The Ray framework, an open source tool for AI and Python workload scaling, is vulnerable to half a dozen flaws that allow hackers to hijack the devices and steal sensitive data.
This is according to cybersecurity researchers from Oligo, who published their findings on a new hacking campaign they dubbed “ShadowRay”.
Apparently active since early September 2023, ShadowRay’s operators abused five distinct Ray vulnerabilities to target firms in education, cryptocurrency, biopharma, and other verticals.
“Shadow vulnerability”
Four of the vulnerabilities are tracked as CVE-2023-6019, CVE-2023-6020, CVE-2023-6021, and CVE-2023-48023, and Anyscale, Ray’s developer, fixed them. The fifth one, deemed a critical remote code execution (RCE) flaw by researchers, and tracked as CVE-2023-48022, was not fixed.
Anyscale argues that this was not a bug, but a feature: “The remaining CVE (CVE-2023-48022) – that Ray does not have authentication built in – is a long-standing design decision based on how Ray’s security boundaries are drawn and consistent with Ray deployment best practices, though we intend to offer authentication in a future version as part of a defense-in-depth strategy,” it said.
As per the developers, this RCE flaw can only be abused in deployments that go against Anyscale’s recommendations and don’t limit Ray’s use to a strictly controlled network environment.
Oligo, on the other hand, says that by disputing the CVE, Anyscale is leaving many developers in the dark on the potential holes. “We have observed instances of CVE-2023-48022 being actively exploited in the wild, making the disputed CVE a “shadow vulnerability”—a CVE that doesn’t show up in static scans but can still lead to breaches and significant losses.”
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The researchers said they observed “hundreds” of publicly exposed Ray servers, compromised via this vulnerability. As a result, threat actors were stealing sensitive data such as AI models, production database credentials, and more. In some instances they were even installing cryptominers.
Security researchers have found a relatively easy and cheap way to clone the keycards used on three million Saflok electronic RFID locks in 13,000 hotels and homes all over the world.
The keycard and lock manufacturer, Dormakaba, has been notified, and it is currently working to replace the vulnerable hardware – but it’s a long, tedious process, which is not yet done.
Although first discovered back in 2022, the researchers have disclosed more information on the flaws, dubbed “Unsaflok”, in order to raise awareness.
Cheap card cloning
The flaws were discovered at a private hacking event was set up in Las Vegas, where different research teams competed to find vulnerabilities in a hotel room and all devices inside. A team, consisting of Lennert Wouters, Ian Carroll, rqu, BusesCanFly, Sam Curry, shell, and Will Caruana, focused their attention on the Dormakaba Saflok electronic locks for hotel rooms. Soon enough, they found two flaws which, when chained together, allowed them to open the doors with a custom-built keycard.
First, they needed access to any card from the premises. That could be the card to their own room. Then, they reverse-engineered the Dormakaba front desk software and lock programming device, which allowed them to spoof a working master key which can open any room on the property. Finally, to clone the cards, they needed to break into Dormakaba’s key derivation function.
To forge the keycards, the team used a MIFARE Classic card, a commercial card-writing tool, and an Android phone with NFC capabilities. All of this costs just a few hundred dollars, it was said.
With their custom-built keycard, the team would be able to access more than three million locks, installed in 13,000 hotels and homes all over the world.
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Following the publication of the findings, Dormakaba released a statement to the media, saying the vulnerability affects Saflok systems System 6000, Ambiance, and Community. It added that there is no evidence of these flaws ever being exploited in the wild.
An unpatchable vulnerability has been discovered in Apple’s M-series chips that allows attackers to extract secret encryption keys from Macs under certain conditions, according to a newly published academic research paper.
Named “GoFetch,” the type of cyber attack described involves Data Memory-Dependent Prefetchers (DMPs), which try to predict what data the computer will need next and retrieve it in advance. This is meant to make processing faster, but it can unintentionally reveal information about what the computer is doing.
The paper finds that DMPs, especially the ones in Apple’s processors, pose a significant threat to the security provided by constant-time programming models, which are used to write programs so that they take the same amount of time to run, no matter what data they’re dealing with.
The constant-time programming model is meant to protect against side-channel attacks, or types of attacks where someone can gain sensitive information from a computer system without directly accessing it (by observing certain patterns, for example). The idea is that if all operations take the same amount of time, there’s less for an attacker to observe and exploit.
However, the paper finds that DMPs, particularly in Apple silicon, can leak information even if the program is designed not to reveal any patterns in how it accesses memory. The new research finds that the DMPs can sometimes confuse memory content, which causes it to treat the data as an address to perform memory access, which goes against the constant-time model.
The authors present GoFetch as a new type of attack that can exploit this vulnerability in DMPs to extract encryption keys from secure software. The attack works against some popular encryption algorithms that are thought to be resistant to side-channel attacks, including both traditional (e.g. OpenSSL Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange, Go RSA decryption) and post-quantum (e.g. CRYSTALS-Kyber and CRYSTALS-Dilithium) cryptographic methods.
In an email to ArsTechnica, the authors explained:
Prefetchers usually look at addresses of accessed data (ignoring values of accessed data) and try to guess future addresses that might be useful. The DMP is different in this sense as in addition to addresses it also uses the data values in order to make predictions (predict addresses to go to and prefetch). In particular, if a data value “looks like” a pointer, it will be treated as an “address” (where in fact it’s actually not!) and the data from this “address” will be brought to the cache. The arrival of this address into the cache is visible, leaking over cache side channels.
Our attack exploits this fact. We cannot leak encryption keys directly, but what we can do is manipulate intermediate data inside the encryption algorithm to look like a pointer via a chosen input attack. The DMP then sees that the data value “looks like” an address, and brings the data from this “address” into the cache, which leaks the “address.” We don’t care about the data value being prefetched, but the fact that the intermediate data looked like an address is visible via a cache channel and is sufficient to reveal the secret key over time.
In summary, the paper shows that the DMP feature in Apple silicon CPUs could be used to bypass security measures in cryptography software that were thought to protect against such leaks, potentially allowing attackers to access sensitive information, such as a 2048-bit RSA key, in some cases in less than an hour.
According to the authors, the flaw in Apple’s chips cannot be patched directly. Instead, the attack vector can only be reduced by building defenses into third-party cryptographic software that could result in an extreme performance degradation when executing the cryptographic operations, particularly on the earlier M1 and M2 chips. The DMP on the M3, Apple’s latest chip, has a special bit that developers can invoke to disable it, but the researchers aren’t yet sure what kind of penalty will occur when this performance optimization is turned off.
As ArsTechnica notes, this isn’t the first time researchers have identified threats in Apple DMPs. Research documented in 2022 discovered one such threat in both the M1 and Apple’s A14 Bionic chip for iPhones, which resulted in the “Augury” attack. However, this attack was ultimately unable to extract the sensitive data when constant-time practices were used.
“GoFetch shows that the DMP is significantly more aggressive than previously thought and thus poses a much greater security risk,” the researchers claim on their website. “Specifically, we find that any value loaded from memory is a candidate for being dereferenced (literally!). This allows us to sidestep many of Augury’s limitations and demonstrate end-to-end attacks on real constant-time code.”
Users concerned about the vulnerability are advised to check for GoFetch mitigation updates that become available in future macOS updates for any of the encryption protocols known to be vulnerable. Apple representatives declined to comment on the record when ArsTechnica asked about the research.
If a hacker can monitor the internet traffic between their target and the target’s cloud-based AI assistant, they could easily pick up on the conversation. And if that conversation contained sensitive information – that information would end up in the attackers’ hands, as well.
This is according to a new analysis from researchers at the Offensive AI Research Lab from Ben-Gurion University in Israel, who found a way to deploy side channel attacks on targets using all Large Language Model (LLM) assistants, save for Google Gemini.
“Currently, anybody can read private chats sent from ChatGPT and other services,” Yisroel Mirsky, head of the Offensive AI Research Lab told ArsTechnica.
“This includes malicious actors on the same Wi-Fi or LAN as a client (e.g., same coffee shop), or even a malicious actor on the Internet—anyone who can observe the traffic. The attack is passive and can happen without OpenAI or their client’s knowledge. OpenAI encrypts their traffic to prevent these kinds of eavesdropping attacks, but our research shows that the way OpenAI is using encryption is flawed, and thus the content of the messages are exposed.”
Basically, in a bid to make the tool as fast as possible – the developers opened the doors to crooks picking up on the contents. When the chatbot starts sending back its response, it doesn’t send it all at once. It sends small snippets, in the form of tokens, to speed the process up. These tokens may be encrypted, but as they’re being sent one by one, as soon as they’re generated, that allows the attackers to analyze them.
The researchers analyzed the tokens’ size, length, the sequence through which they arrive, and more. The analysis, and subsequent refinement, resulted in decrypted responses which were almost identical to the ones seen by the victim.
The researchers suggested developers do one of two things: either stop sending tokens one at the time, or fix all of them to the length of the largest possible packet, making analysis impossible. This technique, which they dubbed “padding”, was adopted by OpenAI and Cloudflare.
Microsoft recently patched a vulnerability in Windows SmartScreen, but not before hackers abused it as a zero-day to drop the DarkGate malware.
A report from cybersecurity researchers Trend Micro detailed a new campaign that included phishing emails with malicious PDF files, open redirects via Google DoubleClick Digital Marketing (DDM), and Microsoft installers (.MSI) impersonating legitimate software.
As explained by the researchers, the attack is part of a wider campaign from a threat actor known as Water Hydra. In the campaign, the attackers would send out convincing phishing emails to their targets, carrying a seemingly innocuous .PDF file.
Downloading compromised programs
This file contains a link, which deploys an open redirect from Google’s doubleclick[.]net domain, and leads to a compromised web server. An open redirect is a type of vulnerability in which the destination of the redirect is provided by the client, while the legitimate website, through which the redirect is made, does not properly filter or validate the request.
This server the victims are redirected to hosts a malicious .URL shortcut file that exploits a vulnerability tracked as CVE-2024-21412.
This is a flaw in Microsoft Windows SmartScreen – a cloud-based anti-phishing and anti-malware component included in several Microsoft products. By exploiting the flaw, the attackers are able to get the victims to run a malicious .MSI file – a program installer.
Victims are led to believe that they’re installing legitimate software, such as Apple iTunes, Notion, NVIDIA, and more. However, this software comes with side-loaded DLL files that infect the users with DarkGate version 6.1.7. As described by Malpedia, DarkGate is a commodity loader capable of downloading and executing stage-two malware, a Hidden Virtual Network Computing (HVNC) module, keylogging, stealing data from the infected devices, and even escalate privileges.
The malware was first spotted in 2018, and some researchers believe it originated in Russia.
For years, Registered Agents Inc.—a secretive company whose business is setting up other businesses—has registered thousands of companies to people who appear to not exist. Multiple former employees tell WIRED that the company routinely incorporates businesses on behalf of its customers using what they claim are fake personas. An investigation found that incorporation paperwork for thousands of companies that listed these allegedly fake personas had links to Registered Agents.
State attorneys general from around the US sent a letter to Meta on Wednesday demanding the company take “immediate action” amid a record-breaking spike in complaints over hacked Facebook and Instagram accounts. Figures provided by the office of New York attorney general Letitia James, who spearheaded the effort, show that in 2023 her office received more than 780 complaints—10 times as many as in 2019. Many complaints cited in the letter say Meta did nothing to help them recover their stolen accounts. “We refuse to operate as the customer service representatives of your company,” the officials wrote in the letter. “Proper investment in response and mitigation is mandatory.”
Meanwhile, Meta suffered a major outage this week that took most of its platforms offline. When it came back, users were often forced to log back in to their accounts. Last year, however, the company changed how two-factor authentication works for Facebook and Instagram. Now, any devices you’ve frequently used with Meta services in recent years will be trusted by default. The move has made experts uneasy; this means that your devices may not need a two-factor authentication code to log in anymore. We updated our guide for how to turn off this setting.
A ransomware attack targeting medical firm Change Healthcare has caused chaos at pharmacies around the US, delaying delivery of prescription drugs nationwide. Last week, a Bitcoin address connected to AlphV, the group behind the attack, received $22 million in cryptocurrency—suggesting Change Healthcare has likely paid the ransom. A spokesperson for the firm declined to answer whether it was behind the payment.
And there’s more. Each week, we highlight the news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click on the headlines below to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.
In January, Microsoft revealed that a notorious group of Russian state-sponsored hackers known as Nobelium infiltrated the email accounts of the company’s senior leadership team. Today, the company revealed that the attack is ongoing. In a blog post, the company explains that in recent weeks, it has seen evidence that hackers are leveraging information exfiltrated from its email systems to gain access to source code and other “internal systems.”
It is unclear exactly what internal systems were accessed by Nobelium, which Microsoft calls Midnight Blizzard, but according to the company, it is not over. The blog post states that the hackers are now using “secrets of different types” to breach further into its systems. “Some of these secrets were shared between customers and Microsoft in email, and as we discover them in our exfiltrated email, we have been and are reaching out to these customers to assist them in taking mitigating measures.”
Nobelium is responsible for the SolarWinds attack, a sophisticated 2020 supply-chain attack that compromised thousands of organizations including the major US government agencies like the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Justice, and Treasury.
Russian hackers keep trying to infiltrate Microsoft, the company These hacks follow a of last year, in which state-sponsored agents obtained the emails of Microsoft’s senior level managers. An internal investigation led by Microsoft identified the hackers in both instances as a Russian group called Midnight Blizzard.
It looks like Midnight Blizzard has gotten bolder in its approach. Last year’s attack seemed to prioritize the collection of email addresses, but this most recent attack finds the group repeatedly attempting to breach the company’s systems and gain access to source code. Microsoft with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
We don’t know exactly what these hackers want, but Microsoft said they are likely using email addresses acquired during November’s attack to help gain access to internal systems. Midnight Blizzard “may be using the information it has obtained to accumulate a picture of areas to attack and enhance its ability to do so,” the company wrote. I know one thing. They had better leave Clippy alone.
Midnight Blizzard is believed to work directly for Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and is said to operate at the behest of Vladimir Putin. The group is likely behind 2016’s hack of the Democratic National Committee and 2020’s hack of the software company SolarWinds, which led to a breach of government networks.
if you fancy learning more about wireless hacking and white hat cyber security you might be interested in the new device called the CyperPRO, which is being marketed as the GameBoy for hackers. The new multi-tool device Cyper PRO, has been specifically designed for pentesters and hardware enthusiasts, offering a versatile, open-source device that consolidates a range of research and penetration tools into a single, portable unit. This innovative device is not just a tool, but a game-changer, offering a user-friendly interface, an achievement system for user engagement, and a host of technical features that make it a must-have for anyone in the field.
CyperPRO hacking tool
One of the key aspects of CyperPRO is its open-source versatility. This allows users to modify and adapt the device to their specific needs, fostering a sense of community and collaboration among users. This open-source nature also means that the device is continually evolving, with users contributing to its development and improvement. Early bird discounts are now available for the creative project from roughly $109 or £90 (depending on current exchange rates).
“Delve into effortless scanning and communication across a broad spectrum of NFC-enabled devices, ranging from bank cards to various 13.56 MHz tags. CyperPRO, armed with its dynamic 125 kHz module, transcends standard boundaries. By supporting both Low Frequency (LF) and High Frequency (HF) spectrums, it solidifies its position as the premier RFID tool in the market. Dive into the future of NFC interactions with CyperPRO!”
Cyper PRO is not just about versatility, it’s also about consolidation. The device brings together a range of research and penetration tools, making it a one-stop-shop for pentesters and hardware enthusiasts. This consolidation of tools not only makes the device more efficient but also more convenient, eliminating the need for multiple devices.
Portable hacking device
The user-friendly interface of Cyper PRO is another of its standout features. The device is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, allowing users of all skill levels to harness its potential. The interface includes multiple buttons for navigation and a button to block and wake up the device. The 2.8 inch TFT RGB screen ensures clear visibility of information, making the device even more user-friendly.
“Dive into the world of wireless with CyperPRO, powered by the revered TL-CC1101 transceiver. This universal chip is not just engineered for low-power wireless tasks but opens up a realm where developers, using our open-source library, can communicate freely with the radio subsystem. Whether you’re aiming to script a custom protocol, decode existing systems, or forge connections with IoT devices and access mechanisms, CyperPRO stands as your comprehensive tool.”
Cyper PRO also introduces an innovative achievement system for user engagement. Users can earn points and level up their accounts by completing tasks and infiltrating systems, unlocking advanced tools and functionalities. Achievements and ranks are displayed on the community forum, enhancing the user’s standing within the community and fostering a sense of competition and camaraderie.
Assuming that the CyperPRO funding campaign successfully raises its required pledge goal and fullfilment progresses smoothly, worldwide shipping is expected to take place sometime around May 2024. To learn more about the CyperPRO the GameBoy for hackers project review the promotional video below.
Other articles you may find of interest on the subject of cyber security
Wireless hacking tool
In terms of technical features, Cyper PRO is packed with a host of functionalities. It includes a USB type-C port for charging, device updates, and HID emulation. The device is powered by a robust battery that allows for extended use and a STM32 microcontroller with 1MB of flash memory. A standard microSD slot provides additional storage, and users can use any FAT32-formatted card to store extra data.
“CyperPRO can capture and store radio signal samples, permitting in-depth analysis using sophisticated computer tools. Recognizing that numerous IoT devices and remotes—be it doorbells or sensors—often forgo encryption, CyperPRO is adept at replaying such signals, regardless of whether the protocol is identified or not.”
Cyper PRO’s WiFi capabilities, with network scanning tools, allow for discovering networks and identifying vulnerabilities. The device also includes Bluetooth features for syncing with the Cyper App and controlling smart home devices. An embedded infrared (IR) transceiver allows for bidirectional IR signal exchanges and the replication of remote controller signals. The device’s GPIO output allows for control over 5v voltage, with dedicated software for fine-tuning outputs.
One of the most unique features of Cyper PRO is its ability to read, write, and emulate 125 kHz RFID Card. Equipped with a 125 kHz antenna for reading EM-4100 and HID Prox cards, the device can store card information in its internal memory for on-demand emulation. Users can manually input a card’s ID for emulation or share it in text format, facilitating card ID exchanges among users.
Cyper PRO is a revolutionary multi-tool device that offers a range of features and functionalities for pentesters and hardware enthusiasts. Its open-source versatility, consolidation of tools, user-friendly interface, and achievement system make it a game-changer in the field. With its technical features and capabilities, Cyper PRO is not just a tool, but a companion for anyone involved in cybersecurity and hardware.
For a complete list of all available backing options, stretch goals, extra media and build specifications for the the GameBoy for hackers, jump over to the official CyperPRO crowd funding campaign page by inspecting the link below.
Source : Kickstarter
Disclaimer: Participating in Kickstarter campaigns involves inherent risks. While many projects successfully meet their goals, others may fail to deliver due to numerous challenges. Always conduct thorough research and exercise caution when pledging your hard-earned money.
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