This Is The Man Who Deactivated Trump’s Twitter Account

/in

The contractor who deactivated President Donald Trump’s Twitter account earlier this month has revealed himself and calls the move a mistake.

Twitter had declined to identify the man, but TechCrunch reported Wednesday that he is Bahtiyar Duysak, a 20-something German citizen of Turkish descent. Duysak worked in customer support with the Trust & Safety division, the team that reviews alerts of bad behavior on the platform, TechCrunch said.

Duysak told TechCrunch he was near the end of his last day working for Twitter when an alert came in about Trump’s account. As a final gesture, he started the process of deactivating the account, closed his computer and left the building.

He didn’t expect the process to actually be completed, he said, but it was. For about 11 minutes on the afternoon of Nov. 2, visitors to Trump’s account found a message saying the page didn’t exist. Twitter initially said the account had been “inadvertently deactivated due to human error” but later placed the blame on a customer service employee who was working a final shift at the company.

Duysak called the move a mistake and suggested a “number of coincidences” might also have played a role, though he didn’t describe those coincidences.

“I had a wild time in America,” Duysak said. “I was tired sometimes. And everyone can do mistakes. I did a mistake.”

After the incident, questions lingered about how the employee had that level of access to be able to delete an account, or what other sorts of tampering might be possible. Buzzfeed News cited a “former senior employee” of Twitter describing relatively easy access to certain account controls. The New York Times said that while “hundreds of employees” can take actions such as disabling accounts, customer service workers cannot access direct messages or tweet through other people’s accounts.

“I didn’t hack anyone,” Duysak goes on to say. “I didn’t do anything that I wasn’t authorized to do.”

Twitter declined to confirm that Duysak was responsible for the deletion but said the company has “taken a number of steps to keep an incident like this from happening again.”

cnet

macOS High Sierra Bug Lets Anyone Gain Root Access Without a Password

/in , ,

If you own a Mac computer and run the latest version of Apple’s operating system, macOS High Sierra, then you need to be extra careful with your computer.

A serious, yet stupid vulnerability has been discovered in macOS High Sierra that allows untrusted users to quickly gain unfettered administrative (or root) control on your Mac without any password or security check, potentially leaving your data at risk.

Discovered by developer Lemi Orhan Ergin on Tuesday, the vulnerability only requires anyone with physical access to the target macOS machine to enter “root” into the username field, leave the password blank, and hit the Enter a few times—and Voila!

In simple words, the flaw allows an unauthorized user that gets physical access on a target computer to immediately gain the highest level of access to the computer, known as “root,” without actually typing any password.

Needless to say, this blindingly easy Mac exploit really scary stuff.

This vulnerability is similar to one Apple patched last month, which affected encrypted volumes using APFS wherein the password hint section was showing the actual password of the user in the plain text.

Here’s How to Login as Root User Without a Password

If you own a Mac and want to try this exploit, follow these steps from admin or guest account:

  • Open System Preferences on the machine.
  • Select Users & Groups.
  • Click the lock icon to make changes.
  • Enter “root” in the username field of a login window.
  • Move the cursor into the Password field and hit enter button there few times, leaving it blank.

With that (after a few tries in some cases) macOS High Sierra logs the unauthorized user in with root privileges, allowing the user to access your Mac as a “superuser” with permission to read and write to system files, including those in other macOS accounts as well.

This flaw can be exploited in several ways, depending on the setup of the targeted Mac. With full-disk encryption disabled, a rogue user can turn on a Mac that’s entirely powered down and log in as root by doing the same trick.

At Mac’s login screen, an untrusted user can also use the root trick to gain access to a Mac that has FileVault turned on to make unauthorized changes to the Mac System Preferences, like disabling FileVault.

All the untrusted user needs to do is click “Other” at the login screen, and then enter “root” again with no password.

However, it is impossible to exploit this vulnerability when a Mac machine is turned on, and the screen is protected with a password.

Ergin publicly contacted Apple Support to ask about the issue he discovered. Apple is reportedly working on a fix.

“We are working on a software update to address this issue. In the meantime, setting a root password prevents unauthorized access to your Mac. To enable the Root User and set a password, please follow the instructions here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204012. If a Root User is already enabled, to ensure a blank password is not set, please follow the instructions from the ‘Change the root password’ section.”

Here’s How to Temporarily Fix the macOS High Sierra Bug

Fortunately, the developer suggested a temporary fix for this issue which is as easy as its exploit.

To fix the vulnerability, you need to enable the root user with a password. Heres how to do that:

  • Open System Preferences and Select Users & Groups
  • Click on the lock icon and Enter your administrator name and password there
  • Click on “Login Options” and select “Join” at the bottom of the screen
  • Select “Open Directory Utility”
  • Click on the lock icon to make changes and type your username and password there
  • Click “Edit” at the top of the menu bar
  • Select “Enable Root User” and set a password for the root user account

This password will prevent the account from being accessed with a blank password.

Just to be on the safer side, you can also disable Guest accounts on your Mac. for this, head on to System Preferences → Users & Groups, select Guest User after entering your admin password, and disable “Allow guests to log in to this computer.”

 

Microsoft Releases Update to Fix 53 Vulnerabilities

/in ,
Microsoft has released a large batch of security updates as part of its November Patch Tuesday in order to fix a total of 53 new security vulnerabilities in various Windows products, 19 of which rated as critical, 31 important and 3 moderate.

The vulnerabilities impact the Windows OS, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Scripting Engine, .NET Core, and more.

At least four of these vulnerabilities that the tech giant has now fixed have public exploits, allowing attackers to exploit them easily. But fortunately, none of the four are being used in the wild, according to Gill Langston at security firm Qualys.

The four vulnerabilities with public exploits identified by Microsoft as CVE-2017-8700 (an information disclosure flaw in ASP.NET Core), CVE-2017-11827 (Microsoft browsers remote code execution), CVE-2017-11848 (Internet Explorer information disclosure) and CVE-2017-11883 (denial of service affecting ASP.NET Core).

Potentially Exploitable Security Vulnerabilities

What’s interesting about this month’s patch Tuesday is that none of the Windows OS patches are rated as Critical. However, Device Guard Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability (CVE-2017-11830) and Privilege Elevation flaw (CVE-2017-11847) are something you should focus on.

Also, according to an analysis of Patch Tuesday fixes by Zero-Day Initiative, CVE-2017-11830 and another flaw identified as CVE-2017-11877 can be exploited to spread malware.

“CVE-2017-11830 patches a Device Guard security feature bypass vulnerability that would allow malware authors to falsely authenticated files,” Zero-Day Initiative said.

“CVE-2017-11877 fixes an Excel security feature bypass vulnerability that fails to enforce macro settings, which are often used by malware developers.”

The tech giant also fixed six remote code execution vulnerabilities exist “in the way the scripting engine handles objects in memory in Microsoft browsers.”

Microsoft identified these vulnerabilities as CVE-2017-11836, CVE-2017-11837, CVE-2017-11838, CVE-2017-11839, CVE-2017-11871, and CVE-2017-11873, which could corrupt memory in such a way that attackers could execute malicious code in the context of the current user.

“In a web-based attack scenario, an attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit the vulnerability through Microsoft Edge and then convince a user to view the website,” Microsoft said. “These websites could contain specially crafted content that could exploit the vulnerability.”

17-Year-Old MS Office Flaw Lets Hackers Install Malware

Also, you should be extra careful when opening files in MS Office.

All versions of Microsoft Office released in the past 17 years found vulnerable to remote code execution flaw(CVE-2017-11882) that works against all versions of Windows operating system, including the latest Microsoft Windows 10 Creators Update.

However, due to improper memory operations, the component fails to properly handle objects in the memory, corrupting it in such a way that the attacker could execute malicious code in the context of the logged-in user.

Exploitation of this vulnerability requires opening a specially crafted malicious file with an affected version of Microsoft Office or Microsoft WordPad software, which could allow attackers to remotely install malware on targeted computers.

Adobe Patch Tuesday: Patches 62 Vulnerabilities

Besides fixing vulnerabilities in its various products, Microsoft has also released updates for Adobe Flash Player.

These updates correspond with Adobe Update APSB17-33, which patches 62 CVEs for Acrobat and Reader alone. So, Flash Player users are advised to ensure that they update Adobe across their environment to stay protected.

It should also be noted that last Patch Tuesday, Microsoft quietly released the patch for the dangerous KRACK vulnerability (CVE-2017-13080) in the WPA2 wireless protocol.

Therefore, users are also recommended to make sure that they have patched their systems with the last month’s security patches.

Alternatively, users are strongly advised to apply November security patches as soon as possible in order to keep hackers and cybercriminals away from taking control of their computers.

For installing security updates, just head on to Settings → Update & security → Windows Update → Check for updates, or you can install the updates manually.

The Hacker News

Built-in Keylogger Found in MantisTek GK2 Keyboards—Sends Data to China

/in ,
“The right keyboard can make all the difference between a victory and a defeat in a video game battlefield.”

If you are a gamer, you can relate to the above quote.

But what if your winning weapon betrays you?

The popular 104-key Mantistek GK2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard that costs around €49.66 has allegedly been caught silently recording everything you type on your keyboard and sending them to a server maintained by the Alibaba Group.

This built-in keylogger in Mantistek GK2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard was noticed by a few owners who headed on to an online forum to share this issue.

According to Tom’s Hardware, MantisTek keyboards utilise ‘Cloud Driver’ software, maybe for collecting analytic information, but has been caught sending sensitive information to servers tied to Alibaba.

After analysing more closely, Tom’s Hardware team found that Mantistek keyboard does not include a full-fledged keylogger. Instead, it captures how many times a key has been pressed and sending this data back to online servers.

The affected users also provided a screenshot showing how all your plain-text keystrokes collected by the keyboard are being uploaded to a Chinese server located at IP address: 47.90.52.88.

However, even if there’s no malicious intent, capturing and uploading keystroke counts without users’ consent violates trust and puts systems’ security at risk by leaking sensitive information.

Mantistek-GK2-Mechanical-Gaming-Keyboard-Keylogger

Since Alibaba Group also sells cloud services like Google and Amazon, this collected information is not necessarily being sent to the Alibaba itself, but someone who is using its cloud service.

Opening the IP address in question directly into a web browser and on a Chinese login page, which translates to “Cloud mouse platform background management system” and is maintained by Shenzhen Cytec Technology Co., Ltd.

Reportedly, the MantisTek keyboard’s software sends the collected data to two destinations at that IP address:

  • /cms/json/putkeyusedata.php
  • /cms/json/putuserevent.php

The best way to prevent your keyboard from sending your keystrokes to the Alibaba server is to stop using your Mantistek GK2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard until you hear back from the company about this issue.

If you cannot prevent yourself from using the keyboard, but want to stop it from sending your key presses to the Alibaba server, just make sure the MantisTek Cloud Driver software is not running in the background, and block the CMS.exe executable in your firewall.

To block the CMS.exe executable, add a new firewall rule for the MantisTek Cloud Driver in the “Windows Defender Firewall With Advanced Security.”

The Hacker News