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University of California - San Diego, Eureka! Science News, Aug. 10, 2009
Computer scientists demonstrated that criminals could hack an electronic voting machine and steal votes using a malicious programming approach that had not been invented when the voting machine was designed. The team of scientists from University of California, San Diego, the University of Michigan, and Princeton University employed “return-oriented programming” to force a Sequoia AVC Advantage electronic voting machine to turn against itself and steal votes. “Voting machines must remain secure throughout their entire service lifetime, and this study demonstrates how a relatively new programming technique can be used to take control of a voting machine that was designed to resist takeover, but that did not anticipate this new kind of malicious programming,” said Hovav Shacham, a professor of computer science at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering and an author on the new study presented on August 10, 2009 at the 2009 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop / Workshop on Trustworthy Elections (EVT/WOTE 2009), the premier academic forum for voting security research.
In 2007, Shacham first described return-oriented programming, which is a powerful systems security exploit that generates malicious behavior by combining short snippets of benign code already present in the system.
The new study demonstrates that return-oriented programming can be used to execute vote-stealing computations by taking control of a voting machine designed to prevent code injection. Shacham and UC San Diego computer science Ph.D. student Stephen Checkoway collaborated with researchers from Princeton University and the University of Michigan on this project.
“With this work, we hope to encourage further public dialog regarding what voting technologies can best ensure secure elections and what stop gap measures should be adopted if less than optimal systems are still in use,” said J. Alex Halderman, an electrical engineering and computer science professor at the University of Michigan.
The computer scientists had no access to the machine’s source code—or any other proprietary information—when designing the demonstration attack. By using just the information that would be available to anyone who bought or stole a voting machine, the researchers addressed a common criticism made against voting security researchers: that they enjoy unrealistic access to the systems they study.
“Based on our understanding of security and computer technology, it looks like paper-based elections are the way to go. Probably the best approach would involve fast optical scanners reading paper ballots. These kinds of paper-based systems are amenable to statistical audits, which is something the election security research community is shifting to,” said Shacham.
“You can actually run a modern and efficient election on paper that does not look like the Florida 2000 Presidential election,” said Shacham. “If you are using electronic voting machines, you need to have a separate paper record at the very least.”
Last year, Shacham, Halderman and others authored a paper entitled “You Go to Elections with the Voting System You have: Stop-Gap Mitigations for Deployed Voting Systems” that was presented at the 2008 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop.” http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~hovav/papers/hrsw08.html
“This research shows that voting machines must be secure even against attacks that were not yet invented when the machines were designed and sold. Preventing not-yet-discovered attacks requires an extraordinary level of security engineering, or the use of safeguards such as voter-verified paper ballots,” said Edward Felten, an author on the new study; Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy; and Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University.
Return-Oriented Programming Demonstrates Voting Machine Vulnerabilities
To take over the voting machine, the computer scientists found a flaw in its software that could be exploited with return-oriented programming. But before they could find a flaw in the software, they had to reverse engineer the machine’s software and its hardware—without the benefit of source code.
Princeton University computer scientists affiliated with the Center for Information Technology Policy began by reverse engineering the hardware of a decommissioned Sequoia AVC Advantage electronic voting machine, purchased legally through a government auction. J. Alex Halderman—an electrical engineering and computer science professor at the University of Michigan (who recently finished his Ph.D. in computer science at Princeton) and Ariel Feldman—a Princeton University computer science Ph.D. student, reverse-engineered the hardware and documented its behavior.
It soon became clear to the researchers that the voting machine had been designed to reject any injected code that might be used to take over the machine. When they learned of Shacham’s return-oriented programming approach, the UC San Diego computer scientists were invited to take over the project. Stephen Checkoway, the computer science Ph.D. student at UC San Diego, did the bulk of the reverse engineering of the voting machine’s software. He deciphered the software by reading the machine’s read-only memory.
Simultaneously, Checkoway extended return-oriented programming to the voting machine’s processor architecture, the Z80. Once Checkoway and Shacham found the flaw in the voting machine’s software—a search which took some time—they were ready to use return-oriented programming to expose the machine’s vulnerabilities and steal votes.
The computer scientists crafted a demonstration attack using return-oriented programming that successfully took control of the reverse engineered software and hardware and changed vote totals. Next, Shacham and Checkoway flew to Princeton and proved that their demonstration attack worked on the actual voting machine, and not just the simulated version that the computer scientists built.
The computer scientists showed that an attacker would need just a few minutes of access to the machine the night before the election in order to take it over and steal votes the following day. The attacker introduces the demonstration attack into the machine through a cartridge with maliciously constructed contents that is inserted into an unused port in the machine. The attacker navigates the machine’s menus to trigger the vulnerability the researchers found. Now, the malicious software controls the machine. The attacker can, at this point, remove the cartridge, turn the machine’s power switch to the “off” position, and leave. Everything appears normal, but the attacker’s software is silently at work.
When poll workers enter in the morning, they normally turn this type of voting machine on. At this point, the exploit would make the machine appear to turn back on, even though it was never actually turned off.
“We overwrote the computer’s memory and state so it does what we want it to do, but if you shut off the machine and reboot from ROM, the exploit is gone and the machine returns to its original behavior,” explained Checkoway.
The computer scientists tested a machine that is very similar to machines that are used today in New Jersey and Louisiana. These New Jersey and Louisiana machines may have corrected the specific vulnerabilities the computer scientists exploited, but they have the same architectural limitations. The researchers highlight the possibility that current voting machines will be vulnerable to return-oriented programming attacks similar to the attack demonstrated in this study.
“This work shows how difficult it is to design voting machines that will remain secure over time. It’s impossible to anticipate what new kinds of attacks will be discovered in the future,” said Halderman.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Computer scientists take over electronic voting machine with new programming technique
Sunday, August 9, 2009
AT&T Internet to compete with Charter Cable in most of Anderson County
By Mike Ellis, Anderson Independent-Mail, Aug. 9, 2009
ANDERSON COUNTY — Monday is the first day that AT&T will offer high-speed Internet access in Anderson County that will compete with Charter Cable and satellite companies.
The platform is called U-verse and offers more than 100 channels of television programming, along with optional telephone service, high-speed Internet access and cell phone service.
“All on one bill,” said Amy Bristle, AT&T spokeswoman.
The program runs through telephone lines, not cable lines.
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After cyber attacks, White House must strengthen nation's computer security
By The Kansas City Star Editorial Board, Midwest Voices, Aug. 9, 2009
Last month, a surge of cyber attacks temporarily crashed more than two dozen government and commercial Web sites in the United States and South Korea.
Experts described the attacks as minor, but they emphasized a growing threat and offered a reminder for the Obama administration that it should move more quickly on this front.
With so much of our lives, histories and finances all online, this is a huge problem.
So far, the White House has made little progress in boosting the nation’s cyber security.
In May, President Barack Obama announced creation of a new effort to “deter, prevent, detect and defend” attacks by computer. A 38-page plan was made public, but it offered few details about how those goals would be met.
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Analyst predicts Apple mini-computer in ’10
Tablet will look like an iPod Touch, but a bit larger, may cost $500 to $700
AP, msnbc.com, Aug. 7, 2009
NEW YORK — A prominent technology analyst predicted that Apple Inc. would release a "tablet" or mini-computer for sale early next year, and that it could boost the consumer electronics company's revenue by 3 percent in 2010.
Speculation of a tablet from Apple has been swirling among analysts and technology blogs for a couple years as other PC makers post big sales of netbooks.
The tablet from Apple will look like an iPod Touch, but a bit larger, said Gene Munster, a Piper Jaffray analyst, in a research note Friday. He said he spoke with an Asian component supplier that had received orders from Apple for a touch-screen device that would need to be filled by late this year.
Munster estimated the tablet would be priced between $500 and $700 and would compete with netbooks, the tiny, low-cost, low-power laptops made by Dell, Acer, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba and other computer manufacturers. Sony, the Japanese electronics and media giant, recently announced it would start selling a netbook in Japan in August, with global rollouts following.
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Ford Pickup Trucks Feature In-Dash Computers
By Bill Howard, PCMag.com, Aug. 7, 2009
Say you manage a construction site and need a rugged laptop computer. Rather than spend $3,000-$5,000 for a ruggedized laptop computer and locking pedestal stand for your pickup truck, Ford offers an in-dash computer with Internet access and wireless keyboard for $1,195.
"I bet it's the first time you've ever seen Google running on the dashboard of a vehicle," says Bill Frykman, Ford Work Solutions business development manager.
The package also includes remote access, Bluetooth, and Garmin-developed navigation - in other words, a Happy Meal of Technology for less than the cost of integrated in-dash navigation alone.
This Ford Work Solutions system is available on Ford F-Series pickups, E-Series (Econoline) vans, and the Ford Transit Connect mini delivery van. The only downsides are that you can't have Ford Sync, the industry-leading music and Bluetooth system, and the screen seems small for doing serious work. Ford says the center-dash location precludes a bigger screen, at least for now.
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Hackers Expose Weakness in Visiting Trusted Sites
There are major problems in the way browsers interact with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates, which is a common technology used on banking, e-commerce and other sites handling sensitive data. Browser makers and the companies that sell SSL certificates are working on a fix. VeriSign maintains that its certificates aren't vulnerable.
By Jordan Robertson, Top Tech News, Aug. 6, 2009
A powerful new type of Internet attack works like a telephone tap, except operates between computers and Web sites they trust.
Hackers at the Black Hat and DefCon security Relevant Products/Services conferences have revealed a serious flaw in the way Web browsers weed out untrustworthy sites and block anybody from seeing them. If a criminal infiltrates a network, he can set up a secret eavesdropping post and capture credit card numbers, passwords and other sensitive data Relevant Products/Services flowing between computers on that network and sites their browsers have deemed safe.
In an even more nefarious plot, an attacker could hijack the auto-update feature on a victim's computer, and trick it into automatically installing malware pulled in from a hacker's Web site. The computer would think it's an update coming from the software manufacturer.
The attack was demonstrated by three hackers. Independent security researcher Moxie Marlinspike presented alone, while Dan Kaminsky, with Seattle-based security consultancy IOActive Inc., and security and privacy researcher Len Sassaman presented together.
Click here to read the full article here
Monday, August 3, 2009
U.S. and Russia Differ on a Treaty for Cyberspace
By JOHN MARKOFF and ANDREW E. KRAMER, NYTimes.com, June 27, 2009
The United States and Russia are locked in a fundamental dispute over how to counter the growing threat of cyberwar attacks that could wreak havoc on computer systems and the Internet.
Both nations agree that cyberspace is an emerging battleground. The two sides are expected to address the subject when President Obama visits Russia next week and at the General Assembly of the United Nations in November, according to a senior State Department official.
But there the agreement ends.
Russia favors an international treaty along the lines of those negotiated for chemical weapons and has pushed for that approach at a series of meetings this year and in public statements by a high-ranking official.
The United States argues that a treaty is unnecessary. It instead advocates improved cooperation among international law enforcement groups. If these groups cooperate to make cyberspace more secure against criminal intrusions, their work will also make cyberspace more secure against military campaigns, American officials say.
“We really believe it’s defense, defense, defense,” said the State Department official, who asked not to be identified because authorization had not been given to speak on the record. “They want to constrain offense. We needed to be able to criminalize these horrible 50,000 attacks we were getting a day.”
Any agreement on cyberspace presents special difficulties because the matter touches on issues like censorship of the Internet, sovereignty and rogue actors who might not be subject to a treaty.
United States officials say the disagreement over approach has hindered international law enforcement cooperation, particularly given that a significant proportion of the attacks against American government targets are coming from China and Russia.
And from the Russian perspective, the absence of a treaty is permitting a kind of arms race with potentially dangerous consequences.
Officials around the world recognize the need to deal with the growing threat of cyberwar. Many countries, including the United States, are developing weapons for it, like “logic bombs” that can be hidden in computers to halt them at crucial times or damage circuitry; “botnets” that can disable or spy on Web sites and networks; or microwave radiation devices that can burn out computer circuits miles away.
The Pentagon is planning to create a military command to prepare for both defense and offensive computer warfare. And last month, President Obama released his cybersecurity strategy and said he would appoint a “cybersecurity coordinator” to lead efforts to protect government computers, the air traffic control system and other essential systems. The administration also emphasizes the benefits of building international cooperation.
The Russian and American approaches — a treaty and a law enforcement agreement — are not necessarily incompatible. But they represent different philosophical approaches.
In a speech on March 18, Vladislav P. Sherstyuk, a deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council, a powerful body advising the president on national security, laid out what he described as Russia’s bedrock positions on disarmament in cyberspace. Russia’s proposed treaty would ban a country from secretly embedding malicious codes or circuitry that could be later activated from afar in the event of war.
Other Russian proposals include the application of humanitarian laws banning attacks on noncombatants and a ban on deception in operations in cyberspace — an attempt to deal with the challenge of anonymous attacks. The Russians have also called for broader international government oversight of the Internet.
But American officials are particularly resistant to agreements that would allow governments to censor the Internet, saying they would provide cover for totalitarian regimes. These officials also worry that a treaty would be ineffective because it can be almost impossible to determine if an Internet attack originated from a government, a hacker loyal to that government, or a rogue acting independently.
The unique challenge of cyberspace is that governments can carry out deceptive attacks to which they cannot be linked, said Herbert Lin, director of a study by the National Research Council, a private, nonprofit organization, on the development of cyberweapons.
This challenge became apparent in 2001, after a Navy P-3 surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter plane, said Linton Wells II, a former high-ranking Pentagon official who now teaches at the National Defense University. The collision was followed by a huge increase in attacks on United States government computer targets from sources that could not be identified, he said.
Similarly, after computer attacks in Estonia in April 2007 and in the nation of Georgia last August, the Russian government denied involvement and independent observers said the attacks could have been carried out by nationalist sympathizers or by criminal gangs.
The United States is trying to improve cybersecurity by building relationships among international law enforcement agencies. State Department officials hold out as a model the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, which took effect in 2004 and has been signed by 22 nations, including the United States but not Russia or China.
But Russia objects that the European convention on cybercrime allows the police to open an investigation of suspected online crime originating in another country without first informing local authorities, infringing on traditional ideas of sovereignty. Vladimir V. Sokolov, deputy director of the Institute for Information Security Issues, a policy organization, noted that Russian authorities routinely cooperated with foreign police organizations when they were approached.
This is not the first time the issue of arms control for cyberspace has been raised.
In 1996, at the dawn of commercial cyberspace, American and Russian military delegations met secretly in Moscow to discuss the subject. The American delegation was led by an academic military strategist, and the Russian delegation by a four-star admiral. No agreement emerged from the meeting, which has not previously been reported.
Later, the Russian government repeatedly introduced resolutions calling for cyberspace disarmament treaties before the United Nations. The United States consistently opposed the idea.
In late April, Russian military representatives indicated an interest in renewed negotiations at a Russian-sponsored meeting on computer security in Garmisch, Germany.
John Arquilla, an expert in military strategy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., who led the American delegation at the 1996 talks, said he had received almost no interest from within the American military after those initial meetings. “It was a great opportunity lost,” he said.
Unlike American officials who favor tightening law enforcement relationships, Mr. Arquilla continues to believe in cyberspace weapons negotiations, he said. He noted that the treaties on chemical weapons had persuaded many nations not to make or stockpile such weapons.
The United States and China have not held high-level talks on cyberwar issues, specialists say. But there is some evidence that the Chinese are being courted by Russia for support of an arms control treaty for cyberspace.
“China has consistently attached extreme importance to matters of information security, and has always actively supported and participated in efforts by the international community dedicated to maintaining Internet safety and cracking down on criminal cyber-activity,” Qin Gang, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said in a statement.
Whether the American or Russian approach prevails, arms control experts said, major governments are reaching a point of no return in heading off a cyberwar arms race.
John Markoff reported from New York, and Andrew E. Kramer from Moscow. Edward Wong and Xiyun Yang contributed reporting from Beijing.