plan b-going to market

bob

Give gifts this holiday season that inspires your favorite hackers to make something great. Our ten top picks for gifts to make 'em smile are perfect for hackers of all styles, ages, and interests.

Holiday gift guides always struggle when faced with nailing down a list for hackers — that's because hackers are as diverse in their interests and fascinations as they are diverse in gender, color, size and everything else. Someone with a multi-focused set of curiosity and unique gifts for finding out what makes the crackable crack may seem like a daunting individual to stuff a stocking for … but don't fret. With a keen eye on the latest interests in hacker culture, we've got a gift guide that can make the hacker in your life smile as they enjoy using your gift to hack and explore throughout the coming year.

Anonymity online: The Onion Pi

One of the most popular "snake oil" (fake) privacy gadgets is the so-called "Tor in a box" — a plug-and-play gadget that promises to make you anonymous online. Nearly all of these are made by clueless charlatans whose products put you at risk for privacy and security breaches. But your favorite hacker can just make or build an "Onion Pi" for $69.95, and with this free tutorial.

Attribution Dice

With Attribution Dice ($20), anyone can be a high-priced security consultant, and predict breach headlines before PR firms have a chance to feed them to reporters! With every security breach, hackers roll their eyes when headlines and PR firms roll out the same old, same old terms, methods and culprits. Instead of rolling eyes, your hacker can roll the dice, and wow friends, family, and neighbors with their hacker cyber-powers.

21 Bitcoin Computer

Money is always a welcome gift. Give the gift of going hands-on with Bitcoin with the 21 Bitcoin Computer. "The 21 Bitcoin Computer is ideal for buying and selling digital goods and services. You can use it to create bitcoin-payable APIs, set up your own personal digital goods store, pay people to share your content online, or host online games of skill." It's not cheap ($395) and comes with controversy, but it's a cool toy with a lot of potential, and 21 Inc. is going to be releasing an open source package for the device soon.

Gentleman's Bogota Lockpicks and Clear Practice Lock

Conventional wisdom suggests that all hackers know how to pick locks, but can they do it in style? A perfect stocking stuffer for slick hackers of all genders is the Gentleman's Bogota lockpick set ($34.95). These featherweights pin discreetly to a collar, hat, sleeve, vest, hemline, or wherever they choose. If the hacker you're shopping for wants to learn to lockpick, or just brush up on technique, throw in the clever Clear Practice Lock ($34.95).

Inverse Path USB Armory

Iemhacker-hacking-news-tutorial-hackernews

In this reviewer's opinion, every hacker should have a USB Armory in their stocking this year. The Inverse Path USB Armory ($130) is a little USB stick with an entire computer onboard (800MHz ARM processor, 512MB RAM), designed to be a portable platform for personal security applications — and lives up to its reputation as "the Swiss Army Knife of security devices."

Hack-A-Day Gift Card

The cornerstone of hacker culture Hack-A-Day has a store offering gift cards and merchandise a-plenty. In it, you'll find a Bukito portable 3D printer ($899.97), ever-popular Facedancer21 and Gootfet42, a low energy Bluetooth Arduino microcontroller called the Lightblue Bean, and the pocket-sized open source robot arm, Mearm.

Hackers 20th Anniversary Blu-Ray Edition

Hack the planet! The 20th anniversary of influential 1995 cyberpunk film "Hackers" was this year, and this cult classic got a special edition Blu-ray release, making it the must-have for the hackers in your life. The 20th anniversary "Hackers" Blu-ray features an hour-long "making of" documentary, rich video and audio transfer for the film itself, and interviews with: Cast members Matthew Lillard, Fisher Stevens, and Penn Jillette; hacking consultants Nicholas Jarecki and Emmanuel Goldstein; Director Iain Softley, and many more involved with the film's production and style.

A Hacker's hope for better sleep: The Re-Timer

Iemhacker-Top-10-Great-gifts-For-hackers

Hackers are increasingly hacking themselves to make their own systems run better, and one thing hackers struggle with is their sleep cycles and feeling rested. Something that can help out is the Re-Timer ($299), a retro-future looking set of glasses and kit that adjusts the circadian rhythm and suppresses the body's production of melatonin (the sleepy hormone our bodies produce which makes us feel tired). Based on 25 years of research and on the market worldwide for three years, the Re-Timer has its own jet lag calculator app, as well as its Sleep App for Fitbit that makes a customized schedule based on actual sleep tracked.

USB Rubber Ducky Deluxe and LAN Turtle

Iemhacker-USB-Rubber-ducky-delux-LAN-turtle

A longtime favorite with hackers, penetration testers and IT professionals, the USB Rubber Ducky Deluxe ($42.99)is a cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android) testing and experimentation device that is detected as a keyboard — imagine the possibilities. This stocking stuffer pairs well with its animal friend LAN Turtle ($50), a covert sysadmin and pentest tool for remote access, network intel gathering, and man-in-the-middle monitoring through a simple graphic shell (all in a generic USB ethernet adapter case).

TechShop Gift Certificate

Give the gift of hacking and making: A gift certificate to a TechShop. "Part fabrication and prototyping studio, part hackerspace, and part learning center, TechShop provides access to over $1 million worth of professional equipment and software. We offer comprehensive instruction and expert staff to ensure you have a safe, meaningful and rewarding experience." There are TechShops in Arizona, California, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia/Washington, D.C. (some states have multiple locations). Future locations include St. Louis, MO and Paris, France.

Products to avoid

If you see these products, run! You're better off with a lump of coal. Don't waste precious holiday money on "snake oil" privacy and security products like these:

Anonabox
Wemagin
Webcloak
iGuardian (now SHIELD)
LogMeOnce
Sever: The Anti-Villain Box

Related word

bob

Related posts

bob

TL;DR, most of the security news about IoT is full of FUD. Always put the risks in context - who can exploit this and what can the attacker do with it. Most story only covers the latter.

Introduction

There is rarely a day without news that another "Internet of Things" got hacked. "Smart" safes, "smart" rifles, "smart" cars, "smart" fridges, "smart" TVs, "smart" alarm systems, "smart" meters, "smart" bulbs, NAS devices, routers. These devices are getting hacked every day. Because most of these devices were never designed with security as a goal, and some of them have been never tested by security professionals, it is no surprise that these things are full of vulnerabilities.

Independent security researchers find these vulnerabilities, write a cool blog post or give a presentation about the vulnerability and the exploit, and the media forgets the constraints just for the sake of more clicks. "We are all doomed" we can read in the news, but sometimes the risks are buried deeply in technical jargon. Please note I blame the news sites here, not the researchers.

http://www.slideshare.net/danielmiessler/iot-attack-surfaces-defcon-2015

There are huge differences between the following risks:

Attackers can directly communicate with the router (or camera) from the Internet without authentication and exploit the vulnerability. This is the worst-case scenario. For example, an automated ransomware attack against your NAS is pretty bad.
Attackers have to position themselves in the same WAN network (e.g. Sprint mobile network in the case of Jeep hacking) to exploit the vulnerability. This is still pretty bad.
The vulnerable code can not be triggered directly from the Internet, but tricks like CSRF can be used to exploit it (details later in this post).
The vulnerable code can not be triggered directly from the Internet, and it uses a protocol/port which prevents Cross Protocol Scripting. Attackers have to access the local network before exploiting this vulnerability.

As it is the case with the worst scenario, one can find a lot of devices connected to the internet. You can always find funny stuff at http://explorer.shodanhq.com/#/explore , or use the nmap screenshot script to find your own stuff :)

Network exposure

Most devices are behind an IPv4 NAT device (e.g. home router), thus can not be reached from the Internet side by default. Except when the device configures the firewall via UPNP. Or the device has a persistence cloud connection, and the cloud can send commands to the device. Or the device uses IPv6 tunneling (e.g. Teredo), thus it is reachable from the Internet. But not every vulnerability on your home network is accessible directly from the Internet. As more and more devices and networks will support IPv6, this scenario might change, but I hope most home routers will come with a default deny configuration in their IPv6 firewall module. On the other hand, scanning for IPv6 devices blindly is not feasible due to the large number of IPv6 addresses, but some tricks might work.

If attackers can not access the device directly, there is a way to hack it through the user's browser. Just convince the victim user to visit a website, and via CSRF (Cross Site Request Forgery) and brute-forcing the device IP, it is possible to hack some devices (mostly through HTTP - if the exploit can fit into simple GET or POST commands.

If attackers can not attack the device vulnerability through the Internet directly, or via CSRF, but have connected to the same network - the network exposure shrinks significantly. And when attackers are on the same network as you, I bet you have bigger problems than the security of the IoT devices ...

Recommendations for home users

Don't buy **** you don't need

Disconnect from the power cord the IoT devices you don't need to operate 7*24.

Disable cloud connectivity if it is not necessary. For example, I have a NAS device that can be reached through the "cloud", but I have disabled it by not configuring any default gateway for the device. I prefer connecting to my network via VPN and reach all my stuff through that.

Prevent CSRF attacks. I use two tricks. Don't use the 192.168.0.x - 192.168.10.x network at-home - use an uncommon IP range instead (e.g. 192.168.156.x is better). The second trick is I configured my Adblock plugin in my primary browser to block access to my internal network. And I use another browser whenever I want to access my internal devices. Update: On Firefox you can use NoScript ABE to block access to internal resources.

Check your router configuration:

disable UPnP
check the firewall settings and disable unnecessary port forwards
check for IPv6 settings, and configure the firewall as default deny for incoming IPv6 TCP/UDP.

Change default passwords, especially for services connected to the Internet. Follow password best practices.

Run Nmap to locate new IoT in your home network :)

Run a WiFi scan to locate new WiFi access points. Let me share a personal experience with you. I moved to a new house and brought my own WiFi router with me. I plugged it in, and forget about WiFi. Months later it turned out I had two other WiFi devices in my house - the cable modem had its own integrated WiFi with default passwords printed on the bottom, and the Set-top-box was the same - default WiFi passwords printed on the bottom. And don't forget to scan for ZigBee, Bluetooth, IrDA, FM, ...

Update your devices - in case you have a lot of free time in your hand.

Don't allow your guests to connect to your home network. Set up a separated AP for them. Imagine your nephew stealing your private photos or videos from your NAS or DNLA server.

With great power, comes great responsibility. The less device you own in your house, the less time you need to maintain those.

Read the manuals of your devices. Be aware of the different interfaces. Configure it in a secure way.

Disable Teredo protocol in case you don't need IPv6.

Stop being amazed by junk hacking.

Update: Disable WebRTC: https://www.browserleaks.com/webrtc , in Chrome you can use this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webrtc-network-limiter/npeicpdbkakmehahjeeohfdhnlpdklia

Update: Prevent against DNS rebind attacks via configuring a DNS server which can block internal IP addresses. OpenDNS can block internal IP, but this is not a default option, you have to configure it.

Recommendations for vendors

For vendors, I recommend at least the followings:

Implement security during Software Development LifeCycle
Continuous security testing and bug bounties
Seamless auto-update
Opt-in cloud connectivity

Recommendations for journalists

Stop FUD. Pretty please.

The questions to ask before losing your head

who can exploit the vulnerability?
what prerequisites do we have about the attack to successfully exploit the vulnerability? Is the attacker already in your home network? If yes, you have probably bigger problems.
what can the attacker do when the exploit is successful?

And last but not least, don't forget that in the case of IoT devices, sometimes users are the product, not the customer. IoT is about collecting data for marketing purposes.

http://blog.open-xchange.com/2015/02/09/iot/

plan b-going to market

Saturday, August 22, 2020

Top 10 Great Gifts For The Hacker In Your Life

Related word

Galileo - Web Application Audit Framework

Friday, August 21, 2020

How To Secure Your Home Against "Internet Of Things" And FUD

Introduction

Network exposure

Recommendations for home users

Recommendations for vendors

Recommendations for journalists

The questions to ask before losing your head

Related posts

How To Install And Config Modlishka Tool - Most Advance Reverse Proxy Phishing

Subscribe via email

Subscribe Now: Feed Icon

About us

Blog Archive

Our Current Projects

Welcome

FEEDJIT Live Traffic Feed

5:00 pm mixer

site visitors