If you think you don’t need to read this post, you definitely need to read this post.

Heartbleed is a security vulnerability that was discovered this week. It probably affects you. First, the five W’s:

Who: Anyone who uses the web and uses https links. That’s probably you.
What: Heartbleed is a vulnerability that allows people to see the information you send to some websites that use OpenSSL. It’s a lot of them.
Where: Gmail, Yahoo, Tumblr, Flickr, Facebook…
When: The problem has been around for two years now, but nobody noticed it until this week.
Why: Honest human error.

You’ve probably noticed the letters “HTTP” preceding most web links. HTTP stands for “hypertext transfer protocol,” and by putting that in front of a web link you’re telling your web browser “Hey, what comes next is going to be a web page.” It’s kind of like saying, “the following message will be in English.”

Sometimes, you’ll see HTTPS instead. The S stands for “secure sockets layer” (or SSL for short), but you can think of that S as simply meaning “secure”. When you use HTTP, the things you read and send across the internet are sent in plain text. That means anyone with the means to do so who is looking and listening for your message can read what you are sending and receiving. With HTTPS, what you send and receive to and from websites is secure and encrypted. Even if someone were to intercept your message, if you are using HTTPS, the information would look scrambled and no one would be able to read it. This is why websites like Gmail and Facebook and your bank’s website default to HTTPS — because it’s secure.

Or, so we thought. Turns out, back in early 2012, someone made a mistake while updating OpenSSL. A big one. Well known security expert Bruce Schneier said on his website this week, “on a scale of 1 to 10, this is an 11.” This bug, which again was introduced in 2012, allows/allowed hackers to read information in certain HTTPS transfers. One frustrating thing about this bug is that there’s no way for servers owners to know if people were hacking them or not; all they can tell is if they were vulnerable or not. And it turns out, a lot of websites were vulnerable.

The good news is Heartbleed only lets attackers view a small portion of memory at a time, so there’s a chance nobody ever saw your password. The bad news is, this vulnerability has been around for two years now, so there’s no telling if you were affected or not.

Several sites including this link at Mashable.com are compiling lists of websites that were affected and have been patched. You’ll want to change your password on those sites. Some of the ones on that list currently include: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr, Google/Gmail, Yahoo/Yahoo Mail/AIM, YouTube, Etsy, GoDaddy, Netflix, Soundcloud, TurboTax, USAA, Box, DropBox, Github, and IFTTT.

Oh, and Minecraft.

This is a good time to remind you that if you use the same password on any other site that you also use on those sites, you should change that password too. Also, stop doing that.

So what about your bank or some other SSL page you want to test? Several “Heartbleed Testers” have been stood up online. Here’s one. Simply click the link and cut/paste the URL to your bank (or any other HTTPS web link) and the website will let you know if they are currently using a safe version of OpenSSL. Of course it doesn’t tell you if they had the bad version last week…

I spent a couple of hours last night changing my passwords on a bevy of services including Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and more. You should to. It’s a pain in the butt, especially when you have multiple devices (phones, tablets, laptops) that will all need the news passwords, but you’ll thank me in the morning.

A lot of things just happened when you clicked on this article. Your computer connected to my computer, and each of these words I wrote zipped across the internet to their destination. Since this article contains words like encryption, NSA, and secret codes, it probably flagged something for the NSA along the way — you for reading about it, and me for writing about it. In some giant, government data warehouse, there’s now a record that you were here. We’re probably both on a watch list now. Welcome to the machine, and all that.

About five years ago I wrote a silly little program called eCoder Ring. eCoder Ring is a small program that allows you to encrypt and decrypt secret codes. It does this by using any text file, web page, or graphic file as a key for a one-time pad encryption. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about one-time pad encryption:

In cryptography, the one-time pad (OTP) is a type of encryption which is impossible to crack if used correctly. Each bit or character from the plaintext is encrypted by a modular addition with a bit or character from a secret random key (or pad) of the same length as the plaintext, resulting in a ciphertext. If the key is truly random, as large as or greater than the plaintext, never reused in whole or part, and kept secret, the ciphertext will be impossible to decrypt or break without knowing the key. It has also been proven that any cipher with the perfect secrecy property must use keys with effectively the same requirements as OTP keys. However, practical problems have prevented one-time pads from being widely used.

The key to breaking most codes lies in discovering patterns, and in a properly implemented one-time pad there are none. Not to delve too far into details, but the point of eCoder Ring is that it plucks letters out of a keyfile and uses the numerical position of those letters to represent the letters of your message. eCoder Ring lets you use things like digital pictures (which it converts to ASCII numbers and characters) as keyfiles. It also allows you to skew the code by adding variables to start your code further down in the keyfile, or skip numbers, and do all other sorts of random files. Even if you had eCoder Ring and the keyfile used to generate a message, it would be practically impossible to crack a code generated by it without the proper variables inserted into the program.

It is my belief now as it was when I wrote it that the codes generated with eCoder Ring are impervious to brute force attacks. To prove my point, when I released eCoder Ring I included a code and offered a reward for cracking it. At first I was offering a hundred bucks; later I upped it to two hundred, and I think I may have raised it to five hundred at one point. The reward for cracking the code is moot because without the keyfile or the skew variables, the code is unbreakable. In theory I feel confident about offering a million dollars, but I wouldn’t do that for two reasons, the second of which exposes the weakness of eCoder Ring. The first reason is quite simply that I don’t have a million dollars. The second reason, the scarier reason, and the weakness that plagues all implementations of one-time pads is that both the sender and the receiver have to know what the keyfile is. I know what the keyfile is for the message I encoded. For a hundred dollars I am hoping someone does not kick in my front door, hold a gun to my head and demand access to the keyfile. For a million dollars, someone might. When I wrote that original readme file five years ago that contained the code, I specifically made it clear that the keyfile does not exist on any computer I have control over (not my laptop or my desktop and not my server) and no one else knows what the keyfile is, so bribing my kid with candy or PlayStation games won’t work.

But yes, as I joked in the program’s readme file, any codes generated with eCoder Ring will stand thousands of years of brute force attacks, but will fail in seconds when someone shows up to your house and begins to peel your children’s fingernails off as you watch. As a human being who knows the keyfile, you are eCoder Ring’s weakest link. If the keyfile is stored improperly or transferred improperly, the code can be compromised. When some mug shows up and decides to squeeze the cider out of your Adam’s apple for the keyfile, look out.

So why am I writing about eCoder Ring again after all these years?

From 2007 (when I released it) to 2012, eCoder Ring was downloaded approximately 2,000 times.

In the past two months, eCoder Ring has been downloaded an additional 3,000 times.

In the last two months we have learned that the NSA either gathers or simply pilfers through pretty much everything we do on the Internet. They store records of what websites you visit. They keep track of who you e-mail, and how many times you do so. Most signs point to the fact that the NSA has direct connections to some of the largest content providers in the world and pull data pre-encryption, making the phrases “HTTPS” and “SSL” mean almost nothing. The latest NSA-related leak tells us the NSA pays 35,000 people to break codes and crypto. I hope one of those 35,000 guys runs across a code generated with eCoder Ring someday. That would make me chuckle. There are also rumors that the NSA can effectively either crack or circumvent some/most/all encryption methods being employed today.

Based on the increase in downloads, do I think eCoder Ring is the answer?

No, obviously. It’s too cumbersome to be used on any mass scale and too difficult to properly implement. (What I had always imagined implementing (but is beyond my skills) is an API or something that could be used in chat programs, so instead of sending clear text back and forth across the internet, people could send random-looking encoded text.) What these recent downloads tell me based on current events is that normal people are interested in security. Normal people are interested in learning about codes, and keeping their messages away from prying eyes. Normal people are hitting search engines and looking for ways to regain their privacy. eCoder Ring probably isn’t the answer, but maybe it’ll inspire someone else to create the answer.

Link: eCoder Ring

A few months ago I spun up a new website, SpriteCastle.com. There’s no real content there yet — it’s more of a proof of concept site at this point. Last night after finishing up the latest episode of You Don’t Know Flack I decided to do some tweaking to the Sprite Castle. When I opened the site in Google Chrome, I got the following message:

Crap. I know WordPress has been under attack lately, so my first assumption was that the site had been compromised. Bypassing Chrome’s warning, I opened the site and searched for any sign of malware. I couldn’t find any. I then clicked “View Source Code” and quickly found the problem — links to a “posh laptop bag” website. While viewing the page itself I couldn’t see the link, but while viewing the code there it was, plain as day. A quick Google search shows that I’m not the only person running WordPress with the issue.

After a few minutes of research I tracked the problem back to the free WordPress theme I had downloaded. The theme was injecting links to sites hosting malware in the theme’s footer, and the links were encrypted (technically, obfuscated) making them difficult to find while sifting through the code.

There are lots of websites out there like this one that will help you remove encrypted footer links. Even with those removed, I was still seeing links in my source to malware sites. By using Windows’ FINDSTR command (similar to GREP) I was able to find more encrypted sections (hint: search your PHP files for “EVAL”). Each time I tried dinking with the code, the website would stop loading. Someone spent a lot of time putting those encrypted links into this particular theme.

So, I spent a lot of time getting rid of them.

The simplest branching point in any programming language is the IF…THEN clause, which does exactly what it sounds like:

IF (this) THEN (do this)

One baby step beyond that is IF…THEN…ELSE logic. Even if you are not a programmer you can see that this is used in every single program.

IF PASSWORD IS CORRECT
– ALLOW USER TO LOG IN TO E-MAIL
ELSE
– PRINT “Denied!”
END IF

Simple.

This was also, in its simplest form, the basis for most early forms of copy protection. Consider the old paper-based protection schemes that required gamers to enter a code to play a game.

HAVE USER ENTER CODE
IF CODE IS CORRECT
– RUN GAME
ELSE
– DO NOT RUN GAME
END IF

Once you understand this logic you can see that with a minor change, programs could be re-programmed to always load. Or, “cracked.”

HAVE USER ENTER CODE
IF CODE IS CORRECT
– RUN GAME
ELSE
– DO NOT RUN GAME
END IF

Again, simple. No matter what the user enters at the prompt, the game loads. There are other ways to do it, of course. Another simple way would be to tell the program that no matter what the user enters, it’s correct.

HAVE USER ENTER CODE
CODE IS CORRECT
IF CODE IS CORRECT
– RUN GAME
ELSE
– DO NOT RUN GAME
END IF

In this instance, no matter what the player enters, we tell the code that it was correct and the program continues down that path.

This is essentially how I removed the malware from the theme. The theme checks to see if a particular file exists on the computer. If it is, it reads a serial number from the file. If the serial number checks out, the malware links are removed from the footer.

CHECK TO SEE IF LICENSE FILE EXISTS
TELL PROGRAM FILE EXISTS
IF FILE EXISTS
– DO NOT INJECT MALWARE LINKS
ELSE
– INJECT MALWARE LINKS
END IF

A quick check of the theme’s output showed that the technique worked and the malware links had been removed. With that part fixed I began systematically removing all the malware-seeking code. It took a couple of hours, but I think the entire theme is now clean.

Unfortunately, once Google detects malware on a site it removes the URL from its search engine (SpriteCastle.com no longer shows up in Google searches) and Google Chrome still flags the site as one that hosts malware, even though the links have been removed. To get re-added, a request has to be submitted to Google and a scan of the site has to be performed. That ball’s already started rolling, so hopefully in the next day or two I’ll be back in business.

Before we begin today’s lesson, we’re going to do something fun and generate your Rock Star name. Your first name will be the name of your first pet and your last name will be the name of the street you live on. Mine’s “Ernie Gregg.” Write this down or just make note of it; you’ll need it later near the end of today’s program.

Security Through Obscurity (“STO”, for short) is the concept that things will be secure if you hide them. I’ve mentioned the concept before; I covered it in detail on Episode 104 of You Don’t Know Flack. The concept is simple: if you hide things well enough, people won’t be able to find them. People do this in the real world all the time. An example would be hiding your house key inside a fake rock. By doing this, you have obscured (or hidden) the security method to open the door (the key). STO also applies to computer systems as well. Hiding your password under your mouse pad would be a very basic example.

STO is most often used to hide what security guys like to call “low hanging fruit”. For example, let’s say everybody in your office writes their password down on a sticky note and sticks it to their monitor, but you stick yours under your mouse pad. When Joe the Hacker shows up looking for passwords, he is more likely to use a password that he sees out in the open than spend the time digging around your desk looking for yours. The same concept can be applied to network security. Breaking WEP passwords on wireless routers is trivial at this point, but if Joe the Hacker needs wireless access and he sees five routers and two of them have passwords, chances are he’s going to hop on one of the open ones over a password protected one because it’s less work.

Computer people have been using Security Through Obscurity for years and years now, and time and time again it’s failed. It rarely works. The biggest enemy of STO is “time”, and there are plenty of people out there with plenty of it. STO may help you by not being a “low hanging fruit”, but if someone has specifically targeted your basket of fruit … look out. Going back to our “key in a rock” example for a moment — if a burglar is looking for the easiest house to break in on a street, he might skip yours. BUT, if he has targeted YOUR home specifically, now you’re in trouble. Burglars know where to look; after searching on top of your door frame and under the welcome mat, he’ll start looking for other places people hide keys. People don’t hide their house keys in six-foot-deep holes where it would take them an hour to recover them. Time is his advantage here.

Take that same concept and apply it to computer security. FTP runs on port 21. When someone wants to know if your server is running FTP, they’ll touch that port and look for a response. If they get a response, they’ve found it. Direct security would mean using difficult passwords, but an example of security through obscurity would be moving FTP to a different port. When a hacker scans a range of IPs looking for FTP servers, yours might not show up, and in that example, you’ve helped yourself. In a direct attack against your server however, hackers will scan every port on your server. They’ll find the FTP service in no time and, if you haven’t added any additional security methods, your server may now be in trouble.

One of the main reasons STO fails is because the average person doesn’t think like a criminal. When you hide your password under your mouse pad or your house key in a fake rock, you think you’re being pretty sneaky. The problem is, criminals know these tricks too. Hackers know those same tricks. You may think you’re being sneaky by changing a port or renaming your machine or whatever it is you’ve come up with, but the truth of the matter is, security through obscurity FAILS CONSISTENTLY.

Hey look — it only took me five (six, counting this one) to get to today’s point. It’s a new record!

One of the most common examples of STO today is your “secret answers”. We’ve all had to give (and answer) these things before. “What’s your mother’s maiden name?” “What’s your favorite color?” “What was your first car?” That stuff might have been tough to find in a world before Facebook; today, you can glean most of that stuff from a person’s Facebook page. Did you know that by default Facebook lists every woman’s maiden name? There are a lot of teens on Facebook whose mommies are on Facebook too. This is a big problem for the average person. It’s a bigger problem for celebrities.

Last September, Sarah Palin’s Yahoo e-mail account was hacked. Here’s how it was done. The “hacker” logged into Yahoo, entered Palin’s e-mail address, and clicked “reset password.” Yahoo then asked the hacker three questions: Palin’s zip code, her birth date, and where she met her spouse. The “hacker” (I keep putting that in quotes because the guy doesn’t deserve the honor) found the answer to all three questions via Google. The zip code took two tries. Her birth date was listed on Wikipedia. Where she met her husband (Wasalla High) showed up in Google. Bingo.

Last night it was reported that Celebrity Accounts on Twitter had been hacked. Read through the details though and you’ll see a few similarities to the above story; Twitter itself wasn’t hacked, an admin account was. Here’s a quote from the story:

“Hacker Croll claimed to have used social engineering techniques to access Goldman’s account: “One of the admins has a Yahoo account, I’ve reset the password by answering the secret question. Then, in the mailbox, I have found her [sic] Twitter password.”

So, a recap; the hacker reset Jason Goldman’s (Twitter’s Director of Product Management) Yahoo mail account. After doing that he logged into the Yahoo mail account and found his Twitter password sitting in his mailbox. Using that password, Hacker Croll logged in to Twitter as Goldman and then began looking at celebrity’s accounts.

In a world where everybody apparently wants to put everything online for everybody to see, this type of security is not going to work. Shaq’s mother’s maiden name is actually O’Neal. Ashton Kutcher’s favorite color is red. Brittney Spears birthday is December 2nd, 1981. Her son Jayden was born on September 12, 2006. Here’s the birth certificate. This stuff is not hard to find, and even non-celebrities are not immune. The About Me/Us link on my own website lists my birth date, pet’s name, kids’ names, and lots of information that shows up regularly on those lists of security questions. First car? That’s embedded on my website somewhere. Susan’s maiden name is on there too.

To bring this full circle … let’s take a look at my Rock Star name again: “Ernie Gregg”. Let’s say I post that on my Facebook page. Now you’ve got my name, whatever information you can get from Facebook, PLUS the name of my first pet AND the name of the street I live on. I know for a FACT many sites use “What was the name of your first pet?” as a security response. The “Rock Star name” is just one of many variations on this game. Here’s a form I found posted on Facebook recently:

THE NAME GAME

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet and current street)
2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your mother’s side, your favorite candy)
3. YOUR “FLY GIRL/GUY” NAME: (first initial of first name, first two or three letters of your last name)
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite animal, favorite color)
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (first 3 letters of your last name- last 3 letters of mother’s maiden name, first 3 letters of your pet’s name)
7. JEDI NAME: (last name spelled backwards, your mom’s first name spelled backward)
8. PORN STAR NAME: (friend’s middle name, street you grew up on)
9. SUPERHERO NAME: (“The”, your favorite color, the automoblie you drive)
10. EMO BAND NAME: (first word in the top banner ad above, city of the away team of the last major sporting event you went to/remember)

Take a second to read over that list. First pet? Current street? Favorite animal? Favorite color? City where you were born? Street you grew up on? Are these things ringing any bells yet? Holy Christmas, it’s like a who’s who list of security information! And you just posted it! On the Internet! For everybody to read! MY HEAD JUST EXPLODED!!! Seriously, if I couldn’t reset your AOL password before I had all that information, I’m betting I can now!! The only one they forgot is DUMBASS NAME: (what time you leave for work, where you hide your porch key).

Security Through Obscurity. Don’t count on it; it doesn’t work. Just ask Microsoft.