Weekly Infosec News Brief: Nov 2-8

Microsoft to Start Blocking SHA-1 Certificates Earlier than Planned

Following the announcement last month that the SHA-1 hashing algorithm is even easier to defeat than previously believed, tech companies are moving up their timetables to stop using certificates based on the outdated algorithm. Microsoft is now following Google (with Chrome) and Mozilla (with Firefox) in announcing that their products will stop accepting SHA-1 certificates in June of 2016, rather than at the end of 2016 as originally planned. Websites and applications still using SHA-1 certificates will soon be causing users to receive security warnings from most popular browsers. You can check your site’s certificate (or others sites’ certificates) at Qualys’ SSL Labs.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3001681/security/microsoft-follows-mozilla-in-considering-early-ban-on-sha-1-certificates.html


 Flaw in TrueCrypt Software Allows for Potential Full System Compromise

TrueCrypt is a popular tool available for most operating systems that allows for encrypting files or entire disks. The freeware tool was abandoned mysteriously by its developers in mid-2014, with a message suggesting there may be serious security issues with the tool. Such issues were indeed found and publicized last week by James Foreshaw, a Google researcher. The vulnerability is in the disk drivers loaded with TrueCrypt, and could allow for a local user to elevate privileges to run administrative commands. If your users are using TrueCrypt (with or without IT’s support), you should look into getting it replaced with a currently-supported tool. The best option is the built-in encryption available with Windows (BitLocker) or Mac (FileVault), but several freeware successors to TrueCrypt exist as well.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2987439/encryption/newly-found-truecrypt-flaw-allows-full-system-compromise.html


XCode Ghost iPhone Malware Still Out There, Showing up in Corporate Apps

The Xcode Ghost malware was first found in September, resulting from a trojanized version of Apple’s XCode development environment that was released for free distribution on a Chinese file-sharing site. Apps built with this XCode version contacted the developers’ control servers and allowed the malware authors to remotely read data from the infected devices. The malware was originally believed to be a threat primarily to Chinese users, but has been found recently in several US corporate iPhone apps.
http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/xcodeghost-found-hiding-in-us-and-in-apple-ios-9-apps/d/d-id/1322978


Firefox Version 42 Released, Fixes Eighteen Security Issues

Mozilla released a new version of Firefox last week; the update fixes three critical vulnerabilities and six high risk vulnerabilities. The three critical vulnerabilities relate to memory handling errors which could lead to an exploitable crash of the browser and potential remote file execution as a result.
http://www.scmagazine.com/mozilla-releases-firefox-42-fixes-several-vulnerabilities/article/451764/

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