Transport website leaking private information of 168,000 passengers

A hacker called “ins3ct3d” has demonstrated that he can access the personal information of 168,000 users of public transport in The Netherlands via an insecure website.

 

A campaign to encourage residents living in the provinces of Gelderland, Overijssel and Flevoland to use public transport has been promoting a website called “Experience the OV” at www.ervaarhetov.nl, which allows people to request a card allowing them to try out public transport travel for free.

 

However, as magazine Webwereld reports, a simple SQL injection attack allowed “ins3ct3d” to access how to access the personal information of subscribers – including names, addresses, birth dates, email addresses and phone numbers.

 

The hacker, who has chosen to remain anonymous, demonstrated the attack to the magazine by accessing the personal data of one of Webwereld’s reporters.

 

Explaining his reason for exposing the security vulnerability, “ins3ct3d” explained that he felt compelled to warn his fellow citizens as long as the government continues to use unsafe systems. “This time it’s sensitive personal data, next time your fingerprints or EPD,” he said.

 

(EPD is the Electronische Patientdossier.. I guess I don’t need to give a translation of that for you to realise why that’s not data you want falling into the wrong hands).

 

There’s no confirmation that banking data was exposed, but there were fields in the databases for ID card numbers, payment agreements and so forth. At the request of Webwereld, the hacker did not retrieve more data, so there’s no telling if any of these fields had been filled.

 

Webwereld contacted the authorities, and the website is currently “temporarily unavailable”:

I guess we should all breath a sigh of relief that, in this instance, the hack appears to have orchestrated with the interests of exposing poor security, rather than stealing users’ data and identities. Hopefully this incident might play some smart part in raising awareness around the world of the need to ensure your website is coded securely, and not at risk of leaking sensitive information.

 

By Graham Cluley, Sophos

 

Microsoft to release emergency Internet Explorer patch on Tuesday

Microsoft has announced that it will be issuing an emergency out-of-band patch for a critical security hole in some versions of Internet Explorer on Tuesday 30 March.

 

According to a Microsoft advisory, the emergency fix is designed to protect users of Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7.

 

Microsoft normally bundles its security updates into a monthly package, known in the industry as “Patch Tuesday” (the second Tuesday of each month), and it is relatively unusual for the company to issue a fix for a security vulnerability outside of this cycle. Clearly Microsoft considers the bug particularly important to patch as soon as possible.

 

And in my opinion they’re right not to leave this vulnerability unpatched until April 13th. Earlier this month I described how hackers are actively exploiting the vulnerability, in their attempt to infect computers.

 

The researchers in SophosLabs reported some of the malicious spam messages we have seen being distributed which attempt to trick users into visiting websites that will exploit the zero day vulnerability and infect Windows PCs.

 

More information about the security flaw can be found in Sophos’s analysis of the problem.

 

So, if you are still using Internet Explorer versions 6 or 7, please be sure to update your systems as soon as Microsoft releases the fix. But, in all honesty, what are you doing running such old versions of IE anyway? Shouldn’t you have upgraded to Internet Explorer 8 by now?

 

By Graham Cluley, Sophos

 

 

Related Blogs

Critical Firefox security hole fixed – have you updated?

Mozilla has responded to concern about a critical security vulnerability in Firefox 3.6, by releasing version 3.6.2 of its popular browser ahead of schedule.

 

Firefox 3.6.2 fixes a vulnerability first discovered by security researcher Evgeny Legerov last month, which could allow hackers to launch malicious code on users’ computers.

 

As I blogged yesterday, concern about the bug was so high that the likes of the German government had advised internet users to switch to an alternative browser until a fix from Mozilla was available (at the time that fix was not scheduled until March 30th).

 

However, concern about the severity of the security flaw encouraged Mozilla to accelerate its timetable for release and speed up the schedule.

 

If you are a Firefox 3.6 user, go to the Help menu and choose “Check for Updates” to update your installation of Firefox to the latest version. You can also visit www.getfirefox.com if you wish to download the full version.

 

I would also strongly recommend that all Firefox users consider using NoScript, the Firefox addon that provides a higher level of protection by allowing you to choose which websites are allowed to run active content (such as JavaScript).

 

By Graham Cluley, Sophos

 

 

German Government: Don’t use Firefox

The German government has advised computer users not to run Firefox and run an alternative browser instead, because of a critical security flaw.

 

The advice, which comes from BürgerCERT, part of the German Federal Office for Security in Information Technology (known as the Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik or BSI), recommends that computer users stop using Firefox until Mozilla releases a fix.

 

The reason why Germany is suggesting such seemingly drastic action is that there is a critical vulnerability in currently available versions of Firefox that could be exploited by hackers to launch malicious code on users’ computers.

For its part, Mozilla has acknowledged the security vulnerability, and advises that a patched version 3.6.2 of Firefox is scheduled to be available on March 30th.

 

Here is a rough translation (courtesy of Google Translate):

Recommendation
Because of the Mozilla Foundation, a privately disclosed vulnerability Bürger-CERT recommends the use of alternative browser until Mozilla has released Firefox version 3.6.2. The current release of Firefox 3.6.2 Plan provides for delivery on Tuesday 30 Before March 2010.

 

Description
There is an as yet unspecified vulnerability in Mozilla Firefox version 3.6. A remote attacker to execute using rigged websites the opportunity to inject malicious code in the context of the logged on user.

 

Security researcher Evgeny Legerov discovered the vulnerability last month, controversially making code which exploited it available to those who were prepared to pay. That’s not an approach which is likely to have won him many friends at Mozilla, who would much prefer that vulnerability researchers worked with them on responsible disclosure.

 

It must be an uncomfortable time for German web users too. After all, in January they were advised not to use Internet Explorer, and now they’re being told to keep a wide berth from Firefox until it’s fixed.

 

It’s certainly a lot easier for computer-savvy home users to leapfrog from browser to browser than companies.

 

Switching your web browser willy-nilly as each new unpatched security hole is revealed could cause more problems than it’s worth. For instance, imagine how much training some users will require to switch from one browser to another.

 

And it’s worth bearing in mind – what are you going to do when your replacement browser itself turns out to contain a vulnerability? Are you going to switch yet again?

 

My advice is to only switch from Firefox if you really know what you are doing with the browser you’re swapping to. If you stick with Firefox, apply the security update as soon as its available.

 

If you can’t wait – Mozilla says it has produced a release candidate build of Firefox 3.6.2 which already contains the fix (obviously it hasn’t been through their complete quality assurance process yet). You can download it from their website at https:/ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/3.6.2-candidates/build3/

 

By Graham Cluley, Sophos

 

 

Surveillance rootkits on smartphones

Liviu Iftode and Vinod Ganapathy, two researchers at Rutgers University, have revealed some experiments they have been conducting, showing how rootkits could be used to take control of smartphones.

 

The scientists have shown that a malicious attacker could cause a smartphone to “eavesdrop on a meeting, track its owner’s travels, or rapidly drain its battery to render the phone useless”.

 

Watch the following YouTube video to learn more:

 

 

It’s a cute little video, but how realistic is this threat in reality?

 

I don’t think the kind of attack described by Iftode and Ganapathy is a big deal right now.

 

Yes, it is possible to change or put software onto a smartphone (by, for instance, installing a rootkit) so that the mobile device then performs malicious functions. For instance, code that enables covert remote surveillance, battery drainage or silently steals data.

 

Of course, this relies upon the smartphone allowing you to make changes to its low-level software. Popular smartphones like the Apple iPhone lock down that kind of meddling to a great extent.

 

So, the key thing to remember is that the bad guys have to somehow get the malicious rootkit onto your phone in the first place.

 

How are they going to do that?

 

They would either need to have physical access to your smartphone, exploit an unpatched security vulnerability or use a social engineering attack to trick you into installing malicious code. Even if they went down the “trick” route they would be relying upon the phone’s OS to allow you to install unapproved apps (iPhones, for instance, are strictly controlled by their Cupertino-based overlords, allowing users to only install code that has been approved and checked by the AppStore).

 

So it doesn’t sound like what Iftode and Ganapathy are describing is actually any different from the rootkits that infect traditional desktop computers. The main difference is that there are probably less opportunities (and thus much harder) to infect a mobile phone than, say, a computer running Windows.

 

Furthermore, I would argue that the typical mobile phone user is still typically less used to installing applications than their Windows counterparts, and so the chances of success via fooling the user into installing a dangerous application can be assumed to be even lower.

 

Iftode and Ganapathy have not demonstrated any revolutionary new way of getting round the biggest hurdle for those wanting to spy on smartphones: how are they going to get the malware onto the phone?

 

If I really wanted to snoop on someone’s phone I think it would probably be easier to swap my victim’s mobile phone for an identical (but bugged) device rather than go to all this effort with no promise of success.

 

Sure, the mobile phone malware threat is growing – but it’s a tiny raindrop in a thunderstorm compared to regular attacks that strike Windows computers. Slowly but slowly it’s becoming more serious (the recent discovery of financially-motivated malware that targets jailbroken iPhones is proof of that), and undoubtedly we will begin to see more users running anti-virus security on their phones in the years to come.

 

However, if I was responsible for securing my company’s mobile phones I would be much more worried about the real security threat of staff losing their phones in taxis or on the train, rather than the theoretical risk of surveillance rootkits.

 

It’s a nice video and presentation that Iftode and Ganapathy made, but I won’t be losing any sleep over it just yet.

 

More information on the topic of smartphone rootkits can be found in the paper Iftode and Ganapathy have produced: “Rootkits on Smart Phones: Attacks, implications and opportunities” [PDF]

 

By Graham Cluley, Sophos