Googles thumbs up to security...

By -


Good approach by Google....Appreciating and encouraging the efforts of Infosec community...Unlike the recent comments by Verizon where security researchers were termed 'narcissistic vulnerability pimps'. Though I personally like the usage  as it is a good line for a t-shirt (as suggested by my friends and fellow researchers Ashrith Barthur & Ankur Chakraborthy), the remark was one that discourages the effort of the researchers and one that contradicts the very essence of security.

Kudos to Google. Indeed a good approach...setting an example for other players in the industry.

Popular posts from this blog

Gmail Session Management Vulnerability (Mobile Browsers)

By -
Mobile browsers and applications are gaining wide spread populrity with the evolution of iPhone, Android and other mobile platforms. Security has always played the catch-up game with evolution of technology. It was recently observed that gmail sessions opened using mobile browsers such as safari and Android webkit fails to invalidate the session id when a user logs outs. When a user logs out of gmail, the user is redirected to the login page and asked to re-enter the credentials. Though the end user sees a login page and cannot access inbox unless signed in again, the server session associated with the users login remains active at the server side and becomes an orphaned session. This flaw can be leveraged by an attacker to compromise a victims gmail account.
Read more

iPhone's Persistent Connection to Apple

By S G -
I recently noticed that iOS MDM servers have the ability to connect to phones and initiate checkins even when a device is connected to WiFi. Packet analysis showed absolutely no communication between Apple PUSH service or MDM servers with the phone. On the contrary, the transaction was always magically initiated by the iOS device. How could this happen? As we know, iOS devices have 2 NIC's - one for WiFi and the other for 3G communication. On further analysis, I was able to observe that even though the device switched over to the WiFi network, the 3G network interface of the device was still active in the background and maintained a persisten connection to apple PUSH servers at port 5223 . Hence, whenever Apple or MDM servers wanted to send a PUSH notification, the notification was sent over 3G and in response the device responds back over WiFi. A simple netstat on the device reveals the following: netstat -a tcp4 0 0 10.XXX.XXX.XXX.4XXXX nk11p01st-courie.5223 ESTABLISHED The 3G/E
Read more

Potential DoS Vulnerability with Android System

By S G -
Image
I had reported a potential flaw in the Android system that could be used to perform DOS (Denial-of-Service) on an Android Phone. The issue was caused by a poor programming assumption which could have been avoided with a good programming 101 course . I had developed a tool called c-ray to help me with quick and dirty pentest and analysis of android applications and system. I stumbled on the issue while playing around with android core system and c-ray application. The issue was caused by an input validation error caused by assumption of the developer. An intent to "android.accounts.GrantCredentialsPermission" class of android core system results in system crash and reboot of the system. Further analysis and reasons below.
Read more