Lecture 1_ Intro & History.md (2185B)
1 +++ 2 title = "Lecture 1: Intro & History" 3 +++ 4 # Lecture 1: Intro & History 5 ## QUANTUM - the NSA is always watching 6 SSO (special source operations site) connected to internet router sees the "QUANTUM tasked" packet to a legitimate server, forwards it to TAO's FOXACID server 7 - TAO: tailored access operations (NSA project) 8 - FOXACID: NSA's "exploit orchestrator" that can attack target computers in different ways 9 10 Then, FOXACID injects a URL into the packet and sends back to computer, often beating the legitimate packet reply back. 11 The server checks if the target browser is exploitable, and if yes, it sends exploit back to target. 12 13 QUANTUM affects linkedin, youtube, facebook, twitter, and basically everything else. 14 Oh and the NSA also has partners in other countries, so they cover other national services too. 15 16 First stage: 17 - VALIDATOR: backdoor Trojan on Windows that contacts a Listening Post, allows it to add more sophisticated malware 18 - OLYMPUSFIRE: software implant on Windows, gives complete access, essentially adds your computer to a botnet 19 20 **The lesson:** many security threats start in the network, such as this one, where a legitimate reply was spoofed 21 22 ## Security 23 Combination of: 24 - confidentiality (privacy) 25 - integrity (consistency) 26 - availability 27 28 Systems are made by people, so they're not perfect. 29 Some apps work as designed but contain vulnerabilities. 30 31 Security *error*: made by human 32 Security *bug*: consequence of error (also "vulnerability"), can be "exploited", compromising the security of the system 33 34 ## Security analysis 35 Determining the security of the system, wrt: 36 - set of known design guidelines 37 - set of known security problems 38 - its environment 39 40 ## Some history 41 Started with phone phreaking and "Captain Crunch" (John Draper), who used the whistle that comes in boxes of Capn Crunch to authorise long-distance calls. 42 43 The Morris worm: 44 - consisted of main program and bootstrap program 45 - first step: 46 - buffer overflow in `fingerd`, bug in `sendmail` program allowing commands to be executed 47 - sucks in bootstrap program from infecting machine 48 - second step: bootstrap program compiled and run, fetching precompiled version of main program