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How I Cracked a Keylogger and Ended Up in Someone's Inbox

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Re: How I Cracked a Keylogger and Ended Up in Someone's Inbox

#61
post #41

Aha I love those little messages at the end telling users to update their software to the latest version. It's a cry to the void.

On one hand, the average user will never update his software unless you literally force them to. On the other hand, your free upgrade to Windows 10 is ready. Would you like to install it right now or later tonight?

Damn it, even Linux wants me to get windows 10 now?

Re: How I Cracked a Keylogger and Ended Up in Someone's Inbox

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days I'd be worried about CFAA or otherwise getting V& for this. In the "good old days", it was possible to get away with and laugh about this type of vigilante justice. These days though, you're more likely to wind up in prison. No longer worth it for lulz. Sad times now, but good memories.

What they did at the time would still have definitely been illegal. Probably not any more illegal than it is now. I doubt they'd be prosecuted, but breaking into any system is illegal.

I'd just be afraid I'd have rotten luck and wind up on the wrong person's computer (government, big business, etc) because they happened to be part of a bot net. (I'm not ready to move to Moscow quite yet)

Re: How I Cracked a Keylogger and Ended Up in Someone's Inbox

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

broadly speaking, how would you design things? All I can think of doing is putting explicit permission grants on everything, requiring everyone to click a million times as was done with the first version of Vista's UAC, IIRC, which is no solution IMO.

ever heard of code signing ? Maybe MSFT could use some of its 23 BILLION dollars of yearly profit to test some of the programs and conditionally approve them if they pass muster, also based on the historical reputation of the signer (like ebay feedback). Then if they contain sleeper code or other exploits, the keys are pulled, updates are pushed to ALL users of the program that revokes the key, thereby preventing mas…

Sure, because it is not like anyone would accuse them of abusive business practices and of trying to kill open source if they made it impossible to run software not signed by them... /s

Even if you assume they would add a UEFI "enable developer mode" setting, this would get them so much bad press (and, also, it would actually make developing and distributing software on Windows a lot harder for smaller and open-source developers, and deploying custom software harder for enterprise costumers).

Re: How I Cracked a Keylogger and Ended Up in Someone's Inbox

#64
post #28
post #16

Website that we were running was under DDOS couple of years ago, what we did is we took ips of servers that made ddos. Then we scanned the ports, found vulnerability in the application that was running on it then get into the server using this vulnerability. We checked open connections and found one used for command and control server (irc server) then we listened to irc channel. DDOSers were talking private things o…

I’ve had a very similar experience – I’m surprised I’m not the only one who did that. I’d have expected the DDoSers to have better security

Botnets have notoriously bad security. Many of the people running them have no technical knowledge and/or are using "cracked" versions of paid botnet software that are backdoored or intentionally left unsecured. A lot of the software is heavily modified or even left incomplete by the person that leaked it, leading to vulnerabilities open to anybody with some technical competence and the time to poke around a little.

Re: How I Cracked a Keylogger and Ended Up in Someone's Inbox

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ever heard of code signing ? Maybe MSFT could use some of its 23 BILLION dollars of yearly profit to test some of the programs and conditionally approve them if they pass muster, also based on the historical reputation of the signer (like ebay feedback). Then if they contain sleeper code or other exploits, the keys are pulled, updates are pushed to ALL users of the program that revokes the key, thereby preventing mas…

Sure, because it is not like anyone would accuse them of abusive business practices and of trying to kill open source if they made it impossible to run software not signed by them... /s Even if you assume they would add a UEFI "enable developer mode" setting, this would get them so much bad press (and, also, it would actually make developing and distributing software on Windows a lot harder for smaller and open-sourc…

One of the things I love to criticize MS for is their "user account control" : gee, looks like you're actually trying to....USE.... your computer for something. You know, actually ...USING...your computer might damage it. Since making a secure platform isn't profitable, we'll just make the screen darker, cause you know, darkness kills the spyware.

See, the signing system doesn't have to be mandated. It could pop up a UAC-like screen but with an actually useful message: this code is known to have malware, we recommend you dont run it. If you absolutely want to, press OK at your own risk.

Another message could say it's completely unsigned, so devs could still write and distribute their own code. But make it free to submit to the "app store" and get reviewed by MS. That would work wonders to improve security across their whole ecosystem, and not force anything down the users' throats.

Re: How I Cracked a Keylogger and Ended Up in Someone's Inbox

#68
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or had no authentication at all, just authorization. imagine having only a openid password to memorize... one can dream right

Wouldn't that just consolidate the attackable footprint? What if openid, or your openid account, got hacked?

Eh same is for email. Anyone with acces to that can trigger a password recovery exchange on most sites or pass an id verification check on the stricter ones.

Re: How I Cracked a Keylogger and Ended Up in Someone's Inbox

#69

Is the header sticky for anyone else? It seems to take up ~30% of my screen (Windows 7, Chrome Stable) [0]. [0] http://puu.sh/pNYUH/d42d8395fc.jpg

This bookmarklet was well received last time I mentioned it, so I'll link it again: https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/ Finds anything with position:fixed and deletes it. Reload the page to get the elements back if needed.

A more sensible solution would be to convert all fixed elements into "position: absolute" ones. That is less prone to cause errors and avoids impeding navigation.

Re: How I Cracked a Keylogger and Ended Up in Someone's Inbox

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they did at the time would still have definitely been illegal. Probably not any more illegal than it is now. I doubt they'd be prosecuted, but breaking into any system is illegal.

I'd just be afraid I'd have rotten luck and wind up on the wrong person's computer (government, big business, etc) because they happened to be part of a bot net. (I'm not ready to move to Moscow quite yet)

> I'm not ready to move to Moscow quite yet

Me neither, it's damn expensive

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