Posted by Avik Sarkar
On 11/10/2012 12:57:00 am
TOR Client Leaking Sensitive Information From Cache Memory, Later The Bug Has Been Fixed
Major security issue has been found in the world's most famous and widely used software for online anonymity,
Tor (The Onion Router). A software developer named
Andrey Karpov found that the anonymisation software uses a function called
memset() to delete
cache data, which is not supported by all compilers. In some cases, that can cause the TOR client to leave confidential data like passwords in the system memory when it is closed. The
memset() function is problematic because it is automatically deleted when TOR is optimized for speed with a compiler like the one in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. Once that happens, the data remains in system memory, where it can be read by malicious programs.
As soon as this security issue get spot light The
Tor Project has immediately
issues a fix to close the security
vulnerability which leads to leak information from memory on some machines running Tor that could give an attacker access to sensitive information stored in the cache. The developers at the Tor Project were alerted to the problem recently and began looking into the issue. What they found is that in some cases, when the Tor client uses a function called memset to erase some cache data on a machine, some of that information will still remain when Tor exits. The data that remains could give an attacker access to sensitive information in the cache. The strring explaining the bug fix in Tor says that different compilers handle the situation differently. In their bug fix Tor Project says that "Tor tries to wipe potentially sensitive data after using it, so that if some subsequent security failure exposes Tor's memory, the damage will be limited. But we had a bug where the compiler was eliminating these wipe operations when it decided that the memory was no longer visible to a (correctly running) program, hence defeating our attempt at defense in depth. We fix that by using
OpenSSL's OPENSSL_cleanse() operation, which a compiler is unlikely to optimize away. Future versions of Tor may use a less ridiculously heavy approach for this. Fixes bug 7352."
-Source (Tor Project, The-H & threatpost)
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Posted by Avik Sarkar
On 10/16/2012 07:34:00 pm
Whonix -Anonymous Operating System Based on Debian/GNU Linux & Tor
Whonix, which is earlier called TorBOX or aos; now been reintroduced with a new style. This time we got a complete anonymous general purpose Operating System based on Virtual Box, Debian GNU/Linux and Tor. According to the project wiki page - in Whonix IP and DNS leaks are impossible. Not even malware with root rights can find out the user's real IP/location. This is because Whonix consists of two virtual machines. One machine solely runs Tor and acts as a gateway, which we call Whonix-Gateway. The other machine, which we call Whonix-Workstation, is on a completely isolated network. Only connections through Tor are possible.
We request our reader to See Security for a more comprehensive description, security features and threat model. You can even go through with full change log and also download the source code from github.
Key Features:-
- Adobe Flash anonymously
- browse the web anonymously
- Anonymous IRC
- Anonymous Publishing
- Anonymous E-Mail with Mozilla Thunderbird and TorBirdy
- Add a proxy behind Tor (Tor -> proxy)
- Based on Debian GNU/Linux.
- Based on the Tor anonymity network.
- Based on Virtual Box.
- Can torify almost any application.
- Can torify any operating system
- Can torify Windows.
- Chat anonymously.
- Circumvent Censorship.
- DNSSEC over Tor
- Encrypted DNS
- Full IP/DNS protocol leak protection.
- Hide the fact that you are using Tor/Whonix
- Isolating Proxy
- Java anonymously
- Javascript anonymously
- Location/IP hidden servers
- Prevents anyone from learning your IP.
- Prevents anyone from learning your physical location.
- Private obfuscated bridges supported.
- Protects your privacy.
- Protocol-Leak-Protection and Fingerprinting-Protection
- Secure And Distributed Time Synchronization Mechanism
- Security by Isolation
- Stream isolation to prevent identity correlation through circuit sharing
- Virtual Machine Images
- VPN/Tunnel Support
- Whonix is produced independently from the Tor (r) anonymity software and carries no guarantee from The Tor Project about quality, suitability or anything else.
- Transparent Proxy
- Tunnel Freenet through Tor
- Tunnel i2p through Tor
- Tunnel JonDonym through Tor
- Tunnel Proxy through Tor
- Tunnel Retroshare through Tor
- Tunnel SSH through Tor
- Tunnel UDP over Tor
- Tunnel VPN through Tor
To Download Whonix-0.4.5 Click Here. Before download please note that Whonix is produced independently from the Tor anonymity software and carries no guarantee from The Tor Project about quality, suitability or anything else.
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