The world of hackers can be roughly divided into three groups. “Black hats” break into corporate computer systems for fun and profit, taking credit card numbers and e-mail addresses to sell and trade with other hackers, while the “white hats” help companies stop their disruptive counterparts. But it is the third group, the “gray hats,” that are the most vexing for companies. These hackers play it any number of ways, which can leave a company vulnerable to lost assets as well as a tarnished reputation as security breaches are exposed. (The terms are a nod to westerns, with the villain wearing a black hat and the hero a white one.) These gray-hat hackers surreptitiously break into corporate computers to find security weaknesses. They then choose whether to notify the company and stay silent until the hole has been patched or embarrass the company by exposing the problem. The debate among all of these groups over the best course of action has never been settled and will be an undercurrent at the Black Hat hackers conference which started Friday in Las Vegas. Internet gets an upgrade The Internet has undergone a key upgrade that promises to stop cyber criminals from using fake websites that dupe people into downloading viruses or revealing personal data. The agency in charge of managing Internet addresses teamed with online security services firm VeriSign and the US Department of Commerce to give websites encrypted identification to prove they are legitimate. The Domain Name System Security Extensions, referred to as DNSSEC, basically adds a secret, identifying code to each website address. The domain name system is where the world's Internet addresses are registered and plays a key role in enabling computers around the world to speak with one another online. Applications commonly used on the Internet can be tailored to essentially check the ID of a website to make certain it is what it claims to be, according to Dan Kaminsky, a hacker turned computer security specialist. For example, web browser software such as Google or Bing could be adapted to tell whether a bank log-in page is authentic. DNSSEC strips cyber criminals of being able to do attacks that involve manipulating code to redirect people from legitimate websites to fake pages rigged with malicious code or asking for passwords and other valuable data. Bunker-busting ATM attacks A hacker has discovered a way to force ATMs to disgorge their cash by hijacking the computers inside them. The attacks demonstrated Wednesday targeted standalone ATMs. But they could potentially be used against the ATMs operated by mainstream banks. Criminals have long known that ATMs aren't tamperproof. Computer hacker Barnaby Jack spent two years tinkering in his Silicon Valley apartment with ATMs he bought online. These were standalone machines, the type seen in front of convenience stores, rather than the ones in bank branches. His goal was to find ways to take control of ATMs by exploiting weaknesses in the computers that run the machines. He showed off his results here at the conference. His attacks have wide implications because they affect multiple types of ATMs and exploit weaknesses in software and security measures that are used throughout the industry. Jack showed in a theatrical demonstration two ways he can get ATMs to spit out money: • He found that the physical keys that came with his machines were the same for all ATMs of that type made by that manufacturer. He figured this out by ordering three ATMs from different manufacturers for a few thousand dollars each. Then he compared the keys he got to pictures of other keys, found on the Internet. He used his key to unlock a compartment in the ATM that had standard USB slots. He inserted a program he had written into one of them, commanding the ATM to dump its vaults. • He hacked into the machines by exploiting weaknesses in the way ATM makers communicate with the machines over the Internet. Jack said the problem is that outsiders are permitted to bypass the need for a password. The remote style of attack is more dangerous because an attacker doesn't need to open up the ATMs. It allows an attacker to gain full control of the ATMs and not only order it to spit out money, but also to silently harvest card data from anyone who uses the machines. Jack said the manufacturers whose machines he studied are deploying software fixes for both vulnerabilities, but added that the prevalence of remote-management software broadly opens up ATMs to hacker attacks.
