Tag Archives: CERT.LV

Dynamic content in secure digital signatures

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.

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Vulnerabilities of Milesight IP security cameras

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.

First public presentation

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.