Is Your Router Vulnerable to VPNFilter Malware?

The Justice Department last week urged everyone with a small office home office (SOHO) or NAS device to reboot their gadgets immediately in order to thwart VPNFilter, a new strain of malware that can brick your router.

The FBI seized a domain used to send commands to the infected devices, but it can't hurt to reboot anyway.

As Symantec outlines, VPNFilter is "a multi-staged piece of malware." Stage 1 makes the connection, Stage 2 delivers the goods, and Stage 3 acts as plugins for Stage 2. "These include a packet sniffer for spying on traffic that is routed through the device, including theft of website credentials and monitoring of Modbus SCADA protocols. Another Stage 3 module allows Stage 2 to communicate using Tor."

VPNFilter "is unlike most other IoT threats because it is capable of maintaining a persistent presence on an infected device, even after a reboot," Symantec says.

Still, "rebooting will remove Stage 2 and any Stage 3 elements present on the device, [temporarily removing] the destructive component of VPNFilter. However, if infected, the continuing presence of Stage 1 means that Stages 2 and 3 can be reinstalled by the attackers."

Those who believe they're infected should do a hard reset, which restores factory settings. Look for a small reset button on your device, though this will wipe any credentials you have stored on the device.

Below is a list of routers Symantec identified as vulnerable to VPNFilter. MikroTik tells Symantec that VPNFilter likely proliferated via a bug in MikroTik RouterOS software, which it patched in March 2017. "Upgrading RouterOS software deletes VPNFilter, any other third-party files and patches the vulnerability," Symantec says.

• Linksys E1200
• Linksys E2500
• Linksys WRVS4400N
• Mikrotik RouterOS for Cloud Core Routers: Versions 1016, 1036, and 1072
• Netgear DGN2200
• Netgear R6400
• Netgear R7000
• Netgear R8000
• Netgear WNR1000
• Netgear WNR2000
• QNAP TS251
• QNAP TS439 Pro
• Other QNAP NAS devices running QTS software
• TP-Link R600VPN

"No other vendors, including Cisco, have been observed as infected by VPNFilter, but our research continues," according to Cisco Talos, which first reported the bug.

To date, Cisco Talos estimates that at least 500,000 in at least 54 countries have been hit by VPNFilter.

The feds are pinning this attack on Fancy Bear, a hacking group also known as APT28 and Sofacy Group, among other monikers. The group is notorious for attacking governments across the world and stealing confidential files from the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election.

via PCMag

Password Hacking and You

There are 2 primary methods to hack passwords: Brute Force and Password Guessing. Of the 2, believe it or not, it is easier to guess someone’s password than to try every combination of letters, numbers and symbols. In a brute force attack, password attempts would progress from: a, b, c; to aa, ab, ac; to aaa, aab, aac; and so on.  

The core question is not, “Can my password be hacked?”, but rather “How long would it take?”. That’s where password entropy comes into play for our (the user’s) benefit. Loosely defined, entropy is disorder. Since a brute force attack is a very orderly attack, the more disorder you have in your password = better.  

Numbers Game
With 5 lower case characters, an online attack would get your password right in an average of 1 hour, 21 minutes. However, by introducing say a capital letter, a number, and a special character, that time rises to around 1.5 months.

With 7 lower case characters, a brute force attack would consume ~3.2 months, but if you introduce those other random characters, it rockets up to an average of 11 centuries! Taking it even further, at 8 characters the online crack time goes to 1,000 centuries which is effectively long enough to be considered near impossible under current computing capabilities.  

That said, if the hacker is able to do an offline, or massive cracking array scenario, the password can again be deduced in a matter of hours. As such, even though the typical minimum / safe password length is 8 characters, what you use as your password matters even more.

Simplicity Opens the Door
Every attempt to get your password will begin with guessing. According to a released “hack file” of 5 million passwords, we know what the most common passwords are, so hackers will start there.

Top passwords for 2016:

123456, password, 12345, 12345678, football, qwerty, 1234567890, 1234567, princess, 1234, login, welcome, solo, abc123, admin, 121212, flower, passw0rd, dragon, sunshine, master, hottie, loveme, zaq1zaq1, password1

4% of the passwords were “123456”! That’s 200,000 people in the sample set with that password!

Apps for Finding Wi-Fi Hotspots – Top List

Whether you are at home or in public, you might be looking for apps for finding Wi-Fi Hotspots. There are a ton of apps out there that can help you find Wi-Fi Hotspots. Since there are so many choices, we know that it can be difficult to find the best ones out of the thousands available. We thought we would tell you the best apps for finding Wi-Fi Hotspots.

These apps will all help you find where you can connect to the Internet from your mobile device without issues and for free. Read on to learn about the best apps for finding Wi-Fi Hotspots that you can begin using today for free Internet on mobile.

Top 5 Apps for Finding Wi-Fi Hotspots

WiFi Finder- WiFi Finder by SpeedSpot is on our list of the best apps for finding Wi-Fi Hotspots. This is a free app on IOS and Android and it allows you to find Wi-Fi anywhere. There is an Offline Map as well that allows you to see Wi-Fi even disconnected. There is a crowdsource to this app which is where all of the hotspots come from. That also means you are looking at the most reliable and up-to-date information possible.

You will be able to download the Wi-Fi hotspot map so that you can look at it while in offline mode as well. You can filter by location and by quickest connection. The database is huge so there is always going to be a list of several Wi-Fi hotspots no matter where you live or are at. There is a way to rate each hotspot by the speed and you can search based on numerous filters.

Wiffinity- Wiffinity is also on our list of the best apps for finding Wi-Fi Hotspots. This is a free Android and iOS app where you can find Wi-Fi anywhere. There are over 300,000 hotspots available in this app, which is more than most other Wi-Fi hotspot apps. You do not need to register for this app or sign up, which is really nice. There is also offline mode available so you can find the hotspots even while off the Internet.

Wiffinity is very simple to use and it will show you the database containing all of the hotpots and passwords. There are many countries that this app works for including Rome, Spain, Amsterdam, and Barcelona. The best part about Wiffinity is that the database is so expansive. There is literally not one location you cannot find a hotspot for using this app.

WiFi Magic by Mandic Passwords– If you are looking for one of the best apps for finding Wi-Fi Hotspots then look no further than WiFi Magic. This app is free on iOS and Android and is developed by Mandic Passwords. This app will contain all of the passwords for the Wi-Fi hotspots. It is great to use while out and about. Whether you are at Starbucks or a local hotel, you can use this app to find the password to get into the hotspot. No longer will you need to ask the staff anymore to get the password.

This app is community-based, which means people contribute and share Wi-Fi passwords. This is only for the public Wi-Fi networks though. You will not be able to access private networks with the app. There are purchases you can make in the app to remove the advertisements as well. This app will also help you find the local Wi-Fi hotspots in your area. It is very simple to use and Wi-Fi Magic really will leave you feeling as if you witnessed magic with how quick it is.

Avast Wi-Fi Finder- Avast Wi-Fi Finder also makes our list of the best apps for finding Wi-Fi Hotspots. This is a free app on iOS and Android and it allows you to find the secure Wi-Fi locations. You will find the public free hotspots using this app and all of the spots were verified before hand by real people. This allows you to connect securely and safely to various Wi-Fi hotspots.

All of the Wi-Fi hotspots are reliable and you can check the speed and security of each network before you connect. If you are worried about security, this is one of the best apps for finding Wi-Fi Hotspots. There are security ratings, privacy warnings, and scans that are done on the networks to ensure they are safe. Definitely one of the best apps you can use on either Android or iOS to connect safely to public free Wi-Fi hotspots.

Hotspot Finder– Lastly, on our list of the best apps for finding Wi-Fi Hotspots we have Hotspot Finder. This app is free on iOS and it will tell you where all of the hotspots are near you. This app also has reviews and business information from Yelp for each location. You will be able to look at the map to see the various Wi-Fi hotspots and also search for a hotspot. You can choose to look at the hotspots in a list view as well, which is pretty cool.

This app is great because it will show you both the free Wi-Fi hotspots and the ones you will need to pay for. You will be able to look up a lot of different information with Hotspot Finder. With this app, you can also save the various hotspots that you want as a favorite. This allows you to quickly and easily access that hotspot again when you are in that area.

Malware Drone Steals Data Off Computer Hard Drive

Researchers at Ben-Gurion University’s cybersecurity lab have come up with a way to use malware installed on a drone to steal data off of computers by watching the optical stream of the LED on the computers’ hard drives and sending it to a camera outside the window.

The drone that steals data was created to showcase how the researchers developed a method to get around a security protection dubbed an “air gap” in which sensitive computer systems are separated from the internet to keep the information protected from hackers. If a hacker can put malware on one of the systems, it can quickly steal the secrets off a machine that is supposed to be isolated and thus protected. According to a report highlighting the demonstration, every blink of a hard drive’s LED indicator can provide sensitive information to a hacker with a line of sight to the computer, whether it’s by using a drone or a telescopic lens.

“If an attacker has a foothold in your air-gapped system, the malware still can send the data out to the attacker,” said Ben-Gurion researcher Mordechai Guri said in the report. “We found that the small hard drive indicator LED can be controlled at up to 6,000 blinks per second. We can transmit data in a very fast way at a very long distance.”

According to the report, exploiting the LED on a computer’s hard drive has the potential to be a much sneakier and longer-distance hack than seen in the past. The researchers in their demonstration were able to move data at around 4,000 bits a second, which the report noted is close to a megabyte per half hour. The person receiving the data can then record it and use optical messages at a later time to decode all the information. What’s more, Guri said the malware can even replay the LED blinks in a loop so that every part of a transmission can be seen.

via pymnts

little snitch for mac

Can I purchase a dedicated Static IP address?

Can I purchase a dedicated Static IP address?

Do video chat services and Skype work with on the network?

Do video chat services and Skype work with on the network?

Can I setup a home network on this connection?

Can I setup a home network on this connection?

What devices can connect?

What devices can connect?

Your Android phone is a SNITCH: Wi-Fi bug makes you easy to track

Your mobile device could be compromising your privacy by broadcasting your location history over the air, even when it is in sleep mode, according to new research by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Of particular concern are newer Android gadgets, specifically those running Android 3.1 "Honeycomb" or later. That version of the Google OS introduced a feature called Preferred Network Offload (PNO), which has a habit of broadcasting the names of the last 15 Wi-Fi networks a device has joined, even when the screen is off.

The idea is to conserve battery by allowing a phone to connect to known Wi-Fi networks even while in sleep mode, since Wi-Fi uses less power than the mobile data radio. The problem, the EFF says, is that your wireless network history can give a worryingly accurate and thorough picture of your movements.

"This data is arguably more dangerous than that leaked in previous location data scandals because it clearly denotes in human language places that you've spent enough time to use the Wi-Fi," the EFF's Peter Eckersley and Jeremy Gillula write in a blog post. "Normally eavesdroppers would need to spend some effort extracting this sort of information from the latitude/longitude history typically discussed in location privacy analysis. But even when networks seem less identifiable, there are ways to look them up."

Networking history can also be used as a general-purpose identifier. For example, if a person is carrying a mobile device that has recently accessed the Wi-Fi networks at your home, your work, and your union hall, there's a good chance that person is you. Even if you buy a new phone every week, as long as you keep connecting to Wi-Fi, snoops can spot you.

Not every Android device is affected. The EFF tested 28 handsets and found that while several Google Nexus devices and several Motorola Droid models leaked Wi-Fi network data, other newer Android devices – including the Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4 – did not.

Neither did any of the iOS devices tested, including the iPhone 5s and 5c and going back to the iPhone 4 running iOS 6.

But the trouble is that without testing, there's no way to know whether a particular device exhibits this behavior or not. For example, while the HTC One was found to leak Wi-Fi data, the HTC One Mini did not.

The EFF says it has brought the issue to Google's attention and that a patch that fixes the issue has already been submitted to the Android Open Source Project. But it also points out that it could be a long time before that fixed code makes it into a mainstream Android release, and even then, convincing device makers to release patches for older phones could be a lost cause.

And even though iOS looks to be in the clear – at least, as far as the recent versions that the EFF tested are concerned – the issue affects more platforms than just Android.

"Many laptops are affected, including all OS X laptops and many Windows 7 laptops," the EFF explains. "Desktop OSes will need to be fixed, but because our laptops are not usually awake and scanning for networks as we walk around, locational history extraction from them requires considerably more luck or targeting."

The EFF didn't test any of the less-popular mobile platforms, either, such as BlackBerry, Firefox OS, Sailfish, Tizen, or Windows Phone.

As for Android, the EFF says the only way to be certain that you're unaffected by the issue is to go into your phone's "Advanced Wi-Fi" settings and set "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" to "Off." Unfortunately, this means your phone will fall back to the mobile data network while the screen is off, which will increase mobile data usage and power consumption.

"Location history is extremely sensitive information. We urge Google to ship their fix as soon as possible, and other Android distributors to offer prompt updates containing it," the EFF says. 

via register