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Submission + - Linux Crypto Utility Vulnerability Puts Systems at Risk (threatpost.com)

msm1267 writes: A vulnerability in cryptsetup, a utility used to set up encrypted filesystems on Linux distributions, could allow an attacker to retrieve a root rescue shell on some systems. From there, an attacker could have the ability to copy, modify, or destroy a hard disk, or use the network to exfiltrate data.

Cryptsetup, a utility used to setup disk encryption based on the dm-crypt kernel module, is usually deployed in Debian and Ubuntu. Researchers warned late last week that if anyone uses the tool to encrypt system partitions for the operating systems, they’re likely vulnerable.

Two researchers, Hector Marco of the University of the West of Scotland and Ismael Ripoll, of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, in Spain, disclosed the vulnerability on Friday at DeepSec, a security conference held at the Imperial Riding School Renaissance Vienna Hotel in Austria.

According to a post published to the Full Disclosure mailing list, the vulnerability (CVE-2016-4484) affects packages 2.1 and earlier. Systems that use Dracut, an infrastructure commonly deployed on Fedora in lieu of initramfs – a simple RAM file system directory, are also vulnerable, according to the researchers. The pair say additional Linux distributions outside of Debian and Ubuntu may be vulnerable, they just haven’t tested them yet.

Submission + - OAuth 2.0 Flaw Exposes 1 Billion Mobile Apps to Takeover (threatpost.com)

msm1267 writes: Third-party applications that allow single sign-on via Facebook and Google and support the OAuth 2.0 protocol, are exposed to account hijacking.

Three Chinese University of Hong Kong researchers presented at Black Hat EU last week a paper called “Signing into One Billion Mobile LApp Accounts Effortlessly with OAuth 2.0.” The paper describes an attack that takes advantage of poor OAuth 2.0 implementations and puts more than one billion apps in jeopardy.

The researchers examined 600 top U.S. and Chinese mobile apps that use OAuth 2.0 APIs from Facebook, Google and Sina—which operates Weibo in China—and support SSO for third-party apps. The researchers found that 41.2 percent of the apps they tested were vulnerable to their attack, including popular dating, travel, shopping, hotel booking, finance, chat, music and news apps. None of the apps were named in the paper, but some have been downloaded hundreds of millions of times and can be exploited for anything from free phone calls to fraudulent purchases.

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