FakeTV
Interesting burglar prevention device: it simulates a television. But why not just leave a real television on?
Entries Tagged "spoofing"
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Cloned Trucks
Criminals are using cloned trucks to bypass security:
Savvy criminals are using some of the country’s most credible logos, including FedEx, Wal-Mart, DirecTV and the U.S. Border Patrol, to create fake trucks to smuggle drugs, money and illegal aliens across the border, according to a report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
[…]
In August 2006, the Texas Department of Public Safety, on a routine traffic stop, found 3,058 pounds of marijuana and 204 kilograms of cocaine in a “cloned” Wal-Mart semi-trailer, driven by a man wearing a Wal-Mart uniform.
In another case, a truck painted with DirecTV and other markings was pulled over in a routine traffic stop in Mississippi and discovered to be carrying 786 pounds of cocaine.
This is the same problem as fake uniforms, and the more general problem of fake credentials. It’s very hard to solve.
EDITED TO ADD (2/6): Here’s someone who puts on a red shirt and predends to be a Target employee so he can steal stuff:
Police in North Miami Beach are looking for a man they say likes to pose as a Target employee while stealing pricey iPods, and the man allegedly knows so much about the store, he’s even helped customers who thought he was a real employee.
[…]
Investigators say McKenzie simply walks into the stores, wearing a red polo shirt, and pretends he works there. North Miami Beach police officials say he has extensive knowledge of Target procedures and has even assisted customers.
Hacking Polish Trams
A 14-year-old built a modified a TV remote control to switch trains on tracks in the Polish city of Lodz:
Transport command and control systems are commonly designed by engineers with little exposure or knowledge about security using commodity electronics and a little native wit. The apparent ease with which Lodz’s tram network was hacked, even by these low standards, is still a bit of an eye opener.
Problems with the signalling system on Lodz’s tram network became apparent on Tuesday when a driver attempting to steer his vehicle to the right was involuntarily taken to the left. As a result the rear wagon of the train jumped the rails and collided with another passing tram. Transport staff immediately suspected outside interference.
Here’s Steve Bellovin:
The device is described in the original article as a modified TV remote control. Presumably, this means that the points are normally controlled by IR signals; what he did was learn the coding and perhaps the light frequency and amplitude needed. This makes a lot of sense; it lets tram drivers control where their trains go, rather than relying on an automated system or some such. Indeed, the article notes “a city tram driver tried to steer his vehicle to the right, but found himself helpless to stop it swerving to the left instead.”
The lesson here is that security by obscurity, combined with physical security of the equipment, wasn’t enough. This kid jumped whatever fences there were, and reverse-engineered the IR control protocol. Then he was able to play “trains” with real trains.
Social-Engineering Bank Robbery
On Wednesday, a man dressed as an armored truck employee with the company AT Systems walked into a BB&T bank in Wheaton about 11 a.m., was handed more than $500,000 in cash and walked out, a source familiar with the case said.
It wasn’t until the actual AT Systems employees arrived at the bank, at 11501 Georgia Ave., the next day that bank officials realized they’d been had.
[…]
And on Thursday, about 9:30 a.m., a man dressed as an employee of the security company Brink’s walked into a Wachovia branch in downtown Washington and walked out with more than $350,000.
The man had a badge and a gun holster on his belt, said Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington field office. He told officials at the bank, at 801 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, that he was filling in for the regular courier.
About 4 p.m., when the real guard showed up, a bank official told him that someone had picked up the cash, D.C. police said. The guard returned to his office and told a supervisor that he did not make the pickup at the bank. The supervisor called a Wachovia manager, who in turn notified authorities. Police were called nearly 11 hours after the heist.
Social engineering at its finest.
EDITED TO ADD (1/16): Seems to be an inside job.
Interesting Twist on Identity Theft
Okay, this is clever.
Basically, someone arrested as a homicide suspect walked out of jail after identifying himself as someone else. The biometric system worked, but human error overrode it:
But Sauceda’s fingerprints, taken by a jail employee to verify his identity, were smudged and couldn’t be matched to those on file for Garcia, said Brian Menges, director of jail administration.
So Sauceda was taken for an additional fingerprint check using the jail’s Live Scan technology. Menges said Saucedo’s Live Scan fingerprints were never compared to those on record for Garcia.
It’s a neat scam. Find out someone else who’s been arrested, have a friend come and post bail for that person, and then steal his identity when the jailers come into the cellblock.
Hacking of 911 Emergency Phone System
There are no details of what the “hacking” was, or whether it was anything more spoofing the Caller ID:
Randal T. Ellis, 19, allegedly impersonated a caller from the Lake Forest home shortly before midnight March 29, saying he had murdered someone in the house and threatened to shoot others.
Allegedly hacking into systems maintained by America Online and Verizon, Ellis used the couple’s names, which he had confirmed earlier in a prank call to their home, authorities said.
[…]
Authorities spent more than six months tracking down Ellis before arresting him in Mukilteo last week. He was in the process of being extradited to California on Tuesday and was charged with “false imprisonment by violence” and “assault with an assault weapon by proxy.” The crimes carry a possible prison sentence of 18 years.
Elizabeth Henderson, the assistant Orange County district attorney in charge of the economic-crimes unit, said Ellis’ scheme was “fairly difficult to unravel.”
Hacking Security Cameras
If you’ve seen a Hollywood caper movie in the last 20 years you know the old video-camera-spoofing trick. That’s where the criminal mastermind taps into a surveillance camera system and substitutes his own video stream, leaving hapless security guards watching an endless loop of absolutely-nothing-happening while the bank robber empties the vault.
Now white-hat hackers have demonstrated a technique that neatly replicates that old standby.
Amir Azam and Adrian Pastor, researchers at London-based security firm ProCheckUp, discovered that they can redirect what video file is played back by an AXIS 2100 surveillance camera, a common industrial security camera that boasts a web interface, allowing guards to monitor a building from anywhere in the world.
Interesting Spoofing Attack
Details from TheRegister.
New Trojan Mimics Windows Activation Interface
What they are calling Trojan.Kardphisher doesn’t do most of the technical things that Trojan horses usually do; it’s a pure social engineering attack, aimed at stealing credit card information. In a sense, it’s a standalone phishing program.
Once you reboot your PC after running the program, the program asks you to activate your copy of Windows and, while it assures you that you will not be charged, it asks for credit card information. If you don’t enter the credit card information it shuts down the PC. The Trojan also disables Task Manager, making it more difficult to shut down..
Running on the first reboot is clever. It inherently makes the process look more like it’s coming from Windows itself, and it removes the temporal connection to running the Trojan horse. The program even runs on versions of Windows prior to XP, which did not require activation.
More info here.
Attackers Exploiting Security Procedures
In East Belfast, burglars called in a bomb threat. Residents evacuated their homes, and then the burglars proceeded to rob eight empty houses on the block.
I’ve written about this sort of thing before: sometimes security procedures themselves can be exploited by attackers. It was Step 4 of my “five-step process” from Beyond Fear (pages 14-15). A national ID card make identity theft more lucrative; forcing people to remove their laptops at airport security checkpoints makes laptop theft more common.
Moral: you can’t just focus on one threat. You need to look at the broad spectrum of threats, and pay attention to how security against one affects the others.
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.