010 (A$234,980) at a total of A$361,505.

The breach came to light early on Monday 6th Jul when someone hijacked Hacking Team’s Twitter account and started publishing screenshots apparently representing emails sent and received by the company’s employees. The screenshots show emails regarding DNS issues suffered by Hacking Team in March 2014 due to its service provider, commentary on reports from Citizen Lab and other researchers, and communications related to human rights investigations.

Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), analyzed some of the leaked files and identified a document that apparently shows every one of Hacking Team’s customers and the revenue they have generated. The document reveals that Ethiopia paid $1 million for surveillance software, while the government of Chile signed the largest contract to date, worth $2.85 million.

The company’s Twitter account still appears to be controlled by the attackers at the time of publishing. Hacking Team’s Christian Pozzi said on Twitter that the breach has been reported to law enforcement authorities and that the people responsible for the attack will be arrested.

The Hacking Team representative says they are in the process of notifying all customers about the breach. Pozzi’s Twitter account was also hijacked minutes before this article was published.

This incident should serve as a warning to everyone that attention to detail in the IT security business are mandatory, not optional.

Do we have to worry about our privacy?

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Several weeks ago whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked secret documents about the NSA surveillance program PRISM.

This program enables and allows the US government to access anyones personal data from companies such as Google and Facebook.

It basically allows the National Security Agency to tap directly into the servers of the nine mentioned companies to extract audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs of foreign users.

While the US Government provides many valid reasons to justify surveillance of this type, do they respect the wishes of other countries to have their own such programs.

For instance, should we respect China spying on American and Australia citizens?

Or, should there be a different standards and rules for other countries?

Lets look at the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Australia. The federal government rejected a bid by Huawei to take part in the rollout of the National Broadband Network due to their links with this type of surveillance practice.

However when asked about the NSA surveillance program PRISM, Australia’s Foreign Minister Bob Carr appears to display no concern about it. “She’ll be right mate“, thumbs up, was the message he told to the people of Australia, and in my view he might as well be endorsing it.

History shows us that we haven’t always have had governments respecting the constitution, law and the rights of the people. With this kind of practice in the hands of the wrong government, our chances of restoring a democratic society have become very slim.

I have listened to many views on this topic and it is clear that many people are afraid of their Governments.  Who they are in bed with, and who their enemies are. However, I feel it is the Governments who should be afraid of their people, especially in China where revolution is still fresh in the memory of their people.

Your views?

Malware? What Malware?

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MalwareIt is still mind boggling to see the amount of ignorance that exists around the Internet community.

Producers of Malware are no longer the geeky kids, swilling coke in their bedroom, disrupting the Internet for kicks. Malware authors are motivated by greed, are business savvy and sell their services to organized crime syndicates.

When end users take little or no responsibility to maintain their computers they are taking a very big risk. It also makes sure that computer hackers and organized crime have a very bright future.

In one recent example, Avast was able to identify Malware on a website that (for now) shall remain nameless. The response from the administrators of the website was that there was no Malware on their site and since Avast is developed in Eastern Europe it simply shouldn’t be trusted because it is blocking their website for no reason.

The malware used the PhpRemoteView hack, a malicious JavaScript redirecting you to fake search engines full of ads and malicious software. Simply Viewing the HTML source, one could spot the malicious code from an aero-plane.

So, our Hacker and Administrator come together in beautiful harmony. Our hacker gets what he wants, and our Administrator makes the whole thing work because he refuses to accept that he has a problem.

Today Microsoft released their 11th Security Intelligence Report (SIR).

The report provides threat trends and data analysis on topics like software vulnerabilities, exploits, malicious code and potentially unwanted software. It is great reading and shows that the devide between the trend we need to see vs the actual trend is growing.

The report is great news for our hackers and shows strong growth in their business for years to come.

WikiLeaks here to stay

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I thought I should speak for myself and say that I fully believe Julian Assange and what Wikileaks stand for is a good thing.

I do have an opinion and it is different to that of Hillary Clinton. I don’t consider myself to be a terrorist (as she would suggest), but rather a supporter of global freedom of speech, not the US doctored version of “freedom of speech” which only suits them when it is in their favor.

Wiki Leaks is also highly criticized for leaked documents claiming that it jeopardizes the lives of civilians, military and embassy officials. People also believe that it endangers our progress and attempts at negotiations on a global level. Known as “Cablegate”, the most recent document dump begun released some of the 251,287 embassy cables.

This controversy comes as Interpol named Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Founder, a wanted fugitive for rape, coercion and molestation charges stemming from an incident involving two Swedish women back in August. This issue I will leave alone, as I have already formed my views on this after looking into the facts a little closer.

It is possible that Julian Assange will face criminal charges for the recent publication of the leaks.

The United States has said there is an active investigation into the source of the leaks and all people deemed responsible will face charges. Though Interpol has released a Red Notice for Julian Assange, there are no charges or a warrant issued in relation to the newest WikiLeaks document dump.

Australia’s attorney-general Robert McClelland stated “From Australia’s point of view we think there are potentially a number of criminal laws that could have been breached”.

While I do agree that this is a diplomatic nightmare since it is asking the government to be accountable to its people, I also believe in chasing the truth and freedom of speech.

No matter how much resources and dollars are spent on bringing down Julian and Wikileaks, it is a war that they won’t win. They won’t win because they don’t understand the power of the people.

Some people have a problem with the truth, Some hide it, others hid from it.

Expect more attacks from Anonymous

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Today the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has published community and industry submissions into improved transparency and accountability measures surrounding the Government’s internet filtering plans.

The 174 submissions will be used to feed into its legislative framework. Submissions were received for the usual suspects including Telstra, Optus, Microsoft, Electronic Frontiers Australia and Google.
Many submissions appeared to be from individuals with passionate pleas.

“A range of views have been expressed in the submissions and I would like to thank everyone who contributed their comments and valuable ideas to the public consultation process,” Conroy said in a statement.

One submission was from the vocal protest group “Anonymous”. Anonymous warned that that they will launch more cyber attacks in protest over the government’s plans to introduce mandatory filtering.

“We are Anonymous … EXPECT US!,” the group said in its comments in a part of the submission related to the banned content list and classification process.

Senator Conroys office will now work with other government agencies to consider the submissions and examine whether the ideas can be used to enhance the proposed accountability and transparency measures.”

The legislation would be introduced into parliament once these processes were complete, he said.

Protest group Anonymous said in a submission on the government’s proposed internet filter that it will launch more cyber attacks in protest over the government’s plans to introduce mandatory filtering to censor internet content.