Entries Tagged "Opera"

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Man-in-the-Middle Attacks Against Browser Encryption

Last week, a story broke about how Nokia mounts man-in-the-middle attacks against secure browser sessions.

The Finnish phone giant has since admitted that it decrypts secure data that passes through HTTPS connections—including social networking accounts, online banking, email and other secure sessions—in order to compress the data and speed up the loading of Web pages.

The basic problem is that https sessions are opaque as they travel through the network. That’s the point—it’s more secure—but it also means that the network can’t do anything about them. They can’t be compressed, cached, or otherwise optimized. They can’t be rendered remotely. They can’t be inspected for security vulnerabilities. All the network can do is transmit the data back and forth.

But in our cloud-centric world, it makes more and more sense to process web data in the cloud. Nokia isn’t alone here. Opera’s mobile browser performs all sorts of optimizations on web pages before they are sent over the air to your smart phone. Amazon does the same thing with browsing on the Kindle. MobileScope, a really good smart-phone security application, performs the same sort of man-in-the-middle attack against https sessions to detect and prevent data leakage. I think Umbrella does as well. Nokia’s mistake was that they did it without telling anyone. With appropriate consent, it’s perfectly reasonable for most people and organizations to give both performance and security companies that ability to decrypt and re-encrypt https sessions—at least most of the time.

This is an area where security concerns are butting up against other issues. Nokia’s answer, which is basically “trust us, we’re not looking at your data,” is going to increasingly be the norm.

Posted on January 17, 2013 at 9:50 AM • View Comments

Worldwide Browser Patch Rates

Interesting research:

Abstract:

Although there is an increasing trend for attacks against popular Web browsers, only little is known about the actual patch level of daily used Web browsers on a global scale. We conjecture that users in large part do not actually patch their Web browsers based on recommendations, perceived threats, or any security warnings. Based on HTTP useragent header information stored in anonymized logs from Google’s web servers, we measured the patch dynamics of about 75% of the world’s Internet users for over a year. Our focus was on the Web browsers Firefox and Opera. We found that the patch level achieved is mainly determined by the ergonomics and default settings of built-in auto-update mechanisms. Firefox’ auto-update is very effective: most users installed a new version within three days. However, the maximum share of the latest, most secure version never exceeded 80% for Firefox users and 46% for Opera users at any day in 2007. This makes about 50 million Firefox users with outdated browsers an easy target for attacks. Our study is the result of the first global scale measurement of the patch dynamics of a popular browser.

Posted on February 13, 2009 at 6:27 AM • View Comments

A Month of Browser Bugs

To kick off his new Browser Fun blog, H.D. Moore began with “A Month of Browser Bugs”:

This blog will serve as a dumping ground for browser-based security research and vulnerability disclosure. To kick off this blog, we are announcing the Month of Browser Bugs (MoBB), where we will publish a new browser hack, every day, for the entire month of July. The hacks we publish are carefully chosen to demonstrate a concept without disclosing a direct path to remote code execution. Enjoy!

Thirty-one days, and thirty-one hacks later, the blog lists exploits against all the major browsers:

  • Internet Explorer: 25
  • Mozilla: 2
  • Safari: 2
  • Opera: 1
  • Konqueror: 1

My guess is that he could have gone on for another month without any problem, and possibly could produce a new browser bug a day indefinitely.

The moral here isn’t that IE is less secure than the other browsers, although I certainly believe that. The moral is that coding standards are so bad that security flaws are this common.

Eric Rescorla argues that it’s a waste of time to find and fix new security holes, because so many of them still remain and the software’s security isn’t improved. I think he has a point. (Note: this is not to say that it’s a waste of time to fix the security holes found and publicly exploited by the bad guys. The question Eric tries to answer is whether or not it is worth it for the security community to find new security holes.)

Another commentary is here.

Posted on August 3, 2006 at 1:53 PM • View Comments

The New Internet Explorer

I’m just starting to read about the new security features in Internet Explorer 7. So far, I like what I am reading.

IE 7 requires that all browser windows display an address bar. This helps foil attackers that operate by popping up new windows masquerading as pages on a legitimate site, when in fact the site is fraudulent. By requiring an address bar, users will immediately see the true URL of the displayed page, making these types of attacks more obvious. If you think you’re looking at www.microsoft.com, but the browser address bar says www.illhackyou.net, you ought to be suspicious.

I use Opera, and have long used the address bar to “check” on URLs. This is an excellent idea. So is this:

In early November, a bunch of Web browser developers got together and started fleshing out standards for address bar coloring, which can cue users to secured connections. Under the proposal laid out by IE 7 team member Rob Franco, even sites that use a standard SSL certificate will display a standard white address bar. Sites that use a stronger, as yet undetermined level of protection will use a green bar.

I like easy visual indications about what’s going on. And I really like that SSL is generic white, because it really doesn’t prove that you’re communicating with the site you think you’re communicating with. This feature helps with that, though:

Franco also said that when navigating to an SSL-protected site, the IE 7 address bar will display the business name and certification authority’s name in the address bar.

Some of the security measures in IE7 weaken the integration between the browser and the operating system:

People using Windows Vista beta 2 will find a new feature called Protected Mode, which renders IE 7 unable to modify system files and settings. This essentially breaks down part of the integration between IE and Windows itself.

Think of it is as a wall between IE and the rest of the operating system. No, the code won’t be perfect, and yes, there’ll be ways found to circumvent this security, but this is an important and long-overdue feature.

The majority of IE’s notorious security flaws stem from its pervasive integration with Windows. That is a feature no other Web browser offers—and an ability that Vista’s Protected Mode intends to mitigate. IE 7 obviously won’t remove all of that tight integration. Lacking deep architectural changes, the effort has focused instead on hardening or eliminating potential vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, this approach requires Microsoft to anticipate everything that could go wrong and block it in advance—hardly a surefire way to secure a browser.

That last sentence is about the general Internet attitude to allow everything that is not explicitly denied, rather than deny everything that is not explicitly allowed.

Also, you’ll have to wait until Vista to use it:

…this capability will not be available in Windows XP because it’s woven directly into Windows Vista itself.

There are also some good changes under the hood:

IE 7 does eliminate a great deal of legacy code that dates back to the IE 4 days, which is a welcome development.

And:

Microsoft has rewritten a good bit of IE 7’s core code to help combat attacks that rely on malformed URLs (that typically cause a buffer overflow). It now funnels all URL processing through a single function (thus reducing the amount of code that “looks” at URLs).

All good stuff, but I agree with this conclusion:

IE 7 offers several new security features, but it’s hardly a given that the situation will improve. There has already been a set of security updates for IE 7 beta 1 released for both Windows Vista and Windows XP computers. Security vulnerabilities in a beta product shouldn’t be alarming (IE 7 is hardly what you’d consider “finished” at this point), but it may be a sign that the product’s architecture and design still have fundamental security issues.

I’m not switching from Opera yet, and my second choice is still Firefox. But the masses still use IE, and our security depends in part on those masses keeping their computers worm-free and bot-free.

NOTE: Here’s some info on how to get your own copy of Internet Explorer 7 beta 2.

Posted on February 9, 2006 at 3:37 PM • View Comments

Internet Explorer Sucks

This study is from August, but I missed it. The researchers tracked three browsers (MSIE, Firefox, Opera) in 2004 and counted which days they were “known unsafe.” Their definition of “known unsafe”: a remotely exploitable security vulnerability had been publicly announced and no patch was yet available.

MSIE was 98% unsafe. There were only 7 days in 2004 without an unpatched publicly disclosed security hole.

Firefox was 15% unsafe. There were 56 days with an unpatched publicly disclosed security hole. 30 of those days were a Mac hole that only affected Mac users. Windows Firefox was 7% unsafe.

Opera was 17% unsafe: 65 days. That number is accidentally a little better than it should be, as two of the upatched periods happened to overlap.

This underestimates the risk, because it doesn’t count vulnerabilities known to the bad guys but not publicly disclosed (and it’s foolish to think that such things don’t exist). So the “98% unsafe” figure for MSIE is generous, and the situation might be even worse.

Wow.

Posted on December 26, 2005 at 6:27 AM • View Comments

Schneier: Microsoft still has work to do

Bruce Schneier is founder and chief technology officer of Mountain View, Calif.-based MSSP Counterpane Internet Security Inc. and author of Applied Cryptography, Secrets and Lies, and Beyond Fear. He also publishes Crypto-Gram, a free monthly newsletter, and writes op-ed pieces for various publications. Schneier spoke to SearchSecurity.com about the latest threats, Microsoft’s ongoing security struggles and other topics in a two-part interview that took place by e-mail and phone last month. In this installment, he talks about the “hype” of SP2 and explains why it’s “foolish” to use Internet Explorer.

What’s the biggest threat to information security at the moment?

Schneier: Crime. Criminals have discovered IT in a big way. We’re seeing a huge increase in identity theft and associated financial theft. We’re seeing a rise in credit card fraud. We’re seeing a rise in blackmail. Years ago, the people breaking into computers were mostly kids participating in the information-age equivalent of spray painting. Today there’s a profit motive, as those same hacked computers become launching pads for spam, phishing attacks and Trojans that steal passwords. Right now we’re seeing a crime wave against Internet consumers that has the potential to radically change the way people use their computers. When enough average users complain about having money stolen, the government is going to step in and do something. The results are unlikely to be pretty.

Which threats are overly hyped?

Schneier: Cyberterrorism. It’s not much of a threat. These attacks are very difficult to execute. The software systems controlling our nation’s infrastructure are filled with vulnerabilities, but they’re generally not the kinds of vulnerabilities that cause catastrophic disruptions. The systems are designed to limit the damage that occurs from errors and accidents. They have manual overrides. These systems have been proven to work; they’ve experienced disruptions caused by accident and natural disaster. We’ve been through blackouts, telephone switch failures and disruptions of air traffic control computers. The results might be annoying, and engineers might spend days or weeks scrambling, but it doesn’t spread terror. The effect on the general population has been minimal.

Microsoft has made much of the added security muscle in SP2. Has it measured up to the hype?

Schneier: SP2 is much more hype than substance. It’s got some cool things, but I was unimpressed overall. It’s a pity, though. They had an opportunity to do more, and I think they could have done more. But even so, this stuff is hard. I think the fact that SP2 was largely superficial speaks to how the poor security choices Microsoft made years ago are deeply embedded inside the operating system.

Is Microsoft taking security more seriously?

Schneier: Microsoft is certainly taking it more seriously than three years ago, when they ignored it completely. But they’re still not taking security seriously enough for me. They’ve made some superficial changes in the way they approach security, but they still treat it more like a PR problem than a technical problem. To me, the problem is economic. Microsoft—or any other software company—is not a charity, and we should not expect them to do something that hurts their bottom line. As long as we all are willing to buy insecure software, software companies don’t have much incentive to make their products secure. For years I have been advocating software liability as a way of changing that balance. If software companies could get sued for defective products, just as automobile manufacturers are, then they would spend much more money making their products secure.

After the Download.ject attack in June, voices advocating alternatives to Internet Explorer grew louder. Which browser do you use?

Schneier: I think it’s foolish to use Internet Explorer. It’s filled with security holes, and it’s too hard to configure it to have decent security. Basically, it seems to be written in the best interests of Microsoft and not in the best interests of the customer. I have used the Opera browser for years, and I am very happy with it. It’s much better designed, and I never have to worry about Explorer-based attacks.

By Bill Brenner, News Writer
4 Oct 2004 | SearchSecurity.com

Posted on October 8, 2004 at 4:45 PM • View Comments

Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.