Author: Daniel Tomescu

Phishy Basic Authentication prompts

Daniel Tomescu3 Comments

confused-idea-lightbulbIn one of our previous posts, we noted that a popular tool – Responder – uses Basic Authentication prompts to harvest user credentials when they accidentally enter invalid domains in web browsers.

Responder’s approach is pretty good and it does some “magic” to catch and respond to DNS requests for in-existing domais,  however I think that there is way more potential in using Basic Authentication for phishing purposes.

What I like (or dislike) most about basic authentication is that it is NEVER clear who is asking for your credentials and where they will end up. This type of confusion often tricks users into falling for simple phishing tricks, allowing attackers to easily gather user credentials.

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My experience with the OSCP certification

Daniel Tomescu16 Comments

Offensive Security review - Try harder!

Hi there,

Probably you’re here because you’re interested in obtaining the OSCP certification. Smart decision, good for you! Or maybe you are interested in obtaining a certification in info-sec, but you are still looking for the right one? Even if you are just looking for a way to boost your technical skills, you may be interested in becoming an Offensive Security Certified Professional.

I recently went through the course (Penetration testing with Kali Linux) and certification exam, so here is some of my experience and a few thoughts, you might find them useful.

Requirements

There is no secret that in order to obtain this certification, you need to dedicate a great amount of time and ambition and I completely agree with this.

Also, rumour has it that you already need to have Godlike skills in everything there is to know, or else you won’t understand the materials. I can honestly say that the rumours aren’t true. A strong background in info-sec is preferred, however the course materials are very well explained, there are plenty resources for learning your way through this course, all you need is the determination to try harder and read more, until you fill all knowledge gaps that might appear.

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Mobile penetration testing on Android using Drozer

Daniel Tomescu9 Comments

Android red logoMobile phones have become an indispensable part of our daily life. We use mobile phones to communicate with our loved ones, for quick access to information through the Internet, to make transactions through mobile banking apps or to relax reading a good book.

In a way, a big part of our private life has moved into the digital environment. Mobile phones seem to be a pocket-sized treasure of secrets and information, hiding our most valuable photos, mails, contacts and even banking information. There’s no wonder why we need mobile phones to have bullet-proof security.

Android is the most common operating system for mobile devices and is particularly interesting from the security point of view.  It is very permissive, allowing its users to customize about anything, administrative privileges (a.k.a. rooting) can be unlocked on most phones, it has a very fuzzy system for the permissions required by applications and it features different ways for one application to interact with other applications.

In this blog post, we are going to focus on how Android apps can interact with each other and how the security of those interactions can be tested.

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Clickjacking in Firefox Hello

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touch-25059_640Clickjacking, the art of tricking users into clicking on links or buttons that no sane person would ever click on. But how much damage can you do by stealing a few clicks? We are in 2015, we might think that this kind of vulnerabilities would have been solved by now. But that’s not the case.

Firefox Hello

Recently Mozilla launched Firefox Hello, their free service for video and voice conversations online. After a few tests, I noticed that hello.firefox.com website does not prevent framing.

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Concerns regarding the security of biometric authentication

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security biometric authenticationMore and more gadgets that we use these days (smart phones, smart watches, etc) try to make a personal connection with the owner via his biometric characteristics.

Using biometric measures for authentication purposes is a fast growing trend in the IT world, but there are genuine security concerns regarding the maturity level of these methods and their security faults. How safe is it to use biometrics for authentication? Can they be bypassed? Let’s find out!

How to find a good biometric characteristic?

At this moment, we have 3 main possibilities for verifying a user’s identity: something that the user knows (like a code or a passphrase), something that the user has (a smart card or a token) or something that the user is (a biometric characteristic).

For a biometric characteristic to be considered a valid authentication method, it should have the following properties: Continue reading →