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Blogs | RESEARCH | December 20, 2016

In Flight Hacking System

In my five years with IOActive, I’ve had the opportunity to visit some awesome places, often thousands of kilometers from home. So flying has obviously been an integral part of my routine. You might not think that’s such a big deal, unless like me, you’re afraid of flying. I don’t think I can completely get rid of that anxiety; after dozens of flights my hands still sweat during takeoff, but I’ve learned to live with it, even enjoying it sometimes…and spending some flights hacking stuff. What helped a lot to…

Ruben Santamarta
Disclosures | ADVISORIES | December 7, 2016

Security Vulnerabilities in Routers

The LB-LINK BL-WR2000 router, manufactured in China and sold world-wide, contains a critical vulnerability that allows an attacker to extract the admin credentials from the login page and gain access to the web admin interface. IOActive has identified 3 high to critical vulnerabilities in the product. An attacker could exploit these issues to fully compromise the device.

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Tao Sauvage
Blogs | RESEARCH | October 18, 2016

Let’s Terminate XML Schema Vulnerabilities

XML eXternal Entity (XXE) attacks are a common threat to applications using XML schemas, either actively or unknowingly. That is because we continue to use XML schemas that can be abused in multiple ways. Programming languages and libraries use XML schemas to define the expected contents of XML documents, SAML authentications or SOAP messages. XML schemas were intended to constrain document definitions, yet they have introduced multiple attack avenues. XML parsers should be prepared to manage two types of problematic XML documents: malformed files and invalid files. Malformed files do…

Fernando Arnaboldi
Blogs | INSIGHTS | September 1, 2016

Five Attributes of an Effective Corporate Red Team

After talking recently with colleagues at IOActive as well as some heads of industry-leading red teams, we wanted to share a list of attributes that we believe are key to any effective Red Team. [ NOTE: For debate about the relevant terminology, we suggest Daniel’s post titled The Difference Between Red, Blue, and Purple Teams. ] To be clear, we think there can be significant variance in how Red Teams are…

Daniel Miessler & Ryan O'Horo
Blogs | RESEARCH | August 17, 2016

Multiple Vulnerabilities in BHU WiFi “uRouter”

A Wonderful (and !Secure) Router from China The BHU WiFi uRouter, manufactured and sold in China, looks great – and it contains multiple critical vulnerabilities. An unauthenticated attacker could bypass authentication, access sensitive information stored in its system logs, and in the worst case, execute OS commands on the router with root privileges. In addition, the uRouter ships with hidden users, SSH enabled by default and a hardcoded root password…and injects a third-party JavaScript file into all users’ HTTP traffic. In this blog post, we cover the main security issues…

Tao Sauvage
Library | WHITEPAPER | August 3, 2016

Securing the Connected Car: Commonalities in Vehicle Vulnerabilities

With the Connected Car becoming commonplace in the market, vehicle cybersecurity grows more important by the year. At the forefront of this growing area of security research, IOActive has amassed real-world vulnerability data illustrating the general issues and potential solutions to the cybersecurity issues facing today’s vehicles. This paper explains the differences in testing methodologies, with recommendations on the most appropriate methods for testing connected vehicle systems. Detailed findings follow, including the impact, likelihood, overall risk, and remediation of vulnerabilities IOActive consultants have discovered over the course of thousands of…

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Corey Thuen
Disclosures | ADVISORIES | July 21, 2016

Multiple Vulnerabilities in D-Link DCS-5009L IP Camera

The D-Link DCS-5009L IP Camera can be used to remotely monitor your home. It can be accessed via the D-Link Cloud or configured to upload recordings to an FTP server, as well as send notifications by email. The DCS-5009L can rotate and tilt, and has night vision and movement detection. IOActive has identified four high-risk and two low-risk vulnerabilities in the D-Link DCS-5009L IP Camera. An attacker could exploit these issues to fully compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the product.

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Tao Sauvage
Library | WHITEPAPER | July 1, 2016

Assessing and Exploiting XML Schema’s Vulnerabilities

Specifications for XML and XML schemas include multiple security flaws. At the same time, these specifications provide the tools required to protect XML applications. This provides a complex scenario for developers, and a fun environment for hackers. Even though we use XML schemas to define the security of XML documents, we also use them to perform a variety of attacks: file retrieval, server side request forgery, port scanning, or brute forcing. This talk will analyze how to infer new attack vectors by analyzing the current vulnerabilities, and how it is…

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Fernando Arnaboldi
Blogs | INSIGHTS | March 22, 2016

Inside the IOActive Silicon Lab: Interpreting Images

In the post “Reading CMOS layout,” we discussed understanding CMOS layout in order to reverse-engineer photographs of a circuit to a transistor-level schematic. This was all well and good, but I glossed over an important (and often overlooked) part of the process: using the photos to observe and understand the circuit’s actual geometry. Optical Microscopy Let’s start with brightfield optical microscope imagery. (Darkfield microscopy is rarely used for semiconductor work.) Although reading lower metal layers on modern deep-submicron processes does usually require electron microscopy, optical microscopes still have…

Andrew Zonenberg
Blogs | RESEARCH | March 9, 2016

Got 15 minutes to kill? Why not root your Christmas gift?

TP-LINK NC200 and NC220 Cloud IP Cameras, which promise to let consumers “see there, when you can’t be there,” are vulnerable to an OS command injection in the PPPoE username and password settings. An attacker can leverage this weakness to get a remote shell with root privileges. The cameras are being marketed for surveillance, baby monitoring, pet monitoring, and monitoring of seniors. This blog post provides a 101 introduction to embedded hacking and covers how to extract and analyze firmware to look for common low-hanging fruit in security. This post…

Tao Sauvage