Forensics with VMware VDDK

The Crucial Security Forensics Blog lists reasons why the VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK) might be useful for a forensics investigation that needs to mount and manipulate VMDK files.

Some scenarios might include master boot record infection such as the Stoned bootkit. The Stoned bootkit is a Windows bootkit, which attacks all Windows versions from 2000 up to 7. It is loaded before Windows starts and is memory resident.

Another scenario involves the malware inserting itself into all VMDK files on the system.

Thirdly, having offline access to the VMDK would be essential if the malware was able to steal essential files such as the system and software hives, SAM and/or private keys.

Fourth, if the virtualized disk were using full disk encryption, the analyst would be able to access the files via the VDDK API without decryption taking place.

Lastly, if the machine had other controls in place such as AV or host-based firewall protection on certain files, an analyst would have access to them and not require booting up the virtual disk.

New EU Data Protection Rules Proposed

Differences in interpretation of the EU’s 1995 data protection rules may soon be resolved, according to a proposal by Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the EC in charge of Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship

A single set of European rules on data protection valid everywhere across the European Union, so one rule for the 27 Member States and for the 500 millions people. One data protection authority for one company: a one stop shop and one authorisation for the whole European Union. This will reduce administrative burden and will save the businesses around 2.3 billions Euros a year.

The new rules carry some interesting concepts such as a new burden of proof for companies to retain personal information. Reding advocates for the ability of a person to request that their data be deleted (“right to be forgotten”) unless a company can prove a “legitimate reason” for retention. She also has said companies will have to report a breach “as soon as possible,” which has been suggested to mean 24 hours. Compliance is expected to be managed by a data-protection officer that will be required at all companies by more than 250 employees.

Video Cameras in Boardrooms

Seems like connecting to video cameras on the Internet has been a thing to do for about a decade now. The classic example was to use a search engine to identify the cameras by their URL:

The next phase was to fingerprint the more network-aware cameras with FTP and web servers to take them over with exploits, stolen credentials or different forms of management software.

The basic story was so common that by 2006 even FOX news ran a story on “hacking” cameras (700K views):

The word hacking is usually a stretch, since you are just connecting to something without any security, but eventually came some interesting reverse attacks on cameras, fooling the camera controller with a bogus stream or device to steal credentials.

Now I see a story from the New York Times that confirms video conference systems still are being setup without authentication.

Strangely, however, the NYT mentions nothing of the long history and background to the problem. The NYT story then gets echoed as if this issue was only just discovered. Is anyone really surprised that cameras are still exposed in 2012?

Simply put, customers do not demand that vendors ship the product in a safe-mode. Vendors do not change because they say customers want easy, not secure. Some might see this as yet another “hot coffee” moment waiting to happen.

Perhaps we can hope a NYT version of the story will have some effect on market tolerance for silent yet weak defaults. The story probably will have more effect than years of warnings in forum discussions and local news videos. But until then, more cameras will be connected to the network while the ability to find, index and connect to them will stay trivial.

NIST SP800-144: Guidelines on Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing

NIST has released as final their special publication 800-144 (SP800-144). Perhaps the single biggest takeaway from the guide is that risk management has not changed fundamentally from non-cloud environments, but the devil may be in the details.

It offers the following list of benefits from the transition to public cloud.

Benefits

  • Staff specialization
  • Platform strength
  • Resource availability
  • Backup and Recovery
  • Mobile endpoints
  • Data Concentration

You might read that list and want to ask “yes, but what about all the Amazon outages or the high-profile breaches like Dreamhost…,” which is why they also wrote a “Security and Privacy Downside”.

Risks

  • System complexity
  • Shared multi-tenant environment
  • Internet-facing services
  • Loss of control