Tag: raspberry pi

Physical access

You can do a lot if you have physical access to a computer.

Stealing login sessions with PoisonTap

PoisonTap is a pocket-sized Raspberry Pi device that you can plug into a computer’s USB port. It impersonates a new wired network connection and responds to outbound HTTP traffic. If the computer’s user is logged on to any of an extensive list of popular web sites, PoisonTap is able to capture the cookies and write them to a text file on the USB device.This works even if the screen is locked.

If your character needs to gain access to someone’s online accounts, your character could follow her target to the coffee shop, wait for the target to go to the bathroom, plug this device into the target’s computer for a minute, and be gone before the victim knew what was happening. If the target happened to be logged on to the online resource your character needs to access, she’ll have the session IDs on the USB drive. She may need to hurry: those session IDs will become invalid as soon as the target logs out of those web sites.

Reading the MacOS FileVault2 password with PCILeech

This is a vulnerability that Apple patched just this month, so it wouldn’t work on a real-world Mac running Sierra v10.12.2 or better. But Macs were vulnerable to this particular exploit for more than four months.

PCILeech refers to a mix of hardware and software that your character could use to break in to an unpatched Mac. The video shows using a laptop attached to the device that your character would plug into the target Mac. (Maybe it would be possible to use something smaller, like a tablet or a Raspberry Pi or Arduino.)

PCILeech is able to recover the FileVault2 password from the Mac’s memory after rebooting the Mac. Once your character has the FileVault password, she has full access to the Mac. This will work even if the Mac is locked with a screensaver or hibernating, but it won’t work if the Mac is completely powered off. And the target might notice that his Mac rebooted.

USB kill stick

And if your character just wants to destroy a target device, there’s the USB kill stick. It’s a USB device that looks like a harmless thumb drive. It has several capacitors that start drawing power as soon as it’s plugged in. When the capacitors are charged (which appears to take no time at all), the kill stick rapidly discharges the capacitors right back into the port. Some devices have hardware protection against this, but many do not. The video on the page shows the researcher plugging the stick into several devices, frying many of them. It makes a lovely noise when that happens.

Conclusion

I bet you think twice about leaving your laptop unattended. Remember to…

  • RUN YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM UPDATES!!!!!
  • Hope that your favorite devices have overvoltage protection
  • Never, ever use the Internet for anything

 

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Predictably insecure electronic locks

A couple of researchers recently presented their analysis of a dozen or so consumer electronic locks. Some of these locks are the kind that you’d use on a typical door in place of a deadbolt, and some of them work like padlocks. Most of them use bluetooth for wireless operation: you purchase the lock, install an app on your phone, and then use your phone to lock and unlock the device.

Sounds great, right? That’s fewer keys in your purse or pocket or in that not-very-fake-looking rock on your porch. You can enable a temporary code that you send to your plumber, so that he can enter the house while you’re at work. Some devices even have access logs. (Did the plumber come when he said he would? How long did he stay?)

The researchers found that 75% of the devices they studied were vulnerable to different kinds of attacks. In many or most cases, these attacks involved capturing and analyzing the traffic between the smart phone and the lock. The researchers notified the vendors of the affected products, but none of them was interested in doing anything about it. And why would they? At the very best, it would mean an expensive and embarrassing public relations campaign to notify consumers that they had purchased a lock with a defect.

This offers a plausible way for your character to do some breaking-and-entering. Maybe she needs to enter the home or storage building of a gadget-lover. She might need to plant some kind of sniffer device near the lock she wants to defeat and leave it there long enough for someone to use the lock. The FTS4BT bluetooth protocol analyzer and packet sniffer looks like a USB device that she could plug in to a Raspberry Pi. Tricking the lock might be as simple as replaying the signal that the sniffer recorded. If the devices doesn’t have access logs (or if the owner doesn’t bother looking at them), your character could come and go as she pleases from then on.

Oh, and don’t use electronic locks in real life. There’s a reason people have used metal keys to secure their stuff for hundreds of years.