Computers-Hacking
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Title: My browser visited Weather.com and all I got was this lousy malware [also Drudge, Wunderground, Yahoo]
Source:
Ars Technica
URL Source: http://arstechnica.com/security/201 ... -i-got-was-this-lousy-malware/
Published: Aug 15, 2015
Author: Dan Goodin
Post Date: 2015-08-15 11:27:29 by Tooconservative
Keywords: None
Views: 16465
Comments: 77
Millions of people visiting weather.com, drudgereport.com, wunderground.com, and other popular websites were exposed to attacks that can surreptitiously hijack their computers, thanks to maliciously manipulated ads that exploit vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash and other browsing software, researchers said. The malvertising campaign worked by inserting malicious code into ads distributed by AdSpirit.de, a network that delivers ads to Drudge, Wunderground, and other third-party websites, according to a post published Thursday by researchers from security firm Malwarebytes. The ads, in turn, exploited security vulnerabilities in widely used browsers and browser plugins that install malware on end-user computers. The criminals behind the campaign previously carried out a similar attack on Yahoo's ad network, exposing millions more people to the same drive-by attacks. Update: A few hours after Ars published this article, Malwarebytes updated the blog post to say the campaign had moved to yet another ad network, which happens to be associated with AOL. Visitors to eBay were among those who were exposed to the malicious ads distributed through the newly discovered network. Malvertising is a particularly pernicious form of attack because it can infect people who do nothing more than browse to a mainstream site. Depending on the exploit, it can silently hijack computers even when visitors don't click on links. Some browser makers have responded by implementing so-called click-to-play mechanisms that don't render Flash or Java content unless the end user actively permits the plugin to run on a particular site. Some users have resorted to ad blockers, which have the unfortunate side effect of depriving publishers of much-needed advertising revenue. The campaign used against the AdSpirit and Yahoo networks connected to servers run by Microsoft's Azure service. Ultimately, the booby-trapped ads led to attack code distributed through the Angler exploit kit, a software package sold on the black market that makes it easy for criminals to exploit vulnerabilities in Flash, Java, and other software. The AdSpirit attacks were particularly hard to trace because most of the websites involved in the attack were using the transport layer security protocol to obscure the address and encrypt the data. There's no indication the attacks were exploiting vulnerabilities in fully patched software. That underscores the importance of installing security updates as soon as they become available. Poster Comment: Install adblockers to be more secure. Ad Block Plus is the classic extension most people use. It has started to allow some "safe non-abusive" ads to slip through. So, after years of being loyal to ADP, I gave it up and moved to uBlock Origin 1.0.0.1 recently. 
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 23.
#1. To: TooConservative (#0)
Your lite-weight recommendations for surfing the web are not just silly but invites further intrusion into one's privacy.
Pardon me if I think your opinion is worthless. Adblockers have proven their value over and over at resisting malware and reducing network congestion. It isn't even debatable among tech types.
You don't need ad blockers. You need a REAL browser.
What "real browser" are you using that is malware-resistant without adblockers/NoScript/Ghostery/etc.? Lynx? Name this browser.
anonymous
TOR with TAILS (thumb)?
Tor is horribly slow to start with, even more so if you allow all the ads and scripts to load. And Tor doesn't do anything to protect you from browser attacks, either from malicious websites or hacked ad server networks. Can't be Tor.
Tor with Tails on a thumb drive leaves your computer totally immune. How does it get attacked?
I'm not sure where you read that but it isn't true. Even assuming that Tor was secure and anonymous, it does nothing to protect your browser from malicious websites and hacked ad server networks. Nothing, nada. No more than using VPN or other proxies protect you from server-based attacks.
Even assuming that Tor was secure and anonymous, it does nothing to protect your browser from malicious websites and hacked ad server networks. Nothing, nada. No more than using VPN or other proxies protect you from server-based attacks. If I'm running an operating system on a thumb drive, what are you hacking besides the thumb drive? TAILS - The Amnesiac Incognito Live System. No new programs. No saves. Upon shutoff, it leaves a completely blank slate of all history. It worked for Edward Snowden. Apparently, it works for Glenn Greenwald. http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/29/5664884/this-is-the-most-secure-computer-you-ll-ever-own [extract]
From the TAILS website: Posted Sun 09 Aug 2015 01:02:03 AM CEST Numerous security holes in Tails 1.4 Posted Sun 28 Jun 2015 01:02:03 AM CEST TAILS 1.5 is now out. How secure is TAILS if they find new and "numerous security holes" every 10 days or so? And, nolu, are you actually posting here at LF right now using TAILS? Do you actually use what you are recommending for others to use?
#27. To: TooConservative, (#23)
Posted Sun 09 Aug 2015 01:02:03 AM CEST Numerous security holes in Tails 1.4 Posted Sun 28 Jun 2015 01:02:03 AM CEST http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/29/5664884/this-is-the-most-secure-computer-you-ll-ever-own Tails is the secure system that protected Edward Snowden. Here's how it works. By Russell Brandom on April 29, 2014 01:34 pm From the moment you boot up, your computer leaves footprints. Websites leave tracking cookies, following you from page to page and session to session, alongside the usual traces left by your IP address. Persistent logins from Google and Facebook tie each site visit to your offline identity. If anyone really wants to go after you, they can also make a direct attack, targeting malware to track your movements in the background. With the right tools, a computer is an open book. Not this computer, though. It's running Tails, an open-source operating system designed to leave as little trace as possible, launching version 1.0 today after more than five years of open development. It's an amnesiac system, which means it's completely fresh every time you boot up. There are no save files, no new programs, and most importantly, it becomes a blank slate the moment you shut down. It's the digital equivalent of buying a new computer for a single session and tossing it into the river once you're done. That trick has earned Tails a lot of attention. It’s already standard software at Glenn Greenwald’s First Look Media, where he’s called it “vital to my ability to work securely on the NSA story.” Tor researcher Jacob Appelbaum praised the project onstage at this year's Chaos Communications Congress, and in March Tails received a $50,000 grant to keep the project going. Nearly 8,500 computers booted up with Tails on a given day in March, 500 more than the month before. Those are surprisingly high numbers for a project that’s this hard to use, and does this little. But if you need a secure line, Tails is the best way to get it. In the era of the NSA, that’s a rare thing. Tails works by booting your computer off of an external disk — usually a USB drive, an SD card or a CD — but getting Tails onto the right storage drive is harder than it sounds. Ideally, you’d keep it on a CD: once it’s burned into the plastic, the code can't be changed, making it completely immune to malware. But with new versions being released every few months (and plenty of laptops going without CD drives), a USB stick can be more convenient. We used Rufus to make a bootable version on a USB drive and SD card, but even then, certain flash drives simply won’t work with Tails. There are ways to add encrypted storage or persistent programs too, but each extra feature is also a new chance for security problems. Getting Tails onto a computer isn’t straightforward either. There’s a long list of computers that can’t run the OS, and it includes most of the computers made by Apple. We spent the better part of a day trying to launch it on a Toshiba Kirabook, only to have Windows 8 punch through every time. It ends up working best on machines that are Linux-friendly, without anything like a high-powered video card to trip things up. There are a few different stable setups, but lots of ways to accidentally break your own security. In exchange for all the troubleshooting, you get an unusual kind of anonymity. Keeping the operating system on a disk means you’re operating independent of the computer, picking nothing up and leaving nothing behind. It also makes your setup portable. You can launch Tails from an internet cafe and know that none of the programs on the public computer will get in the way of what you’re doing. The new versions of Tails will even hide you within a local network, randomizing the computer’s MAC address to make you even harder to track. None of the methods are completely impenetrable, but together they add up to a major headache for anyone trying to follow you across the web. "Even if the developers wanted to put in a backdoor, they couldn't" Getting there has been a five-year process, with developers working in their spare time on a miniscule budget — less than $60,000 a year in donations, before the recent grant. The code has been open for review at every stage, and after each release, auditors have found holes in Tails' security, creative ways an attacker might circumvent the program. The holes are patched a few months later, then new holes are discovered, then those holes are patched a few months after that. By now, this process has repeated more than 30 times. It's the nature of open-source development, a messy, public process that produces secure software through a slow grind of bug hunts. That parade of public security failings is meant to make users feel safe. If there's a problem in security at any level, you'll know about it, and the team will be under pressure to fix it as soon as possible. It's the same open workflow that built Tor and PGP, and stumbled more recently with the Heartbleed bug. But it means that even if the developers wanted to put in a backdoor, they couldn't. Even more remarkable, no one knows who's behind it all. The development team works under pseudonyms and their legal names have never been publicly revealed. "Some of us want to remain anonymous," the Tails developers told me from a group email account. "Some of us simply believe that our work, what we do, and how we do it, should be enough." As open source software, the LINUX source code is under constant review. Security problems are reported. Who thinks Windows is more secure than LINUX? Tails is a live operating system, that you can start on almost any computer from a DVD, USB stick, or SD card. It aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity, and helps you to: use the Internet anonymously and circumvent censorship; all connections to the Internet are forced to go through the Tor network; leave no trace on the computer you are using unless you ask it explicitly; use state-of-the-art cryptographic tools to encrypt your files, emails and instant messaging. Homepage - https://tails.boum.org/
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestInstall adblockers to be more secure. Ad Block Plus is the classic extension most people use. It has started to allow some "safe non-abusive" ads to slip through. So, after years of being loyal to ADP, I gave it up and moved to uBlock Origin 1.0.0.1 recently.(1 image)
#2. To: buckeroo (#1)
#3. To: TooConservative (#2)
#4. To: buckeroo (#3)
You don't need ad blockers. You need a REAL browser.
#7. To: TooConservative (#4)
Name this browser.
#11. To: buckeroo, TooConservative (#7)
anonymous
#12. To: nolu chan (#11)
TOR with TAILS (thumb)?
#13. To: TooConservative (#12)
Tor is horribly slow to start with, even more so if you allow all the ads and scripts to load. And Tor doesn't do anything to protect you from browser attacks, either from malicious websites or hacked ad server networks.
#14. To: nolu chan (#13)
Tor with Tails on a thumb drive leaves your computer totally immune. How does it get attacked?
#15. To: TooConservative (#14)
Tor with Tails on a thumb drive leaves your computer totally immune. How does it get attacked?
I'm not sure where you read that but it isn't true.
In exchange for all the troubleshooting, you get an unusual kind of anonymity. Keeping the operating system on a disk means you’re operating independent of the computer, picking nothing up and leaving nothing behind. It also makes your setup portable. You can launch Tails from an internet cafe and know that none of the programs on the public computer will get in the way of what you’re doing. The new versions of Tails will even hide you within a local network, randomizing the computer’s MAC address to make you even harder to track. None of the methods are completely impenetrable, but together they add up to a major headache for anyone trying to follow you across the web.
#23. To: nolu chan (#15)
Numerous security holes in Tails 1.4.1
Replies to Comment # 23. Numerous security holes in Tails 1.4.1
This is the most secure computer you’ll ever own
Published on Aug 14, 2015
End Trace Mode for Comment # 23.
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