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Syrian Electronic Army hacks Washington Post Web site

washingtonpost.com

31–40 of 46 posts

Re: Syrian Electronic Army hacks Washington Post Web site

#31
post #26

So if the most common way these hacker "groups" actually "hack" websites are through phishing attacks. How do protect against phishing attacks in a way that will stop them. Obviously educating Martha the secretary to not click links in emails from people she doesn't know isnt working. How can we make phishing attacks less successful or remove these attack style altogether. 9 times out of 10 when I hear about some maj…

In your contrived story: why did you choose a woman? and why did you pick on a secretary?

the undercurrents of misogyny is depressing.

Re: Syrian Electronic Army hacks Washington Post Web site

#33
post #24
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving SSH to a different port does nothing if your system is being specifically targeted, but it stops 99% of drive-by bots. Not that they do much anyway but it at least stops them from showing up in your logs.

Just out of interest I tried running on 22 and a very high random port, as you said significantly less, though not no attempts. I think it's a false sense of security more than anything.

Security through obscurity is generally frowned upon.

Re: Syrian Electronic Army hacks Washington Post Web site

#34
post #26

So if the most common way these hacker "groups" actually "hack" websites are through phishing attacks. How do protect against phishing attacks in a way that will stop them. Obviously educating Martha the secretary to not click links in emails from people she doesn't know isnt working. How can we make phishing attacks less successful or remove these attack style altogether. 9 times out of 10 when I hear about some maj…

That's a _really_ tough thing to solve. If your opponent has rooted the box of someone with credentials, they're going to get those credentials. If you want any kind of remote work productivity though, you're going to have to let them access your system from networks you don't control and can't lock down.

It's one thing to lock everyone out if you're Booz Allen, but another if you've got journalists on the ground in Cairo competing with Twitter to break news.

The easiest way is to IP limit any services with user privileges.

IP's can be spoofed though, and then you're severely limiting your ability to work flexibly, which doesn't go well for journalists.

Two Factor Auth is another technique that's really coming into it's own now among web systems, but again not super great if someone loses their smartphone or RSA dongle while running from a gunfight and needs to access the system NOW.

I work on the assumption that any password can be compromised at any time, so the system should be able to lock out and roll back a user's edits ASAP, and content-creating users shouldn't be able to get any code executing on the server. Easier said than done with most CMS's though...

Re: Syrian Electronic Army hacks Washington Post Web site

#35
post #11

So many media sites have a ton of javascript widgets: ad networks serving third-party ads serving third-party tracking scripts, recommendation tools, analytics, etc. It really increases the attack surface. How do publishers know that the scripts that go on their pages are safe?

Publishers should use AdSafe[1], which is a system for sandboxing widgets. AdSafe provides widget authors an API for access object properties and the DOM, as well as a static check to ensure that widgets are using this API properly. Given that the static check passes, and the library implementing the API is correct, then your widget is properly sandboxed and attacks like that can't happen. Check out the AdSafety paper[2] for more details about the extent to which AdSafe has been verified.

Disclosure: I'm an author on the paper.

EDIT: Here's a great talk by Arjun on AdSafety: https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenix-security-11/adsafet...

[1]: http://www.adsafe.org/

[2]: http://cs.brown.edu/research/plt/dl/adsafety/v1

Re: Syrian Electronic Army hacks Washington Post Web site

#36
post #26

So if the most common way these hacker "groups" actually "hack" websites are through phishing attacks. How do protect against phishing attacks in a way that will stop them. Obviously educating Martha the secretary to not click links in emails from people she doesn't know isnt working. How can we make phishing attacks less successful or remove these attack style altogether. 9 times out of 10 when I hear about some maj…

In your contrived story: why did you choose a woman? and why did you pick on a secretary? the undercurrents of misogyny is depressing.

I'm not entirely convinced this was misogynist.

Right now, I'm trying to think of jobs for a news provider that wouldn't require tech savvy. "Secretary" is the only one that comes to mind. Secretaries are stereotypically women.

Re: Syrian Electronic Army hacks Washington Post Web site

#37
post #23
post #11

So many media sites have a ton of javascript widgets: ad networks serving third-party ads serving third-party tracking scripts, recommendation tools, analytics, etc. It really increases the attack surface. How do publishers know that the scripts that go on their pages are safe?

That is the risk you take with ads, and to answer your question: they don't know if it's safe. Frankly it would be nice to not run third-party scripts completely outside of your control , but ad networks would never comply with such a one-sided relationship.

Never is a challenging word to say. Once upon a time, banners were only images.

On at least one site I frequent, the served advertising images are gifs.

Re: Syrian Electronic Army hacks Washington Post Web site

#38
post #11

So many media sites have a ton of javascript widgets: ad networks serving third-party ads serving third-party tracking scripts, recommendation tools, analytics, etc. It really increases the attack surface. How do publishers know that the scripts that go on their pages are safe?

Publishers should use AdSafe[1], which is a system for sandboxing widgets. AdSafe provides widget authors an API for access object properties and the DOM, as well as a static check to ensure that widgets are using this API properly. Given that the static check passes, and the library implementing the API is correct, then your widget is properly sandboxed and attacks like that can't happen. Check out the AdSafety pape…

AFAIK, there was nothing vulnerable in the widget itself: the hackers accessed Outbrain's admin panel, and changed the content of their recommended links to point to their website instead.

The hackers posted screenshots of accessing the admin panel: http://mashable.com/2013/08/15/outbrain-hacked/

Re: Syrian Electronic Army hacks Washington Post Web site

#40
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of interest I tried running on 22 and a very high random port, as you said significantly less, though not no attempts. I think it's a false sense of security more than anything.

Security through obscurity is generally frowned upon.

Yes, but in combination with good practice, it doesn't hurt.
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