Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: Most common keystroke loggers?
From: gboyce <gboyce () badbelly com>
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 16:23:52 -0500 (EST)
Shannon,A compromised system and a social engineering attack to get important credential information are two very distinct problems, and will be solved in very different ways.
For the social engineering attack, some of the methods I've seen so far in this thread (One Time Pads, two factor auth, etc) can be very useful. I'm sure they all have their limitations, but I'm hardly an expert, so I'll let the experts hash this one out.
With the compromised system on the other hand, its pretty much game over. No matter what method you try to use to obscure the data, the person who compromised the system can get at it. The only way you're even remotely safe is if you use a completely obscure system, and you're a small enough target that no one puts the effort into working around your "security". Hardly something you can count on though.
Perhaps it would be a better method to try to instead verify if a system has been compromised, and disallow the system to use your application if the system is known to be compromised.
I'm not sure if anyone has spent any time researching the feasibility of third party verification of client systems. Some form of required virus/spyware scanning before allowing a client to use a service. Of course, this may severely limit what operating systems are able to connect to the service.
On Fri, 2 Dec 2005, Shannon Johnston wrote:
This is fantastic! I like all the feed back that has been coming through. I think that it would be helpful to explain a bit more. The original question about keystroke loggers was an effort to find some loggers that were in use (with screen capture capability) so they could be used in our testing. The actual problem stems from our efforts of trying to secure an application keeping in mind that a user's system may be compromised, and/or the user has been socially engineered into giving out important credential information. We've been playing with 2-factor authentication, randomized graphical "keyboards", S/Key, one time passwords (sent via email/SMS), even getting to the point where the system will call a user on the phone and ask for a verification word when authentication is attempted. I know that education of the end user is the best defense, but there will always be people who just don't get it. With that logic I almost have to consider the user an untrusted source. The goal of the project is to see if we can design a system that prevents an uneducated user from shooting themselves in the in the foot. Shannon On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 12:01 +1300, Nick FitzGerald wrote:deepquest wrote:To me the only thing that can defeat keystroke is what a softwareortrojan can not do: See (OCR is just a partial application of guess but not applicable in that case)Then you are so far inside the box you cannot see the walls... The OP said "keystroke logger" BUT he also said "compromised". Ifthemachine is compromised you cannot limit yourself to "keylogging" as a compromised machine may be running _anything_ (including somethingnotyet written, as we are talking about a hypothetical future situation, so the OP limiting the original question to "the most commonkeylogger"is further evidence that the OP does not understand the actualproblemset he has been posed).Imagine a web page with a virtual keyboard page (clickable). Inorderto prevent the localisation on the keys mapping based on positionofthe mouse, display the keyboard on random location of thescreen. ...Trivially, and already long ago, overcome by screen-shot keyloggers.... Add a random password and challenge authentication process.Why? This adds nothing but annoyance to the user, thus reducingusability.If you're going to move to OTP, why _also_ move to an onscreen keyboard? It's almost like you believe that taking two unrelated approaches that indivdually make no improvement whatsoever will suddenly make some real improvement when combined. A hint -- zeropluszero equals ?????? As already explained ad nauseum to the other naïve "use OTP", if youdonot do something "out of band" _relative to any and all possible "bad code" that could be running on a compromised machine_, you havelost.To achieve that requires a second, "secure" piece of _hardware_ that simply uses the network connection through the compromised machine to communicate in a crptographically secure way with the server. The OP made no mention of designing hardwaremy 2 cents,If that's really what the above "advice" is worth, inflation must be _really bad_ where you are! Regards, Nick FitzGerald _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/_______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
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Current thread:
- Re: Most common keystroke loggers?, (continued)
- Re: Most common keystroke loggers? Blue Boar (Dec 02)
- Re: Most common keystroke loggers? Frank Knobbe (Dec 02)
- Re: Most common keystroke loggers? Blue Boar (Dec 02)
- Re: Most common keystroke loggers? Frank Knobbe (Dec 02)
- RE: Most common keystroke loggers? Debasis Mohanty (Dec 02)
- RE: Most common keystroke loggers? Debasis Mohanty (Dec 02)
- RE: Most common keystroke loggers? Debasis Mohanty (Dec 02)
- Re: Most common keystroke loggers? gboyce (Dec 02)
- Re: Most common keystroke loggers? Nick FitzGerald (Dec 02)
- RE: Most common keystroke loggers? Lyal Collins (Dec 08)
- Message not available
- Re: Most common keystroke loggers? Mark Senior (Dec 22)