Target estimates 1 in 5 Americans may be affected by recent security breach

Security,
14
Jan 2014

target_front_entrance

In mid-December Target disclosed that hackers broke into the company’s computer system and stole several millions of its members’ personal information.  A month later and Target has just tripled the number of people that might be affected by the security breach.

It’s Okay to Shop, But Be Wary of Who You Give Your Information to

According to Target’s latest revision, the recent security breach might affect one out of every five Americans—that is, roughly 70 to 110 million are susceptible to identity theft.  The data stolen from Target’s database range from email addresses to credit card numbers, so the magnitude to which one’s identity is compromised will vary.

Given that the recent Target debacle gave hackers just bits and pieces of information on people’s financial data, the ensuing aftershock should not be as bad as some might predict.  Target, to its own credit, has been proactive about mitigating the damages that its customers have or will experience because of the security breach.  The company, and affiliating banking institutions, has reached out to members by issuing them new account numbers and credit cards.

Finders Keeper, Losers Weepers

Security experts, however, predict that the fraudulent activities that coincide with such a huge security breach will be an everlasting one if consumers don’t take matters into their own hands.  Information such as emails and phone numbers can, if left in the hands of experienced cyber criminals, be used as tools to indirectly steal more personal information.  When all the pieces of a person’s identity is pieced together, thieves can easily access their target’s banking accounts and make off with the loot with just a click of a mouse.

Hackers Grab 40 Million Accounts From Target Stores

So what can you, as a consumer—especially if shop at Target, do to protect yourself if your personal information linked to a company like Target?  First, check your banking statements for any unusual activities, and if something out of the ordinary occurs report it immediately to your financial institution.  Next, Target members with a credit/debit card on record need to contact the company to make sure that the account number is completely erased from the database.  As an extra preventative measure, take yourself off Target’s database completely—that is, make sure Target does not have your email, phone number, home address, etc.

There’s not much you can do once your personal data has been stolen from you, but what you can do is try to plug in the holes while you still can.  Security analysts and firms that monitor the World Wide Web for activities regarding the intrusion and manipulation of peoples’ personal data saw a huge spike in black market activities since the breach occurred.  Since most average consumers have no means of tracking down cyber criminals or stop their malicious activities, it’s up to the local authorities and banking institutions to stop them from draining out a bank account.

Bullseye!

Target is working closely with private and government security/forensic experts to close up some of the holes, but only time will tell if people can once again trust the Target brand.  One could say that it was a bad omen for Target to choose a bullseye for its logo as that image has mutated into a double edged sword.  On one end, the retailer flourished as consumers flocked to the red buildings to make purchases, and at the same time gave away their personal information.  On the other end, the bullseye also became an attractive target for hackers and cyber criminals, evident by the recent security breach.

For more details about security issues that can affect you or your business, contact your office IT support.

Update:

Target is offering customers affected by the breach 1 year of free credit monitoring.  Sign up here.

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Check Your Network: Linksys and Netgear Vulnerable

Internet, Security, , ,
13
Jan 2014

A Common Netgear Wireless Router. Model DG834G.

A Common Netgear Wireless Router. Model DG834G.

A number of Linksys and Netgear DSL modems have been found to be exploitable via a simple hole in the components’ firmware.

How Was This Discovered?

Eloi Vanderbeken recently took up the task of reverse engineering his Linksys WAG200G wireless DSL gateway’s firmware.  At first he did it just for kicks, but during the process he found out even brand name tech components are just as vulnerable to hackers as off-brand products.  Vanderbeken found out during his self-imposed hack-a-thon that his WAG200G DSL gateway was accessible to hackers via an undocumented port.

After Vanderbeken toyed around with the Linksys firmware, he was able to come up with a simple interface that allowed him to send various commands to the gateway without administration authentication.  At first, Vanderbeken found that he couldn’t do much with the interface besides resetting the gateway to its factory settings.  However, as he delved deeper into it, he found that he could inject some home-brewed command lines into the interface.  These simple code injections allowed him to gain control of certain administrative properties using a wireless connection, and to reset the gateway’s web password.

How To Check if Your Are Affected

People interested in the hack and are tech savvy enough can check out Vanderbeken’s published work on Github.  Would-be hackers can do a few things with the script.  Firstly, Vanderbeken only hacked his router because he wanted access to his router’s web console without having to input the admin password—which he forgot.  So if you are the proud owner of these selective devices, you can be assured that they’re hack-able to both you and others with malicious intents.  Chances are most people will rather reset their gateways the easy way by pressing the little red reset button on the back of their device using a pen tip.  People looking for an adventure into the world of coding, however, might actually test out the scripts to see if their highly secured network is bulletproof or not.

Eloi Vanderbeken's bruteforce code to test the vulerability.

Eloi Vanderbeken’s bruteforce code to test the vulerability.

Another thing to note is that the backdoor vulnerability in these LinkSys and Netgear components are only assessable locally.  Meaning, a hacker would have to be in range of your Wi-Fi network for them to compromise your network and personal data.

What Should I Do If I Am Affected?

Quite frankly speaking, unless your neighbor or a passerby knows exactly the type of router you’re currently using, they won’t bother to attempt to hack your network.  The easiest solution, if you happen to own one of these vulnerable devices, is to name your wireless network something other than the router’s brand and model.

Often times, the routers come shipped with preconfigured settings which use the brand or model as the default wireless network name.  If that is the case, simply log into your router, and change the network’s name.  Next, you may also want to upgrade the product’s firmware, but keep in mind that different manufacturers have different firmware upgrade requirements.  Check your product manuals or website before attempting to upgrade firmware, because one wrong move can render your router unusable.

If you need further help, contact your office IT support.

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Quickly Check If You’re Email Was Breached

Uncategorized,
06
Jan 2014

OnsitePCSolution_Have_I_Been_Pwned

Recently, eight major websites have had security breaches where attackers got access to user’s email addresses, user names, passwords and various other personal information. Some of the sites include:

  • 152,445,165 Adobe Accounts
  • 4,609,615 Snapchat Accounts
  • 453,427 Yahoo Accounts
Adobe is among some of the recent companies to have security breaches.

Adobe is among some of the recent companies to have security breaches.

Finding out whether one of your accounts or emails were a part of the breach has been difficult to do until now. Newly created website https://haveibeenpwned.com/ lets you type in your email address or username and will check if your account was compromised.

If your account has infact been compromised, the best thing to do is to change your password immediately.  If you are not sure what steps to take, contact your office iT support.

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Office 365 Users: Hack Vulnerability

Security, Software, Uncategorized, , , ,
05
Jan 2014

OnsitePCSolution_Office_365_Vulnerability

Noam Liran, the chief software architect at Adallom, recently detected a flaw in Microsoft Office 365 which can easily expose account credentials through Word Documents that are hosted on a webserver which is currently invisible to existing anti-virus software.

What Specifically Is The Problem?

When a user downloads a document from a SharePoint server, the user is required to log in their account first – after which the server verifies the login credentials and then issues an authentication token. Liran discovered that he can use his own server to copy the responses which are sent from the sharepoint.com domain server.  At that point he can generate and fake the token. An attacker doing this can inject his code to connect to an untrusted web server to capture the user’s private Office 365 authentication token.  This allows the attacked to go to the user’s organization’s SharePoint site to access anything they want without the user knowing. According to Liran this is a perfect cyber crime in which the organization does not know they have been hit.

Microsoft has been working on this vulnerability, but at the time of this writing the backdoor still existed.

How would this work in the real world?:

  • The user will get an e-mail asking them to review a document or visit a webpage. This document could be coupons, someone’s CV or contract.
  • The user will click on the link and be redirected to Sharepoint which will ask to open the document in Word. If the user accepts, Word will request the document from the malicious webpage.
  • The malicious webpage in turn will ask Word for an Office 365 token. The malicious webpage gives Word a legitimate looking document in return. The attacker will then have the Office 365 token and access to the organization’s data.

OnsitePCSolution_Word_Document

This is a serious potential threat to organizations and companies that use Office 365. Important company data can be stolen without anyone knowing. The attacker could also monitor the data which could be confidential. The attacker also has access to delete the data.

What Can I Do To Protect My Business?

Until Microsoft comes up with a solid solution to this vulnerability, users should not open any unknown or suspicious looking emails.  They should also confirm from known senders to verify the authenticity of the email.  It is also important to absolutely avoid clicking on any unknown URLs and links or open attached documents in a file.

For further assistance, let your office IT support know about this vulnerability and stay ahead of a corporate data breach.

 

 

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Is Your Office or Home D-Link Wifi Vulnerable?

Office IT, Office Network, , ,
16
Oct 2013

DLink_Router

An easy hack that affects D-Link routers has recently been discussed in this article from devttys0.com. The writer of the article, Craig, goes through the steps of how the exploit works in great detail. If you are running a D-Link router in your home or office, should you be worried? We will go over a summary of the exploit here.

What’s the problem?

In a nutshell, if someone is connected to your home or office network they can change the user agent, which tells the website a little bit of information about your computer, giving them access to change the main settings of your D-Link router. The user agent needs to be set to “xmlset_roodkcableoj28840ybtide” which is backwards for “Edit by 04882 Joel Backdoor”, further pointing to this being originally used as a backdoor to the D-Link settings.

dlink-admin-page

Once an attacker is connected to your D-Link settings they can change passwords, network settings and wireless settings. A hardware reset should fix you right up if you are attacked.

How can I check my home/office wifi?

The first thing you want to do is to flip your D-Link router over and check if the model matches any of the following:

DIR-100
DI-524
DI-524UP
DI-604S
DI-604UP
DI-604+
TM-G5240

Several Planex routers also use the same firmware:

BRL-04UR
BRL-04CW

Even if your model number is not listed, there is no guarantee the D-Link or Planex router you are running will not have the same or similar problem. The exploit was tested on a specific version of the D-Link router software but there is no note of it being fixed. The only way to be 100% sure your D-Link device is not affected is to try the exploit explained in the above article yourself, or ask your office/home IT support staff.

What to do if I am running an affected router?

You do have a few options if you are running a D-Link router that could be vulnerable.

1. Make sure the settings of your router are not accessible from the internet. This will help prevent attackers from the internet, but if someone is connected to your wifi or network in your home or office you are still vulnerable.

2. Replace your D-Link router with a model that is not affected. This may be the only guaranteed way to avoid becoming a victim.

Onsite PC Solution is based in San Jose California and provides small and medium sized business IT support.

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