Skip to main content

So how do you steal credential in memory in mobile?

It's not a technical question, it's a question when a few people argue (devil's advocate) that even if their app has an issue of storing the 'Login Credentials' in memory, what's the risk? Their arguments are:

  • They have jailbreak/ root detection implemented. So the app cannot be installed on a rooted device.
  • >>Counter argument: The JB/ root detection are completely by-passable as they are client side protections. Scenarios, a user can intentionally/ unintentionally bypass this check and install at his own device to enjoy banking and other apps also, which require a root. Second scenario, a security researcher can do the same thing to do a research and learn how this app works. If this app belongs to a reputed firm and he/ she makes this finding public, it would be reputation loss.
  • If you try to root the device which has the app already installed, the device will reboot and in this order kills the app's process and consequently clears the memory which holds the credentials.
  • >>Counter argument: There are a few malicious apps/ incidents we have come across where it's not really needed to reboot the device. The malwares/ exploits can take advantage of various CVEs to gain root access to the device which can be used to further dump/ read the memory.      Not possible? There are bunch of links on the internet which suggests it's possible- a few old, a few current. They range from malware to Remote access trojans. A few links:
  • https://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/new-androrat-exploits-dated-permanent-rooting-vulnerability-allows-privilege-escalation/ 
  • https://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/godless-mobile-malware-uses-multiple-exploits-root-devices/

The point here there could be N no. of possibilities to exploit something, if not today, maybe in near future. That does not mean, we'll not fix our problem and rather challenge others to prove that it's not possible. If that's the case, we need not develop secure applications just because there are so many perimeter defense available on the network? That's security through obscurity, which is bound to fail one fine day!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Using an AirPcap device in Windows with Wireshark

Capturing wireless traffic in a Windows environment is unfortunately not as easy as a setting change. As with most Windows-based software, drivers in Windows are often not open source and do not allow for configuration change into monitor mode. With this in mind, we must use a specialized piece of hardware known as an AirPcap device. Once you have obtained an AirPcap device you will be required to install the software on the accompanying CD to your analysis computer. The configurable options include: • Interface - Select the device you are using for your capture here. Some advanced analysis scenarios may require you to use more than one AirPcap device to sniff simultaneously on multiple channels. • Blink LED - Clicking this button will make the LED lights on the AirPcap device blink. This is primarily used to identify the specific adapter you are using if you are using multiple AirPcap devices. • Channel - In this field, you select the channel you want AirPcap to listen on. Extension C...

Anti CSRF header

Recently I came across an application which was preventing crsf attacks using a unique non-traditional approach. In traditional approach the csrf is thwarted by embedding unique random tokens, called nonce, in each sensitive page. But this application, which was making ajax calls and used jQuery, was creating a header to identify the valid and invalid requests altogether. The idea is to generate a custom header, x-session-token in this case, with every request which is considered sensitive and includes any sort of transaction. For example: xhr.setRequestHeader('x-session-token', csrf_token)   At the server level, server checks for this header if found request is fulfilled, otherwise rejected. We need to use xhr calls for making use of this technique, not useful in regular POST and GET requests. Since, I was not aware of this kind of countermeasures, probably, since most of the applications I did were using standard requests. So, I searched a bit and found even Go...

Some one watching where you visited!

Yes... Mozilla has been susceptible to browser-history stealing java script code. Today, Giorgio posted some cool information about the exploit. Mozilla is already working on this. This bug has been reported. Actually they have set up a web site to show the proof-of-concept. Visit www.statrpanic.com in FF,Safari or Netscape and it will tell you which websites have you been already ! But I am not sure it will work in IE or not because my IE is not responding to the website. Clearing history of visited website makes you safe to this attack. I mean this is one way..may be there are other ways to exploit this. But I have found this effective. Try it yourself in FF and then in IE and see the results.