Category: Technology

New Ransomware Attack Vector – Virtual Machines

No one likes malware, but a particularly malicious type is called Ransomware, and it specifically preys on people’s data.

Ransomware essentially encrypts the entire user’s computer or specific files until a sum of money is paid to the attacker. While there is no guarantee the attacker will make the files or computer available again, it seems to be in their best interest to return access to the computer, otherwise no one else would pay once word got around.

A particularly nasty type of new ransomware has just been discovered, and it utilizes a surprising attack vector: virtual machines.

In a new report by Sophos, the operators of the Ragnar Locker are using another novel method to avoid being detected when encrypting files.

They are now deploying VirtualBox Windows XP virtual machines to execute the ransomware and encrypt files so that they are not detected by security software running on the host.

This attack is started by first creating a tool folder that includes VirtualBox, a mini Windows XP virtual disk called micro.vdi, and various executables and scripts to prep the system.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/ransomware-encrypts-from-virtual-machines-to-evade-antivirus

As the security software running on the victim’s host will not detect the ransomware executable or activity on the virtual machine, it will happily keep running without detecting that the victim’s files are now being encrypted.

Interestingly, Windows 10’s “Controlled Folder Access” may prevent this attack, as it prevents any unauthorized changes by applications without a password.

This is especially problematic for government organizations, business, and hospitals. In fact, one of their more recent attacks was on an energy company EDP (https://www.edp.com/en), where the attackers stole more than 10 TB of files and received a ransom of over 10 million dollars.

This attack illustrates how security software with behavioral monitoring is becoming more important to stem the tide of ransomware infections.

It’s more important than ever to implement safe browsing habits, and common sense when executing unknown files, as once the attacker is in your system, it’s game over.

It helps me if you share this post

Published 2020-05-23 17:27:04

Networking in C#, a simple library

Recently I wanted to make a simple multiplayer game in Unity, but I didn’t want to use their terribly made UNET, as even though it’s barely a few years old, it’s already deprecated. I also didn’t want to go with a third party like Photon Networking, because I don’t want to pay for CCU (Concurrent User) usage, server costs, and other misc fees.

No, what I wanted was a solution such as Minecraft implements, where you directly connect to a server and it’s served through peer-to-peer networking, with one player being a server. The solution? A small library called LiteNetLib. This library allows you to build multiplayer games in .NET (C#), including Unity, with no limitations on usage, including player count. It was exactly what I needed.

The documentation is slightly sparse but it wasn’t rocket science to get a small example up and running, and the developer seems pretty open to questions. There’s also a small sample included so you can see what it entails.

Cheers!

It helps me if you share this post

Published 2020-02-13 00:39:20

Welcome to the Age of Quantum Computers

From Bloomberg:

A team of scientists at Google’s research lab announced last week in the journal Nature that they had built a quantum computer that could perform calculations in about 200 seconds that would take a classical supercomputer some 10,000 years to do.

An age of “Quantum supremacy” was duly declared.

Google’s claim to have achieved quantum supremacy – that is, to have accomplished a task that traditional computers can’t – was premature.

Although the specific problem that Google’s computer solved won’t have much practical significance, simply getting the technology to work was a triumph; comparisons to the Wright brothers‘ early flights aren’t far off the mark.

Congress should fund basic research at labs and universities, ensure the U.S. welcomes immigrants with relevant skills, invest in cutting-edge infrastructure, and use the government’s vast leverage as a consumer to support promising quantum technologies.

A more distant worry is that advanced quantum computers could one day threaten the public-key cryptography that protects information across the digital world.

This is big for a number of reasons but do not get too excited/scared yet! Quantum computing is still a number of years away. IBM was also quick to point out that Google’s estimate for how long “Summit” (the fastest computer in the world currently Google estimated against), was incorrect. According to papers published after Google’s report, “IBM’s engineers reckon, [adjustments would] allow Summit to breeze through the job in a mere 2½ days. Therefore, according to IBM, Google had not shown quantum supremacy after all.”

Well, that was quick.

What does that mean for their supposed success? Well, it’s still impressive. Google demonstrated a monstrous leap in technological prowess and got one step closer to proving a plethora of theories that many computer scientists are still eagerly waiting to take a crack at. P = NP anyone?

But wait, not so fast. Technically yeah, Google was wrong, but you still have to compare and contrast the differing performance results. Two and a half days is, after all, still about 1,200 times longer than 3 minutes.

Second, each extra qubit doubles the memory required by a classical machine put up against it. Adding just three qubits to Google’s challenger machine would have exhausted Summit’s hard disks. Quantum computers do not face such explosively growing demands. Google’s machine may not quite have crossed the finishing line. But it has got pretty close to doing so.

Additionally, Bloomberg has an excellent point when it says the U.S. should invest in this technology, if they aren’t already. They likely are behind the scenes, as a foreign entity such as China being the first to own a Quantum Computer is very scary. As Bloomberg pointed out, Quantum Computers make breaking passwords look like a walk in the park. Our current method of storing passwords would be under direct attack from Quantum Computing, and it’s one of the reasons the research is so dangerous.

Let me end your day off with this badass robot (fair warning, some of the video is fake) that some very talented individuals are developing.

It helps me if you share this post

Published 2019-11-01 11:35:18

What’s with the dark themes?

Some may have noticed the rising trend of dark themed applications and websites. This is not just your imagination. Dark themes are the latest design fad that regularly changes up every so often. Right now, flat, simple designs are in, as well as dark themes. macOS added dark theme to their entire OS, built in system apps included. Microsoft and many other vendors, including Android, and third-party applications implement dark modes into all their apps. There are extensions like “Dark Reader” that specifically render websites in dark mode. My website is entirely dark themed.

Why dark themes?

1. Choice is good.

2. It looks great.

3. Normal, white/blue light emitted from the screen keeps you awake (suppresses melatonin)

4. Eyestrain

5. Google confirmed that using dark mode on an OLED screen is a huge help for battery life. Dark mode interface in the YouTube app saves about 15% battery vs not using it on 50% screen brightness. If you use 100% screen brightness (the hell, are you on the sun or something?) then it saves a massive 60% of battery life

6. It’s easier for long periods of staring at the same image in specific

Let me point this out just for myself real quick, I cannot code on a white background. I need to look at the code for hours and hours at a time, my eyeballs would sear if I continued staring at a white background. Here’s a comparison of dark mode vs light mode from one of my favorite script editors.

Dark theme of IDE
Light mode of IDE

Plus, dark mode on an OLED screen blends into the bezels(?) so well, it looks practically magical. It’s possible to forget you have a camera cutout or notch if you choose the right wallpaper.

It helps me if you share this post

Published 2019-10-15 01:42:49

Google can track iOS users through fonts

https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1172200578207772672

Google’s Crashyltics allow them to track crashes from the “Beta” version of the app through a font.

https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1172215993625505792

However, there is at least a prompt to install it.

One of the things iOS has always lacked is the ability to install custom fonts. Apple has delayed it, stating security concerns. Proving Apple’s point, Google-owned Crashlytics is abusing the feature to track users by installing a font with a custom identifier embedded. Because fonts are installed system-wide in order to be used across multiple apps, it could be possible for any app to use Crashlytics’s font to uniquely identify users, and piggy-back off the tracking without doing any workthemselves.

This sets up a host of security and privacy concerns and problems. The basic fact remains that something as innocuous as a font should not be used for fingerprinting users, because most consumers will not know a font should/could be used for that purpose.

It helps me if you share this post

Published 2019-09-13 07:59:35

How to create a simple voice-activated assistant in C#.

This is really old. I will release another tutorial updating this eventually. Follow my blog to get an update when that happens. Thanks!

While this sounds advanced (and it can be), it’s not that hard to set up a very basic setup where a custom application runs in the background in C# by using the built in speech recognition libraries in Windows 10.

Taking this idea further, I personally have a “Jarvis” that runs on my computer, automating basically all of my common actions, including launching games, music, sleeping my computer, adjusting the volume, minimizing windows, controlling the lights, and (best of all), sending emails and messages. I recommend using an external API for speech recognition if you’re serious about building something similar, as Microsoft’s sucks. You can build your own, or attempt to use something like Google’s API.

Anyway, here’s some simple C# code that should get some ideas flowing.


using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using Microsoft.Speech.Recognition;
using Process = System.Diagnostics.Process;
using System.Diagnostics;
namespace VoiceAssistant
{
class Program
{
#region Native Stuff
const int Hide = 0;
const int Show = 1;
[DllImport("Kernel32.dll")]
private static extern IntPtr GetConsoleWindow();
[DllImport("User32.dll")]
private static extern bool ShowWindow(IntPtr hWnd, int cmdShow);
[DllImport("PowrProf.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, ExactSpelling = true)]
public static extern bool SetSuspendState(bool hiberate, bool forceCritical, bool disableWakeEvent);
#endregion
static SpeechRecognitionEngine speechRecognitionEngine;
static bool speechOn = true;
private static string clipboardText;
private static bool shouldLog = true;
private static readonly string[] commands =
{
"assistant mute",
"assistant open clipboard",
"assistant new tab",
"assistant work music",
"assistant new github",
"assistant sleep computer confirmation 101",
"assistant shut down computer confirmation 101",
"assistant open story",
"assistant open rocket league"
};
static void HideWindow()
{
//Hide window
IntPtr hWndConsole = GetConsoleWindow();
if (hWndConsole != IntPtr.Zero)
{
ShowWindow(hWndConsole, Hide);
shouldLog = false;
//ShowWindow(hWndConsole, Show);
}
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
HideWindow();
//Console.WriteLine("[ASSISTANT AI INITIALIZED]");
CultureInfo cultureInfo = new CultureInfo("en-us");
speechRecognitionEngine = new SpeechRecognitionEngine(cultureInfo);
speechRecognitionEngine.SetInputToDefaultAudioDevice();
speechRecognitionEngine.SpeechRecognized += SpeechRecognition;
speechRecognitionEngine.SpeechDetected += SpeechDetected;
speechRecognitionEngine.SpeechHypothesized += SpeechHypothesized;
LoadCommands();
while (true)
{
Thread.Sleep(60000);
}
}
static void LoadCommands()
{
/*Grammar muteCommand = new Grammar(new GrammarBuilder(commands[0]));
Grammar browserOpenCopiedLink = new Grammar(new GrammarBuilder(commands[1]));
Grammar browserCopyLink = new Grammar(new GrammarBuilder(commands[2]));
speechRecognitionEngine.LoadGrammar(muteCommand);
speechRecognitionEngine.LoadGrammar(browserOpenCopiedLink);
speechRecognitionEngine.LoadGrammar(browserCopyLink);*/
foreach (string command in commands)
{
speechRecognitionEngine.LoadGrammarAsync(new Grammar(new GrammarBuilder(command)));
}
speechRecognitionEngine.RecognizeAsync(RecognizeMode.Multiple);
Console.Beep(600, 200);
Console.Beep(600, 200);
}
static void SpeechHypothesized(object sender, SpeechHypothesizedEventArgs e)
{
//Log(e.Result.Text);
}
static void SpeechDetected(object sender, SpeechDetectedEventArgs e)
{
//Log("Detected speech.");
}
static void SpeechRecognition(object sender, SpeechRecognizedEventArgs e)
{
string resultText = e.Result.Text.ToLower();
float confidence = e.Result.Confidence;
SemanticValue semantics = e.Result.Semantics;
Log("\nRecognized: " + resultText + " | Confidence:" + confidence);
if (confidence < 0.6)
{
Log("Not sure what if you said that. Not proceeding.", ConsoleColor.Red);
return;
}
if (resultText == commands[0])
{
speechOn = !speechOn;
Log("Speech on: " + speechOn);
if (speechOn)
{
Console.Beep(600, 200);
Console.Beep(600, 200);
}
else
{
Console.Beep(400, 400);
}
return;
}
if (!speechOn)
{
Log("AI is muted. Not doing any commands.");
Console.Beep(400, 200);
return;
}
if (resultText == commands[1]) //Open link on clipboard.
{
Thread clipboardThread = new Thread(param =>
{
if (Clipboard.ContainsText(TextDataFormat.Text))
{
clipboardText = Clipboard.GetText(TextDataFormat.Text);
}
});
clipboardThread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);
clipboardThread.Start();
clipboardThread.Join();
Log(clipboardText);
Process.Start(clipboardText);
}
if (resultText == commands[2]) //Open browser
{
Process.Start("https://google.com");
}
if (resultText == commands[3]) //Open work music
{
Process.Start("https://youtu.be/Qku9aoUlTXA?list=PLESPkMaANzSj91tvYnQkKwgx41vkxp6hs");
}
if (resultText == commands[4]) //Open Github new repository
{
Process.Start("https://github.com/new");
}
if (resultText == commands[5]) //Sleep computer
{
SetSuspendState(false, true, true);
}
if (resultText == commands[6]) //Shutdown computer
{
Process.Start("shutdown", "/s /t 0");
}
if (resultText == commands[7]) //Open story
{
Process.Start("https://docs.new");
}
if (resultText == commands[9]) //Open Rocket League
{
Process.Start("C:\\Users\\USER\\Documents\\SteamLauncher\\RocketLeague.exe");
}
}
static void Log(string input, ConsoleColor color = ConsoleColor.White)
{
if (shouldLog)
{
Console.ForegroundColor = color;
Console.WriteLine(input);
Console.ResetColor();
}
}
}
}

view raw

simplevoiceassistant.cs

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

It helps me if you share this post

Published 2019-05-22 18:10:00