Tag Archive for: Born

How an app to decrypt criminal messages was born ‘over a few beers’ with the FBI

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Australian and US law enforcement officials on Tuesday announced they’d sprung a trap three years in the making, catching major international crime figures using an encrypted app.

More than 200 underworld figures in Australia have been charged in what Australian Federal Police (AFP) say is their biggest-ever organised crime bust.

The operation, led by the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), spanned Australia and 17 other countries. In Australia alone, more than 4,000 police officers were involved.

At the heart of the sting, dubbed Operation Ironside, was a type of “trojan horse” malware called AN0M, which was secretly incorporated into a messaging app. After criminals used the encrypted app, police decrypted their messages, which included plots to kill, mass drug trafficking and gun distribution.

graphic of padlock and tech symbols
Police used an encrypted app used by underworld figures to bust the crime network.
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Millions of messages unscrambled

AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw said the idea for AN0M emerged from informal discussions “over a few beers” between the AFP and FBI in 2018.

Platform developers had worked on the AN0M app, along with modified mobile devices, before law enforcement acquired it legally and adapted it for their use. The AFP say the developers weren’t aware of the intended use.

Once appropriated by law enforcement, AN0M was reportedly programmed with a secret “back door”, enabling them to access and decrypt messages in real time.

A “back door” is a software agent that circumvents normal access authentication. It allows remote access to private information in an application, without the “owner” of the information being aware.

So the users — in this case the crime figures — believed communication conducted via the app and smartphones was secure. Meanwhile, law enforcement could reportedly unscramble up to 25 million encrypted messages simultaneously.

But without this back door, strongly encrypted messages would be almost impossible to decrypt. That’s because decryption generally requires a computer to run through trillions of possibilities before hitting on the right code to unscramble a message. Only…

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‘Free’ Wi-Fi for first born? … Well, about that

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The press is having a field day with a report that a half-dozen Londoners unwittingly agreed to give up their first-born child in exchange for otherwise free Wi-Fi access.

The Washington Post reports:

In an experiment sponsored by security firm F-Secure, an open Wi-Fi network was set up in a busy public area. When people connected, they were presented with lengthy terms and conditions.

But to see just how little attention we pay when checking that agreement box, F-Secure included a “Herod clause” — one that offered up free Wi-Fi in exchange for the company’s permanent ownership of the user’s firstborn child.

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Network World Paul McNamara

Born to be breached: the worst passwords are still the most common

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Despite the many, many cautionary tales we hear every day of e-mail, social media, and other Internet accounts being compromised, some people still haven’t heeded the warnings about using easily-guessed passwords. And it isn’t just the non-technical masses that are leaving themselves vulnerable.

I’ve railed in the past against the risks created, ironically, by companies having password policies that are too aggressive. But on the Internet, it’s already been established that nearly any password is vulnerable to cracking, no matter how elaborate.

Websites’ poor security often leaves them vulnerable to the bulk theft of password files—or, as in the case of the exposure at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ IEEE.org, sometimes passwords are just sitting there on servers unencrypted and waiting to be downloaded. Even when they’re encrypted, those password files can easily be cracked (as Dan Goodin reported) with a variety of readily-available “password recovery” tools—and thanks to software that uses the power of beefier graphics processor units and vast lists of previously cracked passwords, it’s getting increasingly easier.

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Ars Technica » Technology Lab

In Israeli desert, computer virus targeting Iran was born – Boston Globe

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Nor is it clear the attacks are over: Some specialists who have examined the code believe it contains the seeds for yet more versions and assaults. Officially, neither American nor Israeli officials will even utter the name of the malicious computer …
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