Hacking Mat Honan

HACKING MAT HONANBill Condo // 12/12/2012

Thursday, December 13, 12

WHO IS MAT HONAN?

Senior Writer at Wired

honan.net@mat

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WHAT HAPPENED?

• Amazon.com Account Compromised

• Apple / iTunes Account Compromised

• Gmail Hacked

•Mac Wiped

• iPhone Wiped

• Twitter Account Stolen

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TIMELINE• 4:33 p.m. Attacker calls Apple support, requests a reset without being able to answer the security questions. Reset email sent.

Data Required: E-mail address (website, Gmail), credit card number (via Amazon), billing address (whois).

• 4:50 p.m. Reset email arrives to me.com email, and sent to trash. Email then used to to set a new password.

• 4:52 p.m. Gmail password reset sent to me.com email. Attacker resets Gmail password, then notice email is sent to me.com.

• 5:00 p.m. iCloud’s Find My tool used to wipe Mat’s iPhone.

• 5:01 p.m. iCloud’s Find My tool used to wipe Mat’s iPad.

• 5:02 p.m. Twitter password reset email sent. Attacker sets a new Twitter password.

• 5:05 p.m. iCloud’s Find My tool used to wipe Mat’s MacBook Pro.

• 5:10 p.m. Mat calls Apple Care.

• 5:12 p.m. Attacker posts to Twitter. with Mat’s account.

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FAILURES

• Amazon accounts can be easily compromised.

• Apple Care doesn’t enforce security questions.

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WHAT’S REALLY NEEDED?

•Do you need remote wipe?

•Do you need to store credit cards?

•Do you need public whois info?

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DO: BACKUP

• Consider both local snapshots and off-site backup options

• Time Machine (Mac) or Windows Backup (PC)

• Carbonite, BackBlaze, Mozy are some of the off-site options

• Test / Verify Backups

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DO: SETUP 2ND EMAIL

• Consider a second email, one with a different prefix.

• Consider second factor authentication

• Different (stronger) password

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FOLLOWUP: AMAZON

• Amazon updated their policy, removing the option for over-the-phone account settings changes (credit cards, emails, etc.)

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FOLLOWUP: APPLE

• “We found that our own internal policies were not followed completely.” - Apple

• Apple suspends password change requests via the phone

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MORE INFO

• Wired: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/

• Security Now: http://twit.tv/show/security-now/364

• Wired: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/11/ff-mat-honan-password-hacker/all/

Thursday, December 13, 12

COMMENTS?

@mavrck

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Thursday, December 13, 12