Information Technology

McAfee has uncovered a vulnerability in Peloton’s Bike+ line and Tread exercise equipment that would give an attacker full, unnoticed access to the device, including its camera and microphone. 

McAfee worked with Peloton in March to fix the issue and Peloton has since released an update that solves the vulnerability. In a blog post, McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research team researchers Sam Quinn and Mark Bereza explained that the flaw was with the bike’s Android Verified Boot process, which they said was initially out of scope and left the Peloton vulnerable.Quinn and Bereza shared a video of their work demonstrating how they were able to bypass the Android Verified Boot process and compromise the Android OS. The blog describes a variety of ways the vulnerability could have been used by attackers with physical access to a Bike+ or Tread exercise equipment. The researchers included a map that lists all of the publicly available Peloton equipment available in spaces like gyms, hotels, apartment complexes, and even cruise ships.
PeloBuddy
“A worst-case scenario for such an attack vector might involve a malicious agent booting the Peloton with a modified image to gain elevated privileges and then leveraging those privileges to establish a reverse shell, granting the attacker unfettered root access on the bike remotely. Since the attacker never has to unlock the device to boot a modified image, there would be no trace of any access they achieved on the device,” Quinn and Bereza wrote. “This sort of attack could be effectively delivered via the supply chain process. A malicious actor could tamper with the product at any point from construction to warehouse to delivery, installing a backdoor into the Android tablet without any way the end user could know. Another scenario could be that an attacker could simply walk up to one of these devices that is installed in a gym or a fitness room and perform the same attack, gaining root access on these devices for later use.”

There were even ways for attackers to make their presence permanent by modifying the OS, putting themselves in a man-in-the-middle position. In this case, an attacker would have full access to network traffic and SSL encrypted traffic using a technique called SSL unpinning, the blog explained. “Intercepting and decrypting network traffic in this fashion could lead to users’ personal data being compromised. Lastly, the Peloton Bike+ also has a camera and a microphone installed. Having remote access with root permissions on the Android tablet would allow an attacker to monitor these devices and is demoed in the impact video [above],” the researchers said. The simplicity of the vulnerability prompted Quinn and Bereza to reach out to Peloton, which later discovered that the problem extended beyond just the Bike+ to the Tread exercise equipment.The company released a fix for the problem that no longer allows for the “boot” command to work on a user build, mitigating this vulnerability entirely, according to the researchers. Adrian Stone, Peloton’s head of global information security, said that if an attacker is able to gain physical access to any connected device in the home, additional physical controls and safeguards become increasingly important. “To keep our members safe, we acted quickly and in coordination with McAfee. We pushed a mandatory update in early June and every device with the update installed is protected from this issue,” Stone added. 

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In another example of misconfigured cloud services impacting security, over a billion records belonging to CVS Health have been exposed online.  

On Thursday, WebsitePlanet, together with researcher Jeremiah Fowler, revealed the discovery of an online database belonging to CVS Health. The database was not password-protected and had no form of authentication in place to prevent unauthorized entry.Upon examination of the database, the team found over one billion records that were connected to the US healthcare and pharmaceutical giant, which owns brands including CVS Pharmacy and Aetna.  The database, 204GB in size, contained event and configuration data including production records of visitor IDs, session IDs, device access information — such as whether visitors to the firm’s domains used an iPhone or Android handset — as well as what the team calls a “blueprint” of how the logging system operated from the backend.  Search records exposed also included queries for medications, COVID-19 vaccines, and a variety of CVS products, referencing both CVS Health and CVS.com. “Hypothetically, it could have been possible to match the Session ID with what they searched for or added to the shopping cart during that session and then try to identify the customer using the exposed emails,” the report states.  The researchers say the unsecured database could be used in targeted phishing by cross-referencing some of the emails also logged in the system — likely through accidental search bar submission — or for cross-referencing other actions. Competitors, too, may have been interested in the search query data generated and stored in the system. 

WebsitePlanet sent a private disclosure notice to CVS Health and quickly received a response confirming the dataset belonged to the company.  CVS Health said the database was managed by an unnamed vendor on behalf of the firm and public access was restricted following disclosure.  “In March of this year, a security researcher notified us of a publicly-accessible database that contained non-identifiable CVS Health metadata,” CVS Health told ZDNet. “We immediately investigated and determined that the database, which was hosted by a third party vendor, did not contain any personal information of our customers, members, or patients. We worked with the vendor to quickly take the database down. We’ve addressed the issue with the vendor to prevent a recurrence and we thank the researcher who notified us about this matter.” Update 15.49 BST: Clarified over a billion records rather than billions. ZDNet regrets this error. 

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Microsoft has announced some improvements to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (formerly Defender ATP) that should help remote workers with Androids and iPhones more securely access information from the corporate network. Microsoft has refreshed the look and feel of the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint apps for Android and iOS. It’s also enabled mobile application management for devices that aren’t enrolled in Microsoft’s Intune mobile device management (MDM) platform, and enabled jailbreak detection for iOS. Previously, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint worked on devices that were enrolled using Intune mobile device management (MDM) only.  Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a cloud-based service and distinct from Microsoft Defender antivirus. In April, Microsoft released a preview of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint that supported unmanaged devices running Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS and Android as well as network devices. Part of its functionality is aimed at helping security teams investigate and secure unmanaged PCs, mobile devices, servers, and network devices on a network.This update is about broadening mobile application support for organizations that are using Intune but might have devices that aren’t enrolled in an MDM, including popular third-party MDM solutions. “With this update Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can protect an organization’s data within a managed application for those who aren’t using an MDM but are using Intune to manage mobile applications,” Microsoft said in a blogpost. 

“It also extends support to customers who use other enterprise mobility management solutions such as AirWatch, MobileIron, MaaS360, and others, while still using Intune for mobile application management.”The other interesting feature is the product can now detect jailbreaks on iOS devices. “Jailbreaking an iOS device elevates root access that is granted to the user of the device,” Microsoft says. “Once this happens, users can easily sideload potentially malicious applications and the iPhone won’t get critical, automatic iOS updates that may fix security vulnerabilities.”The jailbreak detection feature for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has now reached general availability. It detects both unmanaged and managed devices that have been jailbroken and sends an alert when it happens to Microsoft 365 Defender. “These kinds of devices introduce additional risk and a higher probability of a breach to your organization,” Microsoft says. It should be easier now to enroll iOS devices since users no longer need to provide VPN permissions to get anti-phishing protection. Admins can now just push the VPN profile to enrolled devices. Lastly, Microsoft Tunnel VPN within the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint app for Android has reached general availability. 
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The good news is the seven-year-old security bug in Linux systemd’s polkit, used in many Linux distros, has been patched. The bad news is that it was ever there in the first place. Polkit, which systemd uses in place of sudo, enables unauthorized users to run privileged processes they’d otherwise couldn’t run. It turned out that you could also abuse polkit to get root access to a system. 

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Can you say, “Ow!”?  The power to grab root privileges is the ultimate evil in Unix and Linux systems. Kevin Backhouse, a member of the GitHub Security Lab, found the polkit security hole in the course of his duties. He revealed it to the polkit maintainers and Red Hat’s security team. Then, when a fix was released on June 3, 2021, it was publicly disclosed as CVE-2021-3560. Backhouse found an unauthorized local user could easily get a root shell on a system using a few standard shell tools such as bash, kill, and dbus-send. Oddly enough, while the bug is quite old, it only recently started shipping in the most popular Linux distributions. For example, if you’re running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7; Debian 10; or Ubuntu 18.04; you’re invulnerable to this security hole. But, if you’re running the newer RHEL 8, Debian testing; or Ubuntu 20.04, you can be attacked with it. Why? Because this buggy code hadn’t been used in most Linux distros. Recently, however, the vulnerable code was backported into shipping versions of polkit. An old security hole was given a new lease on life.  That’s not the only reason this bug hid in plain sight for so long. Backhouse explained the security hole isn’t triggered every time you run programs that can call it. Why? It turns out that polkit asks dbus-daemon for the UID [User ID] of the requesting process multiple times, on different codepaths. Most of those codepaths handle the error correctly, but one of them doesn’t. If you kill the dbus-send command early, it’s handled by one of the correct codepaths and the request is rejected. To trigger the vulnerable codepath, you have to disconnect at just the right moment. And because there are multiple processes involved, the timing of that “right moment” varies from one run to the next. That’s why it usually takes a few tries for the exploit to succeed. I’d guess it’s also the reason why the bug wasn’t previously discovered. It’s a sneaky little thing. 

But, when Backhouse said it can’t always be exploited, that’s no reason not to worry about it. You can easily write a script that’s sure to activate it after a few minutes of trying. Red Hat warns “The highest threat from this vulnerability is to data confidentiality and integrity as well as system availability.”  Therefore, as Backhouse points out, since it’s “very simple and quick to exploit … it’s important that you update your Linux installations as soon as possible.” So, you know what to do now right? Get to work patching: You’ll want to upgrade polkit to version 0.119 or later.

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The increase in the use of cloud services as a result of organisations and their employees shifting to remote work because of the COVID-19 pandemic is leaving corporate networks exposed to cyberattacks.Many businesses had to swiftly introduce working from home at the start of the pandemic, with employees becoming reliant on cloud services including Remote Desktop Protocols (RDP), Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and application suites like Microsoft Office 365 or Google Workspace.

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While this allowed employees to continue doing their jobs outside the traditional corporate network, it has also increased the potential attack surface for cyber criminals. Malicious hackers are able to exploit the reduced level of monitoring activity, while successfully compromising credentials – that are used to remotely login to cloud services – provides a stealthy route into corporate environments.SEE: A winning strategy for cybersecurity (ZDNet special report) | Download the report as a PDF (TechRepublic)  Cybersecurity researchers at security company Zscaler analysed the networks of 1,500 companies and found hundreds of thousands of vulnerabilities in the form of 392,298 exposed servers, 214,230 exposed ports and 60,572 exposed cloud instances – all of which can be discovered on the internet. It claimed the biggest companies have an average of 468 servers exposed, while large companies have 209 at risk.The researchers defined ‘exposed’ as something that anyone can connect to if they discover the services – including remote and cloud services. Organisations are likely to be unaware that these services are exposed to the internet in the first place. In addition to this, researchers discovered unpatched systems with 202,000 Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs), an average of 135 per organisation, with almost half classified as ‘Critical’ or ‘High’ severity.

It’s possible that cyber criminals will be able to discover and exploit these vulnerabilities in order to enter corporate networks and lay the foundations for cyberattacks including data theft, ransomware and other malware campaigns.”The sheer amount of information that is being shared today is concerning because it is all essentially an attack surface. Anything that can be accessed can be exploited by unauthorised or malicious users, creating new risks for businesses that don’t have complete awareness and control of their network exposure,” said Nathan Howe, vice president for emerging technology at Zscaler.While an increased attack surface can impact organisations of all sizes, international and large employers are the most at risk, due to their number of employees and a distributed workforce. A global workforce may also make it more difficult to detect anomalous activity because the company is used to employees accessing the network from around the world, so a malicious intruder may not be immediately obvious.But it’s possible to take steps to reduce the attack surface – and the potential risk to the organisation as a result. Zscaler recommends three steps for minimising corporate network risk.SEE: GDPR: Fines increased by 40% last year, and they’re about to get a lot biggerThe first is to know your network – by being aware of what applications and services are in use, it’s easier to mitigate risk. The second is to know your potential vulnerabilities – researchers recommend that information security teams stay informed about the latest vulnerabilities and the patches that can be applied to counter them. The third thing organisations should do is adopt practices that minimise risk and act as a deterrent to cyber criminals. For example, secure login credentials for cloud services with multi-factor authentication, so in the event of a username and password being breached, it isn’t as simple for criminals to actually access accounts and services. “By understanding their individual attack surfaces and deploying appropriate security measures, including zero trust architecture, companies can better protect their application infrastructure from recurring vulnerabilities that allow attackers to steal data, sabotage systems, or hold networks hostage for ransom,” said Howe.MORE ON CYBERSECURITY More

Apple is getting pretty committed to the idea of pushing out security updates to older iPhones and iPads. Not only will the company continue to support iOS 14 come the release of iOS 15, we are also seeing a trickle of patches for older versions of iOS. If you have an iPhone or iPad that’s still running iOS 12 — because that was the end of the line for your device — then Apple has released an emergency update that you need to download and install as soon as possible.

Why? Because of the three security fixes contained in this update, two “may have been actively exploited.” In other words, the bad guys might already be using the vulnerabilities to compromise smartphones and tablets. Must read: iOS 14 could become Apple’s Windows XP iOS 12.5.4 is available for the following devices: iPhone 5siPhone 6iPhone 6 PlusiPad AiriPad mini 2iPad mini 3iPod touch (6th generation)To check what version your device is running, tap on Settings > General, then on Software Update. Here you will see what version your iPhone of iPad is running along with any updates.

Note that if you have stayed on iOS 12 but the device is compatible with later versions, then this update will not be available to you. Your path is to upgrade to the latest release of iOS 14 or iPadOS 14. There have been several high-profile security issuers plaguing iPhone and iPads over the past few months, and while for some there’s a hesitancy to install updates, it is the first and best line of defense against attack. And iOS 12 and later will do it for you. Tap on Settings > General > Software Update > Customize Automatic Updates and then turn on Install iOS Updates.

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Bret Arsenault, Microsoft’s chief information security officer (CISO), who’s been at Microsoft for 31 years, says he’s only ever been publicly cheered once at the company: that was when he killed off Microsoft’s internal policy of changing passwords every 71 days. “That’s the first time I’ve been applauded as a security person and executive,” Arsenault tells ZDNet. “We said we’re turning off password rotation within Microsoft, because we had eliminated that part of it.” 

As Microsoft’s CISO, Arsenault is responsible for protecting both Microsoft products and its internal networks used by its 160,000 employees. After adding vendors into the mix, he’s responsible for about 240,000 accounts globally. And getting rid of passwords and replacing them with better options like multi-factor authentication (MFA) is high on his to-do list.SEE: Network security policy (TechRepublic Premium)Microsoft updated its password policy in stages. In January 2019, it moved to one-year expiry, using telemetry to validate effectiveness. In January, 2020 it moved to unlimited expiry based on the results.  Microsoft also stopped recommending to customers to implement a 60-day password expiration policy in 2019 because people tend to make small alterations to existing passwords or forget new good ones. For Arsenault, rather than make the conversation about putting MFA everywhere, he framed the change as being about eliminating passwords.

“Because nobody likes passwords. You hate them, users hate them, IT departments hate them. The only people who like passwords are criminals – they love them,” he says. “I remember we had a motto to get MFA everywhere, in hindsight that was the right security goal but the wrong approach. Make this about the user outcome, so transition to “we want to eliminate passwords”. But the words you use matter. It turned out that simple language shift changed the culture and the view of what we were trying to accomplish. More importantly, it changed our design and what we built, like Windows Hello for business,” he says. “If I eliminate passwords and use any form of biometrics, it’s much faster and the experience is so much better.”On Windows 10 PCs, that biometric security experience is handled by Windows Hello. On iOS and Android, access to Office apps is done through Microsoft Authenticator, which provides a smooth experience when logging into Microsoft Office apps. It taps into biometrics available on iPhones and Android phones.   “Today, 99.9% of our users don’t enter passwords in their environment. That said – progress over perfection – there are still legacy apps that will still prompt [for a password],” he says.However, that’s not the end of the battle. Just 18% of Microsoft’s customers have enabled MFA. This figure seems absurdly low given that enabling MFA is free for Microsoft customers, yet as ransomware shows, there can be mult-imillion dollar consequences when just one key internal account is compromised. Protecting accounts with MFA won’t stop attackers completely, but it does make their lives harder by shielding an organization from the inherent weaknesses in usernames and passwords to protect accounts, which can be phished or compromised through password-spraying attacks. The latter technique, which relies on password re-use, was one way the SolarWinds attackers breached targets besides breaking into the firm’s software build systems to spread a tainted software update.    Microsoft is moving towards a hybrid mode of work and, to support that shift, it’s making a push towards a Zero Trust network design, which assumes the network has been breached, that the network extends beyond the corporate firewall, and caters to BYOD devices that could be used at home for work or at work for personal communications. But how do we get more organizations to enable MFA in critical enterprise products from Microsoft, Google, Oracle, SAP and other crucial software vendors? For organizations looking to enable MFA, Arsenault recommends targeting high-risk accounts first and to work on progress rather than perfection. The biggest problem is legacy applications, but seeking perfection risks getting bogged down. “Everyone has brownfield apps that can’t support modern authentication, such as biometrics, and so I think what a lot of people should and need to do is take a risk-based approach: first get MFA enforced for high-risk/value groups like admins, HR, legal group and so on, and then move to all users. It can be a multi-year journey, depending how quickly you want to do something,” he says.Then there’s the difficult question about SolarWinds and how Microsoft, which has a $10 billion cybersecurity business, got caught out by Russian government hackers. Microsoft in February claimed it was only minimally harmed by the incident, but it was nonetheless breached. Microsoft president Brad Smith called the hack a “moment of reckoning” because customers, including Microsoft itself, can no longer trust the software they get from trusted vendors. “Certainly, we used SolarWinds Software in our environment and we identified and remediated the impacted versions and we’ve been public about that there was access. We continue to modify how we do supply chain programs and how we evaluate what’s in supply chain and how quickly we can go do those things,” says Arsenault. SEE: Cloud computing: Microsoft sets out new data storage options for European customers According to Arsenault, Microsoft had seen the supply chain threat coming for a long time. “You see a lot of people doing stuff to protect their front doors, but then their backdoors are wide open,” he says.  “The part we’ve seen coming along is that the supply chain is the weak point, right. You have limited visibility into your suppliers. I think [US president Joe Biden’s] executive order will help in this space. But getting to the view of how we think about suppliers, we need a way to get that visibility in a scalable way.”I want to take the Zero Trust concept for information workers and apply that to the software supply chain, which is no line of code that was ever written wasn’t from an attested identity, from a healthy device,” he says.   More

Facebook has awarded $30,000 to a researcher for reporting vulnerabilities in Instagram’s privacy features. 

According to a Medium blog post penned by bug bounty hunter Mayur Fartade on Tuesday, a set of vulnerable endpoints in the Instagram app could have allowed attackers to view private media on the platform without following a target account. This included private and archived posts, stories, and reels. If an attacker obtains a target user’s Media ID, via brute-force or through other means, they could then send a POST request to Instagram’s GraphQL endpoint, which exposed display URLs and image URLs, alongside records including like and save counts.   A further vulnerable endpoint was also found that exposed the same information.  In both cases, an attacker could extract sensitive data concerning a private account without being accepted as a follower, a feature of Instagram designed to protect the privacy of users. In addition, the endpoints could be used to extract the addresses of Facebook pages linked to Instagram accounts.  Fartade reported his findings for the first endpoint through the Facebook Bug bounty program on April 16. Facebook’s security team then responded on April 19 with a request for further information including steps for reproduction. 

By April 22, the bug bounty hunter’s report had been triaged, and a day later, Fartade found and informed Facebook of the second leaky endpoint. Facebook patched up the vulnerable endpoints on April 29, however, Fartade says that a further fix was required to fully resolve the security issue.  A financial reward worth $30,000 was awarded by June 15, the bug bounty hunter’s first through Facebook’s program. The social media giant thanked the researcher for his report.ZDNet has reached out to Facebook and we will update when we hear back.  Previous and related coverage Have a tip? Get in touch securely via WhatsApp | Signal at +447713 025 499, or over at Keybase: charlie0 More