World of Warcraft gamers and other MMORPG players are subject to hacks and exploits that attempt to steal their user names and passwords, after which the hackers will either rob the character of all their gold, or maybe even sell it off. For those of you guys out there who are still playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard has recently identified a new malware that poses as a client for a popular World of Warcraft add-on site. The malware, which is a trojan horse, looks and functions exactly the same as the Curse Client (in which gamers use to download World of Warcraft add-ons and tweaks).
In fact when attempting to search for “curse client”, a listing of the fake website pops up and will look exactly the same as the official one, so for those who weren’t paying attention, you might have inadvertently downloaded a malware onto your computer. Blizzard suggests that those who have downloaded the client to delete it and perform a scan on their computer to ensure that there are no traces of it left, using programs such as Malwarebytes. Blizzard has also provided instructions to those who might have been infected as well. Either way for those who are downloading the Curse Client for the first time, do double check to make sure it is from the official site based on its URL, and not just how it looks!
Ever wonder why SD cards are dirt cheap? At the 2013 Chaos Computer Congress, a hacker going by the moniker Bunnie recently revealed part of the reason: “In reality, all flash memory is riddled with defects — without exception.” But that tidbit is nothing compared to the point of his presentation, in which he and fellow hacker Xobs revealed that SD cards and other flash storage formats contain programmable computers.
Bunnie also summarized his presentation in a relatively easy to understand post on his blog. The images I’m sharing here are from the slides (pdf) that he and Xobs used in their 30C3 talk. Here’s the full paragraph where Bunnie claims that flash memory is cheap because they’re unreliable: “Flash memory is really cheap. So cheap, in fact, that it’s too good to be true. In reality, all flash memory is riddled with defects — without exception. The illusion of a contiguous, reliable storage media is crafted through sophisticated error correction and bad block management functions…”
“…This is the result of a constant arms race between the engineers and mother nature; with every fabrication process shrink, memory becomes cheaper but more unreliable. Likewise, with every generation, the engineers come up with more sophisticated and complicated algorithms to compensate for mother nature’s propensity for entropy and randomness at the atomic scale.”
Simply put, Bunnie claims that flash storage is cheap (partly) because all chips made are used, regardless of their quality. But how do flash storage makers deal with faulty hardware? With software.
Apparently flash storage manufacturers use firmware to manage how data is stored as well as to obscure the chip’s shortcomings. For instance, Bunnie claims that some 16GB chips are so damaged upon manufacture that only 2GB worth of data can be stored on them. But instead of being thrashed, they’re turned into 2GB cards instead. In order to obscure things like that – as well as to handle the aforementioned increasingly complex data abstraction – SD cards are loaded with firmware.
And where does that firmware reside? In a microcontroller, i.e. a very tiny computer. The microcontroller is packed inside a memory card along with the actual chips that store the data. Bunnie and Xobs then proved that it’s possible to hack the microcontroller and make it run unofficial programs. Depending on how cynical you are, that finding is either good news or bad news.
For their talk, Bunnie and Xobs hacked into two SD card models from a relatively small company called AppoTech. I wish I could say more about their process, but you can read about it on Bunnie’s blog…
…or you can watch their entire presentation in the video below:
Long story short, Bunnie and Xobs found out that the microcontrollers in SD cards can be used to deploy a variety of programs – both good and bad – or at least tweak the card’s original firmware. For instance, while researching in China, Bunnie found SD cards in some electronics shops that had their firmware modified. The vendors “load a firmware that reports the capacity of a card is much larger than the actual available storage.” The fact that those cards were modified supports Bunnie and Xobs’ claim: that other people besides manufacturers can manipulate the firmware in SD cards.
The slide above outlines the other ways a memory card’s microcontroller can be abused. Malware can be inserted into memory cards to discreetly open files, make data impossible to erase (short of destroying the card itself) and even discreetly scan and replace data. On the other hand, Bunnie and Xobs note that this revelation opens up a new platform for tinkerers and developers. If a memory card is both a storage device and a computer, then it may be powerful enough to control another device on its own.
It’s worth noting that this particular investigation had an extremely small sample size. That being said, Bunnie believes that this vulnerability exists in “the whole family of “managed flash” devices, including microSD, SD, MMC as well as the eMMC and iNAND devices typically soldered onto the mainboards of smartphones and used to store the OS and other private user data. We also note that similar classes of vulnerabilities exist in related devices, such as USB flash drives and SSDs.”
Turns out the memories of our computers are as unreliable as ours.
The NSA developed in 2008 a software program for iPhones that can selectively and stealthily deliver data from iPhones to the NSA. The program is called DROPOUTJEEP. News of the … Continue reading
An SD card isn’t just a dumb chunk of memory; it’s a dumb chunk of memory with a built-in brain, a microcontroller. And at this year’s Chaos Computer Congress, enterprising hackers showed off exactly what those brains can be used for: cheap hardware for makers or malware machines for malcontents.
As is with the case with most malware, sometimes clicking a link that is too good to be true usually results in some form of malware being installed on your computer. Sometimes the malware might not be overly malicious and could just introduce popup ads, but other times it can get pretty nasty and actually steal your information, to that extent it has been found that gamers were attacked by malware around 11.7 million times in 2013. This is according to Kaspersky Labs who suggested that players should avoid deals that are too good to be true, such as how GTA 5 for PC was a hoax, and to use strong and varied passwords.
According to senior security researcher, David Emm, “We’ve just seen two of the biggest console launches ever, with the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One […] That means there will be more gamers for criminals to target, especially as the Sony and Microsoft machines increasingly use the Internet for a fuller gaming experience. And don’t forget the PC, still the most popular gaming platform and cyber crooks’ favorite target.” So gamers, if you don’t want to risk potentially losing your account to a hacker, time to keep those passwords strong and avoid clicking suspicious looking links!
Network security company FireEye has reported a coordinated malware attack on five European foreign ministries. The attack took place last August just prior to the G20 Summit in September. It was achieved by sending the ministries email attachments bearing file names pertaining to the primary topic of the summit: military options in Syria. Once downloaded, […]
The FBI has been using malware as a means to hunt down certain suspects, as exemplified in the case of a man who has been making bomb threats since June 2012, reports the Washington Post. Some of the malware was a surveillance program planted onto the suspect’s computer when he signed into his Yahoo account, […]
Were you one of the 100 million Android users that downloaded the Brightest Flashlight Free app? Did you conscientiously click "no" when asked if you’d like to allow the app to track your location data? Well, too bad, suckers. Because not only has the FTC revealed that the popular, light-giving app was secretly selling data to third parties, but its "option" to refuse the data collection in the first place was one big, fat lie.
The Internet’s been abuzz lately with news that computer scientists have found a way to transmit malware using ultrasonic audio signals. If true, this means that you’d never be safe from the hackers, as long as your computer has a microphone and speakers. But don’t freak out just yet.
The credentials for two million compromised accounts for social media sites and other websites have been posted online. They include credentials for Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, a payroll service, and many others. The security breaches are believed to have been made possible through malware installed on user computers, not weaknesses in the websites themselves. […]
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World of Warcraft gamers and other MMORPG players are subject to hacks and exploits that attempt to steal their user names and passwords, after which the hackers will either rob the character of all their gold, or maybe even sell it off. For those of you guys out there who are still playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard has recently identified a new malware that poses as a client for a popular World of Warcraft add-on site. The malware, which is a trojan horse, looks and functions exactly the same as the Curse Client (in which gamers use to download World of Warcraft add-ons and tweaks).
As is with the case with most malware, sometimes clicking a link that is too good to be true usually results in some form of malware being installed on your computer. Sometimes the malware might not be overly malicious and could just introduce popup ads, but other times it can get pretty nasty and actually steal your information, to that extent it has been found that gamers were attacked by malware around 11.7 million times in 2013. This is according to 
