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For millions of people, it’s not a workday without it — video conferencing. And plenty of business gets done that way, which has made conferencing a target for hackers. That then begs the important question, how secure is video conferencing?
The answer is pretty secure if you’re using a reputable service. Yet you can take further steps to keep hackers and party crashers out of your meetings.
Hackers and party crashers are likely motivated by one of two things: financial gain or mischief.
Given that some meetings involve confidential or sensitive info, someone might have financial motivation to join in, spy on, or record the meeting. Recently, we saw the lengths at least one AI company went to when it spied on a competitor’s video conference call.[i]
And of course, some bad actors want to cause a disruption. As we saw in recent years, they’ll barge right into a meeting and create a ruckus with rude speech and other antics.
Falling somewhere in between, some hackers might try to intrude on a meeting and slip a malware-laden attachment into chat.[ii] For one, that can lead to a major disruption. And in a business context, financial disruption as well.
How do they pull it off? The typical avenues of attack apply. They might use stolen or hijacked accounts. The meeting was inadvertently set to “public,” allowing anyone with a link to join. Otherwise, they might compromise a victim’s device to piggyback their way in.
Use a service with end-to-end encryption.
Put simply, end-to-end encryption provides a solid defense against prying eyes. With it in place, this form of encryption makes it particularly difficult for hackers to tap into the call and the data shared within it. Secure video conferencing should use 256-bit AES GCM encryption for audio and video, and for sharing of screens, whiteboard apps, and the like. On a related note, read the service’s privacy policy and ensure that its privacy, security, and data measures fit your needs.
Make your meetings private and protect them with a password.
Keep the uninvited out. First, setting your meeting to private (invitees only) will help keep things secure. Some apps also provide a notification to the meeting organizer when an invite gets forwarded. Use that feature if it’s available. Also, a password provides another hurdle for a hacker or bad actor to clear. Use a fresh one for each meeting.
Use the waiting room.
Many services put attendees into a waiting room before they enter the meeting proper. Use this feature to control who comes in and out.
Block users from taking control of the screen.
Welcome or unwelcome, you can keep guests from taking over the screen. Select the option to block everyone except the host (you) from screen sharing.
Turn on automatic updates on your conferencing app.
By turning on automatic updates, you’ll get the latest security patches and enhancements for your video conferencing tool as soon as they become available.
Get wise to phishing scams.
Some interlopers make it into meetings by impersonating others. Just as bad actors use phishing emails and texts to steal personal financial info, they’ll use them to steal company credentials as well. Our Phishing Scam Protection Guide can show you how to steer clear of these attacks.
Use online protection software.
Comprehensive online protection software like ours can make for safer calls in several ways. For one, it protects you against malware attacks, such as if a bad actor tries to slip a sketchy download into your meeting. Further, it includes a password manager that creates and stores strong, unique passwords securely. This can help increase the security of your video conferencing account.
This is a new one. AI deepfake technology continues to evolve, we find ourselves at the point where scammers can create AI imposters in real time.
We’ve seen them use this technology in romance scams, where scammers take on entirely new looks and voices on video calls. And we’ve seen at least one group of scammers bilk a company out of $25 million with deepfaked executives on a call.[iii]
Strange as it might sound, this kind of deepfake technology is possible today. And realizing that fact is the first step toward prevention. Next, that calls for extra scrutiny.
Any time-sensitive info or sums of money are involved, get confirmation of the request. Place a phone call to the person after receiving the request to ensure it’s indeed legitimate. Better yet, meet the individual in person if possible. In all, contact them outside the email, message, or call that initially made the request to ensure you’re not dealing with an imposter.
With the right provider and right steps in place, video calls can be quite secure. Use a solution that offers end-to-end encryption, keep your app updated for the latest security measures, and lock down the app’s security settings. Also, recognize that AI has changed the way we look at just about everything online — including people on the other side of the screen. As we’ve seen, AI imposters on calls now fall into the realm of possibility. A costly one at that.
[i] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/07/technology/ai-start-ups-competition.html
[ii] https://www.pcmag.com/news/hackers-circulate-malware-by-breaking-into-microsoft-teams-meetings
[iii] https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/04/asia/deepfake-cfo-scam-hong-kong-intl-hnk/index.html
The post How Secure is Video Conferencing? appeared first on McAfee Blog.
Invisible protocol sniffer for finding vulnerabilities in the network. Designed for pentesters and security engineers.
FreshRSS Above: Invisible network protocol sniffer
Designed for pentesters and security engineers
Author: Magama Bazarov, <caster@exploit.org>
Pseudonym: Caster
Version: 2.6
Codename: Introvert
All information contained in this repository is provided for educational and research purposes only. The author is not responsible for any illegal use of this tool.
It is a specialized network security tool that helps both pentesters and security professionals.
Above is a invisible network sniffer for finding vulnerabilities in network equipment. It is based entirely on network traffic analysis, so it does not make any noise on the air. He's invisible. Completely based on the Scapy library.
Above allows pentesters to automate the process of finding vulnerabilities in network hardware. Discovery protocols, dynamic routing, 802.1Q, ICS Protocols, FHRP, STP, LLMNR/NBT-NS, etc.
Detects up to 27 protocols:
MACSec (802.1X AE)
EAPOL (Checking 802.1X versions)
ARP (Passive ARP, Host Discovery)
CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol)
DTP (Dynamic Trunking Protocol)
LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol)
802.1Q Tags (VLAN)
S7COMM (Siemens)
OMRON
TACACS+ (Terminal Access Controller Access Control System Plus)
ModbusTCP
STP (Spanning Tree Protocol)
OSPF (Open Shortest Path First)
EIGRP (Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol)
BGP (Border Gateway Protocol)
VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol)
HSRP (Host Standby Redundancy Protocol)
GLBP (Gateway Load Balancing Protocol)
IGMP (Internet Group Management Protocol)
LLMNR (Link Local Multicast Name Resolution)
NBT-NS (NetBIOS Name Service)
MDNS (Multicast DNS)
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
DHCPv6 (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol v6)
ICMPv6 (Internet Control Message Protocol v6)
SSDP (Simple Service Discovery Protocol)
MNDP (MikroTik Neighbor Discovery Protocol)
Above works in two modes:
The tool is very simple in its operation and is driven by arguments:
.pcap as input and looks for protocols in it.pcap file, its name you specify yourselfusage: above.py [-h] [--interface INTERFACE] [--timer TIMER] [--output OUTPUT] [--input INPUT] [--passive-arp]
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--interface INTERFACE
Interface for traffic listening
--timer TIMER Time in seconds to capture packets, if not set capture runs indefinitely
--output OUTPUT File name where the traffic will be recorded
--input INPUT File name of the traffic dump
--passive-arp Passive ARP (Host Discovery)
The information obtained will be useful not only to the pentester, but also to the security engineer, he will know what he needs to pay attention to.
When Above detects a protocol, it outputs the necessary information to indicate the attack vector or security issue:
Impact: What kind of attack can be performed on this protocol;
Tools: What tool can be used to launch an attack;
Technical information: Required information for the pentester, sender MAC/IP addresses, FHRP group IDs, OSPF/EIGRP domains, etc.
Mitigation: Recommendations for fixing the security problems
Source/Destination Addresses: For protocols, Above displays information about the source and destination MAC addresses and IP addresses
You can install Above directly from the Kali Linux repositories
caster@kali:~$ sudo apt update && sudo apt install above
Or...
caster@kali:~$ sudo apt-get install python3-scapy python3-colorama python3-setuptools
caster@kali:~$ git clone https://github.com/casterbyte/Above
caster@kali:~$ cd Above/
caster@kali:~/Above$ sudo python3 setup.py install
# Install python3 first
brew install python3
# Then install required dependencies
sudo pip3 install scapy colorama setuptools
# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/casterbyte/Above
cd Above/
sudo python3 setup.py install
Don't forget to deactivate your firewall on macOS!
Above requires root access for sniffing
Above can be run with or without a timer:
caster@kali:~$ sudo above --interface eth0 --timer 120
To stop traffic sniffing, press CTRL + С
WARNING! Above is not designed to work with tunnel interfaces (L3) due to the use of filters for L2 protocols. Tool on tunneled L3 interfaces may not work properly.
Example:
caster@kali:~$ sudo above --interface eth0 --timer 120
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[+] Start sniffing...
[*] After the protocol is detected - all necessary information about it will be displayed
--------------------------------------------------
[+] Detected SSDP Packet
[*] Attack Impact: Potential for UPnP Device Exploitation
[*] Tools: evil-ssdp
[*] SSDP Source IP: 192.168.0.251
[*] SSDP Source MAC: 02:10:de:64:f2:34
[*] Mitigation: Ensure UPnP is disabled on all devices unless absolutely necessary, monitor UPnP traffic
--------------------------------------------------
[+] Detected MDNS Packet
[*] Attack Impact: MDNS Spoofing, Credentials Interception
[*] Tools: Responder
[*] MDNS Spoofing works specifically against Windows machines
[*] You cannot get NetNTLMv2-SSP from Apple devices
[*] MDNS Speaker IP: fe80::183f:301c:27bd:543
[*] MDNS Speaker MAC: 02:10:de:64:f2:34
[*] Mitigation: Filter MDNS traffic. Be careful with MDNS filtering
--------------------------------------------------
If you need to record the sniffed traffic, use the --output argument
caster@kali:~$ sudo above --interface eth0 --timer 120 --output above.pcap
If you interrupt the tool with CTRL+C, the traffic is still written to the file
If you already have some recorded traffic, you can use the --input argument to look for potential security issues
caster@kali:~$ above --input ospf-md5.cap
Example:
caster@kali:~$ sudo above --input ospf-md5.cap
[+] Analyzing pcap file...
--------------------------------------------------
[+] Detected OSPF Packet
[+] Attack Impact: Subnets Discovery, Blackhole, Evil Twin
[*] Tools: Loki, Scapy, FRRouting
[*] OSPF Area ID: 0.0.0.0
[*] OSPF Neighbor IP: 10.0.0.1
[*] OSPF Neighbor MAC: 00:0c:29:dd:4c:54
[!] Authentication: MD5
[*] Tools for bruteforce: Ettercap, John the Ripper
[*] OSPF Key ID: 1
[*] Mitigation: Enable passive interfaces, use authentication
--------------------------------------------------
[+] Detected OSPF Packet
[+] Attack Impact: Subnets Discovery, Blackhole, Evil Twin
[*] Tools: Loki, Scapy, FRRouting
[*] OSPF Area ID: 0.0.0.0
[*] OSPF Neighbor IP: 192.168.0.2
[*] OSPF Neighbor MAC: 00:0c:29:43:7b:fb
[!] Authentication: MD5
[*] Tools for bruteforce: Ettercap, John the Ripper
[*] OSPF Key ID: 1
[*] Mitigation: Enable passive interfaces, use authentication
The tool can detect hosts without noise in the air by processing ARP frames in passive mode
caster@kali:~$ sudo above --interface eth0 --passive-arp --timer 10
[+] Host discovery using Passive ARP
--------------------------------------------------
[+] Detected ARP Reply
[*] ARP Reply for IP: 192.168.1.88
[*] MAC Address: 00:00:0c:07:ac:c8
--------------------------------------------------
[+] Detected ARP Reply
[*] ARP Reply for IP: 192.168.1.40
[*] MAC Address: 00:0c:29:c5:82:81
--------------------------------------------------
I wrote this tool because of the track "A View From Above (Remix)" by KOAN Sound. This track was everything to me when I was working on this sniffer.
It used to be the case that only businesses used virtual private networks (VPNs) to connect securely to the internet and keep their private data safe. But these days, with the rapid growth of online threats and privacy concerns, even casual internet users should seriously consider using a VPN. Nearly 30% of people now use VPNs for personal reasons, and that number is only growing as more people learn about how VPNs offer an effective way to safeguard online privacy, enhance security, and protect against various cyber threats.
If you are not familiar with this technology, a VPN essentially allows you to send and receive data across a public network as if it were a private network that encrypts, or scrambles, your information so others cannot read it. Let’s take a look at the top 3 reasons why a VPN could come in handy for you.
Now that you know why having a personal VPN is so useful, here are a few tips to help you choose the right product for you:
The post Why You Need a Personal VPN appeared first on McAfee Blog.
There has been an exponential increase in breaches within enterprises despite the carefully constructed and controlled perimeters that exist around applications and data. Once an attacker can access… Read more on Cisco Blogs
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