Category Archives: Announcements

Dynamic content in secure digital signatures

Announcements, Security, , Languages: Latviešu valoda English

One of essential functions of digital signatures is to guarantee the integrity of the signed data. That is achieved by encrypting the data (its checksum) with one of the asymmetric cryptography algorithms. When you make changes to the signed data, the checksum no longer corresponds to the value included in the signature, so the signature can be identified as invalid.

However, in real life, the data to be signed is often far more complicated than plain-text strings. When digitally signing document files, it is only guaranteed that the binary content of the document file is exactly as it was at the time of signing. However, it does not say anything about whether the visual representation or the document contents in the applications displaying these documents is the same.

We are demonstrating a number of ways in which, by using various functions available in .docx and .odt formats, it is possible to create documents whose file contents are unchanged and thus are not raising any doubts about the validity of the digital signature, but in which the actual content displayed to the user may vary.

Continue reading →

Vulnerabilities of Milesight IP security cameras

Announcements, Security, , Languages: Latviešu valoda English

Internet of Things is becoming ever more popular, and vendors seek to capitalize on that: nowadays the manufacturing process of some security cameras is more alike to that of an Internet of Things device, rather than a security device. This reckless attitude undoubtedly leads to security vulnerabilities in critical systems.

Our lead researcher Kirils Solovjovs participated in IT security conference “Cyberchess 2016” jointly organised by CERT.LV and ISACA Latvia, where he presented his research on the security of Milesight IP security cameras. Multiple major security vulnerabilities were presented (CVE-2016-2356, CVE-2016-2357, CVE-2016-2358, CVE-2016-2359, CVE-2016-2360). The presence of vulnerabilities in the wild was verified in cooperation with CERT.LV by testing a Latvian public institution with more than 100 products by this vendor.

Given that vendor is located outside EU, Kirils initiated an international responsible disclosure process, working with the vendor, CERT.LV, the public institution, the installer, HackerOne Inc., and CERT/CC.

The presentation covers the technical aspects of vulnerabilities (presented publicly for the first time), lessons learned, and recommendations to security officers and policy makers. Video recording is also available.

MAKE RIGA Hacking competition 2016. Results.

Announcements, Non-technical Languages: Latviešu valoda English

MAKE RIGA hacking competition

Last weekend the Institute of electronics and computer science (EDI) hosted MAKE RIGA Hacking competition 2016, which is set to become a yearly tradition. Co-owner of 1st Ltd Kirils Solovjovs defended his champion title by attaining first place once again.

“The number and variety of challenges as well as the number of contenders is clearly increasing, providing for a lively competition. I was not originally planning to attend, but seeing the high response rate, I decided to give it a go and sign up for the competition on its second day. One could say that ending up at the top this year was a pleasant accident,” champion Kirils Solovjovs said with a smile.

This year the organizers had prepared 33 challenges – 57% more than the previous year – to wrestle with in the following categories among others:

  • encryption,
  • Internet of Things,
  • WiFi security,
  • social engineering,
  • embedded device and microchip analysis,
  • radio intercept and decoding,
  • RFID security,
  • reverse engineering software binaries,
  • security of network services.

This year’s competition was well attended with 38 participants taking part from all around Latvia. Contenders included IT professionals, scientists and other interested parties.

The gold trophy was won by IT security expert Kirils Solovjovs who maxed out at 162 points. Krišjānis Stikāns was well behind with 99.5 points. Bronze trophy was awarded to Aleksandrs Levinskis for scoring 91 points. He was closely trailed by Dāvis Mosāns and “mkz” who scored 90 and 89 points respectively. Six of 33 challenges remained unsolved by anyone.

Cyber Europe 2016

Announcements, Languages: English

Cyber EuropeOn 13th and 14th of October Possible Security took part in “Cyber Europe 2016” — the largest and most comprehensive EU cyber-security exercise to date. Cybersecurity authorities and cybersecurity experts from more than 300 organisations from all 28 EU Member States, Switzerland and Norway, reacted to a series of unprecedented, coordinated cyberattacks.

Exercise scenario included massive distributed denial of service attacks as well as disinformation campaign and sabotage of critical infrastructure, and featured the Internet of Things, drones, cloud computing, innovative exfiltration vectors, mobile malware, ransomware, etc.

Amongst the goals of the exercise was testing the ability of national and governmental cybersecurity agencies, ministries, EU institutions as well as internet and cloud service providers and cybersecurity service providers to safeguard the European Digital Single Market and creating recommendations to improve cybersecurity in Europe. After-action report will be made publicly available in the first half of 2017.

Exercise was organised by ENISA, the EU Agency for Network and Information Security. Possible Security is honoured to have been invited to participate in “Cyber Europe 2016” and be part of the solution together with our governmental and business partners.

First place at MAKE RIGA Hacking competition

Announcements, Non-technical Languages: Latviešu valoda English

Trophies for the 1st and 3rd placeInstitute of electronics and computer science (EDI) hosted the first MAKE RIGA Hacking competition last weekend. We are happy to announce that the co-owners of 1st Ltd Kirils Solovjovs and Jānis Jansons won the first and the third place respectively.

Contenders were given 13 hours over the course of two days to solve 21 challenges worth ten points each. Participants were competing in the following categories among others:

  • WiFi security,
  • password cracking,
  • embedded device analysis, including firmware disassembly and flashing,
  • radio intercept and decoding,
  • RFID security,
  • reverse engineering software binaries and hardware components,
  • security of network services.

First public presentation

Announcements, Non-technical, Languages: Latviešu valoda English

We are happy to announce our participation in the yearly IT Security Conference “Our information security – key to the future“, which is jointly organised by CERT.LV and ISACA Latvia. The conference will be held on October 23 at the Radisson Blu Hotel Conference Centre in Riga, Latvia.

During the conference our lead researcher Kirils Solovjovs will be giving a presentation on the practical side of IT security in Latvia.

The language of the presentation will be Latvian and the slides will be available on our website after the presentation.