Bluetooth + Electrical switchgear

The ongoing rapid growth of Industrial IoT IIoT across all business sectors continues to bring to focus the discrepancies that exist between the approaches to safety and cyber-security on safety critical sites. Safety has been culturally ingrained into all aspects of industrial site operations fo...

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...

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...

RCEs and more in the KUNBUS GmbH Revolution Pi PLC

TL;DR Four new vulnerabilities in the Revolution Pi industrial PLCs Two give unauthenticated attackers RCE—potentially a direct impact on safety and operations Documentation and firmware is public, meaning greater oversight and better security in the long run KUNBUS’ PSIRT and CISA were great at...

Information disclosure through insecure design

Introduction Insecure design can lead to many issues. The Software Development Life Cycle SDLC should contain steps to evaluate and consider security throughout the process. Several recent web application and API tests have revealed a common issue of responses containing too much data, and leakin...

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...

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 ...

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 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...

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,...

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,...

Cyber security for Credit Unions 101

American consumers have two clear yet vastly differing choices when it comes to banking. Many opt for a large-sized national or regional bank. Folks select this option for a variety of reasons, typically due to the vast services and ease of use these powerhouses provide. Roughly 60% of Americans...

Mobile malware analysis for the BBC

This is a version of our report referenced in the Helping a mobile malware fraud victim blog post, with all sensitive information removed. Summary One malicious application was identified on the device, and evidence identified during the examination strong suggests though this cannot be confirmed...

3yrs of CAA ASSURE assessments. What we’ve learned

Introduction Were now in our third year of CREST CAA ASSURE auditing and weve learned a lot. The Cyber Assessment Framework CAF is big, theres no denying that. It’s not something that you can complete overnight, it’s not something that requires minimal effort and can just be thrown at an auditor ...

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...

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...

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...

Constrained environment breakout. .NET Assembly exfiltration via Internet Options

It’s not uncommon for developers to find that they need to help their end users. For starter, the business requirements for software can be highly convoluted and technical. Working with banking systems, insurance firms, actuarial services etc, most developers aren’t going to understand the proces...

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...

Snakes and Ladder Logic

A click to a reverse shell in OpenPLC and ladder logic OR Why you shouldn’t run everything as root in PLC and RTUs. TL;DR Most of the RTU’s and PLC’s that run a Unix based OS that we test and, and some devices on Windows that we’ve tested on maritime engagements, run as root and/or admin. They al...

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...

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 ...

BEC-ware the Phish (part 2): Respond and Remediate Incidents in M365

TL;DR Ensure you can reliably take initial containment actions such as disabling accounts, resetting passwords, and revoking tokens. Token binding ensures that a token only works on the specific device the token was issued and is currently the best protection against token theft. As a minimum...

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...

Speed 2 – The Poseidon Adventure – Part Two

This post is a companion to the DEF CON 28 video available here Part One is available here Issue 3: Time and Tide Wait for No VLAN As mentioned the cabin switch appeared to be the key to all our access requirements. From that we could get to the trunk network, and all those TV, VOIP, and Wi-Fi...

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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...

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...

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...

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...

We need to talk about sex toys and cyber security

Introduction We’ve written about the appalling security of smart sex toys over the years. Finally, an invite came to give a talk on the subject to a TEDx audience. I debated whether to give the talk with colleagues, as we’ve never wanted to be pigeon-holed in this space! But we felt that public...

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...

Cloud-y, with a chance of hacking all the wireless things

Grandstream are a provider of IP video and voice services, as well as Wi-Fi and other related services and equipment. Their products are sold in over 150 countries and they have offices around the globe. We were having a look at their GWN.Cloud management platform, used for remote device and...

Threat modelling and IoT hubs

IoT hubs are increasingly being used to provide a single point of access to the myriad of smart devices in the home. One ring to rule them all, if rather than multiple apps for different devices. When reviewing devices we often start with the single biggest security threat: unauthorised access to...

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...

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,...

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...

Cockpit door lock auto-unlock is no surprise

TL;DR Through reverse engineering a cockpit door lock controller several years ago, we’ve known about the auto-unlatch issue We couldn’t publish owing to the risk to flight safety, even though some airplane type manuals already described the behaviour in a depressurisation event Now that the Alas...

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...

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...

Carbon reduction at PTP

Introduction I’ve been a bit of an eco-warrior since I got my first electric car in 2015, and I’ve been on a personal mission since then to reduce my carbon footprint. I realised I could do more for the environment if I could get Pen Test Partners PTP on board with some carbon reduction ideas too...

DEF CON 30. Hacking EFBs. Engine Performance

At DEF CON 30 this year we demonstrated some vulnerabilities in electronic flight bags and the potential impact on flight safety. There’s plenty more detail of EFB security issues here. As part of the Aerospace Village at DEF CON 30, we invited people to fly our flight sim under instruction from...

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...

OAuth consent phishing, in the wild

TL;DR An interesting incident response investigation showed exploitation of a recent OAuth related consent-phishing issue. We had been asked to investigate as the organisation had noticed some odd behaviours in the mailbox of one of the exec team. The mailbox was being queried using GraphAPI and...

Kids Tracker Watches: CloudPets, exploiting athletes and hijacking reality TV

Kids smart tracker watch security: everyone has missed the point. It’s not a few thousand here and there. It’s at least 47 million, probably around 150 million exposed tracking devices. It all points back to two or three lazy device manufacturers, much like Mirai v1 did There have been lots of...

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...

‘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...

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...

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...

Audio bugging with the Fisher Price Chatter Bluetooth Telephone

The Fisher Price Chatter Bluetooth Telephone is a reincarnation of a familiar kids toy. It acts as a Bluetooth headset, so the user can connect their smartphone to it and take calls using the kids phone handset. Cute! Unfortunately, little to no consideration has been given to privacy and securit...