UK gov website being used to redirect to porn sites

TL;DR UK Government Environment Agency web site had an open redirect that was actively being used to redirect to various porn sites, including OnlyFans clone sites. Disclosure should have been easy but wasn’t, as the agency haven’t followed wider UK government policy on vulnerability disclosure...

Who has access to your leased Tesla?

One of the cool features of a Tesla is controlling it through the mobile application. This gives a whole host of options such as controlling the air conditioning, opening the “frunk”, and setting charge limits. The most useful feature however is using you mobile as a car key. Walk up to the car a...

Domestic CCTV and audio recording

Last week, we had BBC Morning Live in to film a piece on the legalities and challenges of domestic CCTV systems. You can watch it on iPlayer here, starting at 10:30. It was sparked by a conversation we had with Radio 4 before Xmas, where a journalist had taken an interest in CCTV systems exposed ...

Housemates. The new Red Team?

You have the VPN set up, you have 2FA, you have a good enforced password policy, firewalls are in place, you even managed to squeeze in some remote training to make employees more aware of potential phishing. You stop, breathe a sigh of relief, and then think… I've no idea who my employees live...

Authenticating your call centre when everyone is remote

Some unique challenges present themselves as workforce's shift to remote working. One that is not likely top of the pile, but is an easy avenue for abuse is authentication. When I talk about authentication, I don’t mean how users logon or access their emails for example. What I mean is how you...

Ships can’t be hacked. Wrong

I get a lot of objections from ships captains when discussing security flaws in ships, so I felt it worthwhile looking at these in some detail. The usual response is ‘ships can’t be hacked.’ When I dig further, what they usually seem to mean is that ‘processes aboard the bridge mean that the...

Satellite communications equipment security

Introduction Satcoms are the game changer in maritime cyber security. In the past, satellite connectivity was so expensive as to be prohibitive for all but the most essential communication. Crew personal email and social media access was a pipe dream. However, now that ship operators have access ...

Hacking the Bitfi Part 5: MITM transactions

So what’s latest with the Bitfi unhackable/hackable crpto currency wallet? Bitfi release software version 89 over the weekend. Devices updated, so we had a look to see what had changed. First, they’ve tried to stop the passphrase and seed from being cached in memory and therefore trivially...

Cyber threats to shipping explained

TL;DR Modern vessels are becoming increasingly connected. While it is unlikely that hackers could fully control a container ship remotely, they may be able to disrupt systems such as the Power Management System PMS, leading to blackouts and associated loss of propulsion and steering. Although...

Advice for manufacturers on the coming PSTI regulation

TL;DR PSTI: The UK Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Product Security Act Regulations effective from 29 April 2024 Assess how, where, why, and when you may be affected Review supply chain and in-house teams for compliance readiness Specific obligations for manufacturers,...

Android Content Providers 101

Introduction Android has a number of different types of components that a program or app can instantiate to interact with the user or other programs. Recently Ive been looking at exported as an interesting way to manipulate information that other apps have stored. A content provider is what it...

Netflix MH370: The plane that wasn’t hacked

I’m a sucker for a good documentary, but the recent Netflix MH370 piece had me shouting at the screen. The first episode talks about the most widely accepted theory; a pilot-created murder-suicide. However, the second episode goes off the rails, discussing Russian special operations hacking the...

From open Guest Wi-Fi to pwning a lift

…or why validating network segregation is critical TL;DR A recent engagement took quite an unexpected turn and led to me having remote control of a bunch of building services including a lift from the street outside, unauthenticated. A single firewall rule bypassed some well configured VLANs and...

Security Awareness is as valuable today as ever

A while ago I saw a tweet that initially angered me for many reasons, but then I thought about it and wondered how much effort do companies put in to awareness and training. The tweet was: Security awareness is overrated. You got to do it, but dont expect users not clicking on phishing mails agai...

Scams and how to spot them

We’re in strange times at the moment. Some things dont change though e.g. the scams and fraudulent activity designed to separate people from their money or identity. When dealing with these scams the main thing to remember is: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. While that statement ...

Which? Magazine recommends vulnerable smart home camera

You’ll already know that we have a keen interest in smart home camera security. Our recent work on Swann and FLIR cameras showed how it could be trivially easy to spy on people through their security cameras. Which? Magazine has a well-earned reputation for providing product reviews for consumers...

PTP, IoT & the Norwegian Government

We were privileged to be invited to speak an event in Arendal, Norway yesterday to make the case for IoT regulation. 'Arendalsuka' is the largest political gathering in Norway, an open forum event where the public can interact directly with political leaders, business leaders, entrepreneurs,...

Bypass SharePoint Restricted View to exfiltrate data using Copilot AI and more…

TL;DR Restricted View allows users to read files, but not copy, download or print them Attackers will look for ways to circumvent these controls Traditional workarounds include manual transcription, screenshots, and photos OCR tools can extract text from screenshots Microsoft Copilot can read fil...

Watch where you point that cred! Part 1

TL;DR Poorly protected authentication requests from privileged automated tasks e.g. vulnerability scanners, health checks could be intercepted by rogue authentication servers planted in the internal network. Weak authentication methods, overly broad privileges and scopes, as well as poor network...

UK PSTI? You’ll need a Vulnerability Disclosure Program!

If you are distributing or selling smart devices in to the UK market, your products will need to be compliant with the UK Product Security and Telecommunications Act. One of the three mandatory areas is that you have a vulnerability disclosure program VDP In the supporting materials for the Act,...

PTP at DEF CON 31 2023

Come and see us at the Aerospace Village, at Caesars Forum. Aerospace Village Fri 11th to Sun 13th Activity Take off in an A320 with hacked engine performance calculator. Then try to land it again. Fri 11th August 5:00 PM Pen Test Partners Power Hour We’ll be talking about: Hacking Electronic...

When disclosure goes wrong. People

My experience of vulnerability disclosure is that it is rarely as easy or simple as it could be. I had hoped that bug bounty programmes and vulnerability disclosure programmes VDPs would help matters. Broadly that doesn’t seem to be the case, often for unexpected reasons. It’s not all bad though...

Cloud OSINT. Finding Interesting Resources

Locating sensitive information, personally identifiable information PII and questionable assets in the cloud. TL; DR I had a curiosity driven excursion into the public clouds of AWS and Azure to find what is publicly hosted and who by. As anticipated, the results were extremely broad and...

Password managers for all staff. Why the resistance?!

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve talked about passwords. I mention them in every talk I do. They are used in pretty much every service we test, they are the gatekeepers to our data, they are the protectors of our money and yet we still have not fixed them. As security professionals we...

Consumer Advice: Kids GPS tracker watch security

Parents are advised to rethink using GPS tracking watches for their children as a result of serious security concerns. Tracker watches can be worn by children and report their position to their parents via a mobile app. They are designed to increase child safety: you always know where your child...

Hacking the Bitfi. Part 2: John McAfee’s video

The unhackable Bitfi story isn't going away any time soon. Following John McAfee's tweet yesterday that he would put out a "definitive video countering all of the nonsense claims instigated and co-coordinated by BirFi's sic established, monolithic competitors in the hardware wallet space" here's ...

Backdoor in the Backplane. Doing IPMI security better

TL;DR IPMI, released by Intel in 1998, is a hardware management interface operating independently of the OS, often using 623/udp. It monitors hardware data e.g., temperature, power and supports remote recovery, integrated into BMCs like HP iLO, Dell DRAC, and others. IPMI vulnerabilities include...

Can ships be hacked?

Photo: David Adams, MV Dali and the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse - 240326-A-SE916-6662, A layer has been added showing a character and a speech bubble, CC0 1.0 TL;DR Ships can be hacked Was the MV Dali hacked? Practically impossible Polarised views from uninformed commentators do not help...

OSINT. What can you find from a domain or company name

We carry out lots of attack surface assessments, parts of which involve investigating information that has been unintentionally disclosed. To help OPSEC people I thought it might be useful to go over some of the key things that can be found using domain and company names. Domain name So let’s div...

How to build a password cracking rig during a worldwide chip shortage

… and keep a domain password auditing service online. Making money on GPUs, the hard way… At PTP we had a fairly decent GPU password cracking box called Titan. It used 4×1080 GPUs and had an NTLM hash rate of around 180GH/s. Several years ago I realised that the box was sitting idle much of the...

The value of regulator-driven red teaming: CBEST

How do we in the UK avoid something like the Colonial Oil Pipeline ransomware attack happening? How would you feel if your mobile phone suddenly stopped working altogether? What if ambulances couldn’t respond to 999 emergency calls? What if the mechanism of government suddenly ground to a halt? T...

Revisiting old tools

Many, many years ago I was onsite and noticed that a company's internal website had checked out their website using the subversion code versioning system. This subversion archive contained the site's web.config which has a set of credentials for SQL server, which through many steps led to domain...

Speaking at security events

I don't claim to be an amazing speaker; I'm still in awe of great infosec speakers such as Mikko Hypponen, Charlie Miller, Mudge and many others. However, I do keep being invited back to speak at events, so I guess I'm doing something right. Sometimes it's a minor slot at a big event, but the...

Lojack’d: Pwning Smart vehicle trackers

This research is by @evstykas with help from @Yekki1 and @TheKenMunroShow. Many car insurers insist that smart trackers are fitted to high end vehicles. In the event of theft, the car can be tracked and recovered. Probably the most well-known is LoJack, also known as Tracker in Europe. We also...

Z-Shave. Exploiting Z-Wave downgrade attacks

TL;DR: Stronger S2 Z-Wave pairing security process can be downgraded to weak S0, exposing smart devices to compromise. Z-Wave uses a shared network key to secure traffic. This key is exchanged between the controller and the client devices ‘nodes’ when the devices are paired. The keys are used to...

Navigate FDA 524b to get your medical cyber device to market

With amendment 524b officially enacted, medical devices across the United States and the globe are living under some new rules and procedures. You’re not alone if you are finding these new regulations a bit complex. Changes to business practices – particularly ones that involve millions of...

Causing incidents with in-flight entertainment systems

Some odd things have happened on airplanes recently. The voice on the PA system on an American Airlines flight was one of these. Before the airline put out a response, we were asked to speculate about how it might have happened. American then discovered that there was an issue with one of the PA...

The reality of OT segregation

One of the areas I find most fascinating about industrial control systems and related operational technology is the perception that OT networks are segregated and isolated from the wider IT network. We’re often told that “IT and OT are totally separated” as there’s a genuine belief that OT is...

EFB Tampering. Approach and Landing Performance Part 2

Approach and Landing Performance Part 2: Approach Speeds, Cold Weather Corrections, Sources of Data Click here for part 1 Target: Approach speed calculation The speed at which aircraft fly on approach depends on a variety of factors including: Aircraft weight Flap setting Wind direction/speed Fin...

EFB Tampering. The Human Factor

Like most people, pilots want to expedite things and generally make their work easier. A common conception about aviation is that its a leading industry with technology at its forefront. While this is generally true some of the systems in use today are rather dated to put it mildly. A great examp...

OpSec. Expanding your search: Hunting domains

In the last few blogs I have introduced OSINT and OpSec, talked about leaky images and using Google Dorks and how to use those techniques specifically to examine your own corporate OpSec. One of the most important aspects is to understand how wide your target expands. Many companies own multiple...

Locking down your cyber life in lockdown

Today the NCSC refreshed their advice for online shoppers, so I thought it’d be handy to review and advise on other aspects of consumer security hygiene. More than ever, we’re reliant on technology, so now that we’re in various stages of lockdown it’s a great time to have a look at your home and...

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DEF CON 28: 747 Walkthrough from a Hacker’s Perspective

This post is a companion to the DEF CON 28 video available here Airframe tour Alex: Welcome to this virtual 747-400 walkthrough. One of the advantages of DEF CON Safe Mode this year is that we’re able to bring you things like this. Nothing beats being able to climb onboard and poke around a real...

Are you cyber seaworthy?

The decision to set sail in a commercial vessel rests with the captain. A captain with years of experience and training, who is skilled at sailing and navigating in all conditions. Increasingly, the state of a vessel’s cyber security will affect its seaworthiness. Yet in future we may expect a...

‘Secure by Design’ & SB-327. Standards for a secure IoT?

The ‘Secure by Design’ guidance for consumer IoT security from the UK's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport DCMS is coming shortly. In the meantime we’ve seen SB-327 from California legislators, mandating some basic security standards for consumer smart tech. Both are big steps...

Our capabilities. A story about what we can achieve

Introduction Over the years we have been fortunate to have been called upon to help with some challenging investigations. iPhone prize scams, ransomware attacks that weren't, aiding the Steele Dossier case, and even a fraudulent €14 million transfer. Here we've picked out the most interesting one...

Call centres. Outbound call verification

TL;DR: Stop asking customers to verify themselves Reduce friction and annoyance Empower your staff to be more effective Develop an alternative model that works best for you I’m sure we’ve all experienced authenticating ourselves when calling a company. You have a hopefully trusted contact number,...

London Councils & pirate books. Google dorking for subdomain takeovers

TL;DR Google dorks found me an exploited DigitalOcean subdomain takeover on London Councils’ .gov.uk domain It used a meta refresh to redirect to a site hosting unprovenanced PDFs London Councils had a security.txt file which made disclosure a doddle Their security team were awesome and fixed it...

Effecting positive change in the Internet of Things

Way back when… We started our journey back in the day when the IoT was in its infancy. Our first published research was in June 2015 with a post about extracting the Wi-Fi PSK from Fitbit’s Aria weighing scales. This led to a challenging disclosure process with Fitbit, though it ended positively...