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Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The Onion Router Downside

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=== CONTENTS ===================================================

IN FOCUS: The Onion Router Downside

NEWS AND FEATURES
- Microsoft Releases WPA2 Support, Modifies Wi-Fi Client Behavior
- Zero-Day Vulnerability in PowerPoint
- Microsoft Re-releases Security Bulletin for Windows 2000
- McAfee Acquires Onigma, Introduces Data Loss Prevention Solution
- Recent Security Vulnerabilities

GIVE AND TAKE
- Security Matters Blog: Bitter News for VM Users, There's a Rootkit
Made Just for You
- FAQ: Command Lists All Members of an AD Group
- From the Forum: Making the C Drive Invisible Yet Readable
- Know Your IT Security Contest
- Make Your Mark on the IT Community!

PRODUCTS
- Comprehensive Protection for Endpoints at Work and at Home
- Wanted: Your Reviews of Products

RESOURCES AND EVENTS

FEATURED WHITE PAPER

ANNOUNCEMENTS


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=== IN FOCUS: The Onion Router Downside ========================
by Mark Joseph Edwards, News Editor, mark at ntsecurity / net

Two weeks ago, I wrote about a portable Web browser, Torpark, that's
designed to keep you relatively anonymous as you browse. Torpark is
based on the Mozilla Firefox source code, and you might recall that one
of the big advantages of using Torpark is that it comes with The Onion
Router (Tor) built in. So you don't need to install and configure that
separately. If you missed that editorial, you can read it at the URL
below.

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Tor is a client and server SOCKS-based proxy that's designed to route
traffic through a series of anonymous servers, the number of which
varies depending on how you configure the Tor client. Anyone can run a
Tor client or server without having to reveal anything to the outside
world except an IP address, and that address is made known only to the
first Tor server your traffic passes through.

Traffic is encrypted by Tor along the route, and Tor routers know only
about the hops of the routers immediately before and after them. Tor
handles its own traffic encryption, so in theory, Tor server operators
shouldn't be able to snoop on the contents of your network traffic.

The exception is the Tor server operator of the exit router--the last
hop along your traffic's route through Tor servers. Other servers on
the Internet don't understand Tor encryption, so obviously they can't
receive and process traffic that originates from a Tor network.
Therefore the traffic must be decrypted before being passed on to its
final destination. And therein resides Tor's inherent weakness. You
must trust an unknown Tor server operator to not snoop on your traffic
as it exits the Tor network. Inevitably, some Tor server operators do
snoop on traffic. That's why I said that Tor provides "relative"
anonymity. It protects your actual IP address but not the nature of
what you're doing on the Internet.

Anyone that can see your Internet traffic can also manipulate it. This
certainly holds true for Tor exit server operators. This presents
another danger of using Tor. In one of many possible scenarios, someone
could monitor for traffic destined for port 80, typically used for Web
traffic, and then manipulate Web pages, cookies, headers, and so on in
just about any way you can image. Now someone has proven just how easy
it is to use this weakness to discover your real IP address, which in
effect destroys your anonymity and thus defeats the purpose of using
Tor.

"Practical Onion Hacking, Finding the real address of Tor clients" (at
the URL below), is a white paper produced by the FortConsult Security
Research Team and published on the Packet Storm Security Web site. The
paper shows, step by step, how the researchers were able to use readily
available scripts and software packages to inject a "Web bug" into Web
traffic. The Web bug is a typical cookie designed and used in
conjunction with browsers that have JavaScript or Adobe Flash enabled.
When Tor is used directly (i.e., without a go-between, which I'll
explain in a moment), either of those two technologies will reveal the
cookie and thus the real IP address of the user.

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JavaScript code can be written to collect a system's IP address, and
the address can be placed in a cookie that can be read by a Web server.
Flash doesn't understand the SOCKS protocol at all, so if a Flash
object requires network connectivity for whatever reason, it completely
bypasses the Tor network.

As I suggested earlier, there is a way to eliminate both of these
weaknesses--by using a standard proxy server as a go-between between
client applications and the Tor client. One such proxy server is
Privoxy, which can strip out JavaScript, cookies, and other unwanted
content. Privoxy understands the SOCKS protocol, so it can be
configured to send traffic through Tor. With Privoxy as a go-between,
even Flash would run its connectivity needs through Tor.

If you're interested in Tor's weaknesses, or even in how easy it is to
manipulate network traffic, then be sure to read the white paper.

===

A note from Mark Minasi: I wanted to pass along some information about
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=== SECURITY NEWS AND FEATURES =================================

Microsoft Releases WPA2 Support, Modifies Wi-Fi Client Behavior
Microsoft announced the release of a security update for Windows XP
SP2 that introduces support for WPA2 and changes the behavior of
wireless clients to be more secure.

http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=3D92D:886699

Zero-Day Vulnerability in PowerPoint
A zero-day vulnerability has been discovered in Microsoft
PowerPoint. According to available information, the vulnerability can
potentially be exploited to execute arbitrary code on an affected
system if a user opens an infected PowerPoint file. Proof-of-concept
code has been published to demonstrate the problem. Microsoft is aware
of the problem and is investigating the matter, however no patch is
available at this time.

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Microsoft Re-releases Security Bulletin for Windows 2000
Late last week, Microsoft re-released Security Bulletin MS06-061
(Vulnerabilities in Microsoft XML Core Services Could Allow Remote Code
Execution) to correct a problem with the previous update, which didn't
correctly set the kill bit for Microsoft XML Parser 2.6.

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McAfee Acquires Onigma, Introduces Data Loss Prevention Solution
McAfee announced that it acquired data protection solutions provider
Onigma. The acquisition brings McAfee the ability to offer solutions to
monitor and report on confidential data as well as to prevent its loss.

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Recent Security Vulnerabilities
If you subscribe to this newsletter, you also receive Security
Alerts, which inform you about recently discovered security
vulnerabilities. You can also find information about these
discoveries at

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=== GIVE AND TAKE ==============================================

SECURITY MATTERS Blog: Bitter News for VM Users, There's a Rootkit Made
Just for You
by Mark Joseph Edwards, http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=3D935:886699

With every innovation comes a setback, sometimes vitriolic in nature.
Virtual machine (VM) technology is a good case in point. Read this blog
article to discover how intruders are bound to invade VMs, by hook or
crook.

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FAQ: Command Lists All Members of an AD Group
by John Savill, http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=3D932:886699


Q: How can I use a command to list all the members of an Active
Directory (AD) group?

Find the answer at

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=== PRODUCTS ===================================================
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