A critical security flaw has been disclosed in the Microchip Advanced Software Framework (ASF) that, if successfully exploited, could lead to remote code execution.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-7490, carries a CVSS score of 9.5 out of a maximum of 10.0. It has been described as a stack-based overflow vulnerability in ASF's implementation of the tinydhcp server stemming from a lack of

IoT Security / Vulnerability

A critical security flaw has been disclosed in the Microchip Advanced Software Framework (ASF) that, if successfully exploited, could lead to remote code execution.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-7490, carries a CVSS score of 9.5 out of a maximum of 10.0. It has been described as a stack-based overflow vulnerability in ASF's implementation of the tinydhcp server stemming from a lack of adequate input validation.

"There exists a vulnerability in all publicly available examples of the ASF codebase that allows for a specially crafted DHCP request to cause a stack-based overflow that could lead to remote code execution," CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) said in an advisory.

Given that the software is no longer supported and is rooted in IoT-centric code, CERT/CC has warned that the vulnerability is "likely to surface in many places in the wild."

The issue impacts ASF 3.52.0.2574 and all prior versions of the software, with the agency also noting that multiple forks of the tinydhcp software are likely susceptible to the flaw as well.

There are currently no fixes or mitigations to address CVE-2024-7490, barring replacing the tinydhcp service with another one that does not have the same issue.

The development comes as SonicWall Capture Labs detailed a severe zero-click vulnerability affecting MediaTek Wi-Fi chipsets (CVE-2024-20017, CVSS 9.8) that could open the door to remote code execution without requiring any user interaction due to an out-of-bounds write issue.

"The affected versions include MediaTek SDK versions 7.4.0.1 and earlier, as well as OpenWrt 19.07 and 21.02," the company said. "This translates to a large variety of vulnerable devices, including routers and smartphones."

"The vulnerability is a buffer overflow as a result of a length value taken directly from attacker-controlled packet data without bounds checking and placed into a memory copy. This buffer overflow creates an out-of-bounds write."

A patch for the vulnerability was released by MediaTek in March 2024, although the likelihood of exploitation has increased with the public availability of a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit as of August 30, 2024.

Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter __ and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

Critical Flaw in Microchip ASF Exposes IoT Devices to Remote Code Execution Risk

Critical-rated CVE-2024-20017 allows remote code execution (RCE) on a range of phones and Wi-Fi access points from a variety of OEMs.

Source: Ros Drinkwater via Alamy Stock Photo

A nearly max-critical zero-click vulnerability is impacting MediaTek Wi-Fi chipsets and driver bundles used in routers and smartphones from various manufacturers, including Ubiquiti, Xiaomi, and Netgear.

According to SonicWall Capture Labs researchers who found the issue (CVE-2024-20017, CVSS 9.8), exploitation would open the door to remote code execution (RCE) without user interaction, making the bug a conduit for easy device takeover. Making matters worse, a public proof-of-concept exploit (PoC) recently became available, they warned.

The issue affects MediaTek SDK versions 7.4.0.1 and earlier, as well as OpenWrt 19.07 and 21.02, and affected users should apply the available MediaTek patches as soon as possible.

In terms of the technical details, the vulnerability is an out-of-bounds write issue that resides in wappd, a network daemon responsible for configuring and managing wireless interfaces and access points.

"The architecture of wappd is complex, comprising the network service itself, a set of local services that interact with the device's wireless interfaces, and communication channels between components via Unix domain sockets," the researchers explained in a blog post on the issue this week. "Ultimately, the vulnerability is a buffer overflow as a result of a length value taken directly from attacker-controlled packet data without bounds checking and placed into a memory copy."

**About the Author**

Zero-Click MediaTek Bug Opens Phones, Wi-Fi to Takeover

Discover the RAMBO attack, a groundbreaking method that uses electromagnetic waves to steal data from air-gapped systems. Learn…

Discover the RAMBO attack, a groundbreaking method that uses electromagnetic waves to steal data from air-gapped systems. Learn how hackers exploit isolated networks using electromagnetic emissions to extract sensitive information securely.

Researchers at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel have identified a new method to compromise the security of air-gapped systems. For your information, air-gapped systems are physically disconnected from the wider network and internet, limiting the transmission of sensitive data. Even if a user introduces malware through a compromised USB device, the malware cannot transmit the data to the outside world. 

However, according to university researcher Mordechai Guri, malware can tamper with RAM components and the newly discovered attack method dubbed “RAMBO” (Radiation of Air-gapped Memory Bus for Offense) exploits the electromagnetic emissions from the computer’s memory buses to transmit sensitive information.

It makes sense because RAM data transfer generates electromagnetic fields, radiating energy at a frequency influenced by clock speed, data width, and architecture, and a transmitter can modulate memory access patterns to create an electromagnetic covert channel, Guri noted in a recently published paper.

****How the Attack Works****

The attack involves deploying malware on an isolated system, either through an infected USB drive, an insider, or by compromising the supply chain. The malware will manipulate memory operations to generate radio signals that encode sensitive data such as files, images, keystrokes, biometric information, and even encryption keys. 

These signals, transmitted through the air, can then be intercepted by an attacker using a simple software-defined radio (SDR) device and a basic, off-the-shelf antenna. RAMBO will then exfiltrate encoded files, exposing the data at 1,000 bits per second. Tests were conducted from up to 7 meters distance.

The method is slow and requires a person to be relatively close, and file transfer is slower than dial-up. Keylogging can be done in real-time with 16 bits per key (Unicode), and a 4096-bit RSA encryption key can be exfiltrated at 41.96 sec at low speed and 4.096 bits at high speed.

However, biometric information, small files, and documents take 400 seconds at low speed to a few seconds at fast speeds. While it may not be suitable for stealing large files or databases, it can still be used to steal keystrokes, passwords, or other data that doesn’t take up too much space.

> “By precisely controlling the memory-related instructions, arbitrary information can be encoded and modulated on the electromagnetic wave. An attacker with a software-defined radio (SDR) can receive the information, demodulate it, and decide.”
> 
> Mordechai Guri

****The Threat to Security****

In his previous research, Dr. Guri and his team demonstrated how attackers can steal data from air-gapped PCs through SATA Cables. Another research released by Dr. Guri demonstrated how an air-gapped PC could be compromised by turning its RAM into Wi-Fi card.

Now RAMBO can have significant implications given that Air-gapped systems are often used in highly sensitive environments, such as military installations, financial institutions, and critical infrastructure. The ability to exfiltrate data from these isolated systems poses a serious threat to national security, privacy, and economic stability.

The researcher proposes countermeasures such as physical isolation techniques like Faraday cades, advanced intrusion detection systems, and external radio monitoring. However, these measures may have limitations or introduce additional overhead. Further research is needed to develop more effective countermeasures and develop new techniques for detecting and preventing such attacks.

1.  Malware can extract data from air-gapped PC via power supply
2.  Night Vision Enabled Security Cameras Secretly Transfer Your Data
3.  Hackers can steal data from air-gapped PC using screen brightness
4.  Malware can Convert your Headphones into Microphone for Hackers
5.  Hackers can steal data from Air-Gapped PCs with microphones, speakers

RAMBO Attack: Electromagnetic Waves Steal Data from Air-Gapped Systems

Apple is launching its first stand-alone password manager app in iOS 18. Here’s what you need to know.

Apple’s latest iPhone software update, iOS 18, arrives today and includes a new app: Passwords. For the first time, Apple is taking your phone’s ability to save login details and putting them in a standalone app. It could help improve millions of people’s terrible passwords.

After years of being told you should create unique, strong passwords for every website and app you use, you probably fall into one of two camps: people that are fully signed up to the password manager life, or those still using “123456” for every other website.

Apple’s new encrypted Passwords app is automatically included with iOS 18, and is a public-facing evolution of its Keychain and password-saving capabilities. The Keychain, which has existed for more than a decade, no longer has as prominent a home in the iPhone’s settings, and details previously saved there are being moved to the new app.

The launch of the password manager app, which will also be available on macOS Sequoia and iPadOS 18, may help improve people’s relationships with their passwords but also could, to varying degrees, challenge existing password managers.

“This move makes the app more visible to lay users and informs them about this secure method to store and manage passwords,” says Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk from security company Mysk. “You have a default password manager preinstalled on your device \[that\] provides end-to-end encryption when syncing data across devices.”

**New Passwords**

The Passwords app has a pretty barebones design. Six different tiles are presented when you open the app on an iPhone: All, Passkeys, Codes, Wi-Fi, Security, and Deleted. These are essentially the main functions of the app, allowing you to save each type of data within their relevant sections. The security section includes check-ups allowing weak and exposed passwords to be identified.

“This will definitely boost the adoption of this preinstalled app and bolster user security,” Bakry and Mysk say. They add that it presents the saved data “in a more organized way than the Settings app.”

Apple says the Passwords app uses end-to-end encryption to save your details, meaning nobody, not even Apple, knows what you have saved. Within the app, you can search for login details to your entries and set up groups to share passwords with other people.

Your saved login details are synced across Apple devices using iCloud, meaning the encrypted data is shared with Apple’s cloud servers and available on all of your Apple devices. Within Apple’s settings, you can turn off syncing passwords on a specific device. The app is locked using Face ID.

When using the Passwords app, any details you have previously saved in Keychain or AutoFill will be moved to the new location. This includes if you have used the Sign in with Apple login system on any websites or apps. It is unclear why Apple has decided to spin its Keychain system into a fully fledged password manager now, although the company has been building out the individual features over a number of years. (Apple has not responded to WIRED’s request for comment at the time of writing.)

For many people, having a standalone password manager app from Apple could encourage better password practices. Siamak Shahandashti, a senior lecturer in the University of York’s cybersecurity and privacy research group, says the move from Apple may be a usability decision. Making Passwords visible could encourage people to take their passwords seriously.

“We need to design authentication systems for human beings,” Shahandashti says. “We cannot expect users to maintain a hundred accounts, for each of them \[to\] use a strong password. It’s actually the fault of the designers because these systems have not been designed for users considering the capability of an average human being.”

**Death of the Password**

Passwords are slowly dying. Enter the passkey. For the past couple of years, websites, apps, and phone manufacturers have been in the process of rolling out passkeys—a technology that replaces passwords, is more secure, and doesn’t require you to remember any complex login details. (Although passkeys still have some teething problems.)

Leona Lassak, a research assistant at Ruhr-University Bochum who has studied passkey adoption, says greater “visibility” of the Passwords app can help get the sign-in technology to a broader audience, one which might not use a password manager otherwise. Apple’s Passwords app could help with the perception and transition to passkeys, Lassak says. “There has been discussion about the need for passkey managers, because once we actually use them on websites, there's probably going to be multiple for each website,” she says.

The app is also, at least subtly, encouraging the adoption of passkeys. Within Passwords’ settings, accessed through Apple’s System preferences, there’s the option to turn on “automatic” passkey upgrades, which will allow existing accounts to use passkeys when they are available.

**Lock In**

Password managers have existed for years and there are plenty of options you can use, from open source apps to browser-based management systems. Each comes with their own particular set of pros and cons.

Apple wading into the password management market by including a new app on millions of iPhones, Macs, and iPads could also impact the wider ecosystem. “There’s no question that Apple’s Passwords app would ‘sherlock’ third-party password managers—or make them less attractive,” say Bakry and Mysk, highlighting that people need to use iCloud to sync passwords in Apple’s system, and that those who are privacy conscious may not want this to happen automatically.

There’s also the risk of locking people into Apple’s password manager—at launch, there appear to be no options to export the saved data and use it in a commercial alternative. One competitor password manager has stressed that their software works on products “beyond” the “Apple ecosystem.” (People using Apple’s password management software on Windows devices can access saved details through iCloud for Windows.)

Ultimately, what password manager you use should reflect what type of software you want to support and the individual threats you may face. For many, Apple’s new app is probably better than not using a password manager at all.

Apple’s New Passwords App May Solve Your Login Nightmares

As the 104th season of the National Football League kicks off, expect cyberattacks aimed at its customers, players, and arenas.

Source: Illus\_man via Shutterstock

This past weekend, the National Football League kicked off its 2024 season, and while the sport itself has remained the same, mainly — hello, new kicking rules — the technological operations around games and players is constantly evolving, and face increasing cyber threats.

While all companies have a mix of digital and physical assets, sports teams have a unique cocktail of critical assets, especially as data has become increasingly the lifeblood of sports franchises in the NFL. Pervasive Wi-Fi in every stadium and cellular systems that allow, say, concessions to more easily handle demand means there's data to be collected on every aspect of venue operations. Technology also allows connections with fans that extend online, at home, and at stadiums through loyalty programs, biometric checks at venues, and experiences customized by QR codes on every stadium seat.

In addition to information on their fans, NFL teams have real-time data on players, brands that need protecting, and critical infrastructure relied on by arena operations and video broadcasters.

In all, it's a challenging logistical puzzle that requires continuous risk assessment, threat intelligence, and an agile IT team, says Brandon Covert, vice president of IT for the Cleveland Browns (and the area's professional soccer team, the Columbus Crew).

Related:Dark Reading Confidential: Pen Test Arrests, Five Years Later

"I started here 20 years ago, and there wasn't a whole lot of tech in our stadiums — they were all-cash, concrete buildings without a lot of technology," he says. "And now you see there's pervasive Wi-Fi ... and biometric payments and identification. All of these systems are inherently at risk, and we have to manage and mitigate that risk. The challenges \[that come along with\] tech just continue to grow, and get introduced to all areas of our business."

**A Game of Data**

The Cleveland Browns kicked off their game opener at their home stadium, the Huntington Bank Field, on Sept. 8. While the fans were focused on game day, the Browns' information-technology and security groups have been working year-round to ensure that the season remains free of technological glitches and safe from cyberattacks.

One of the thorniest issues is the need to secure increasing volumes of data, be that player data, broadcast feeds, transactional data, or customer information. Every iota of that information has value to cyberattackers, says Covert.

"Our charge being a sports organization — we have a really good bond with our fans and we get a lot of trust from our fans, probably elevated beyond what other industries see with their customers — so we want to be responsible and not be involved in any of those data breaches or loss of fan information, just from a brand and reputation standpoint for us," he says.

And indeed, stolen data on fans and players can appear on the Dark Web; plus, the rapid legalization of sports gambling has added potential monetary losses to the mix, ratcheting up the emotional rollercoaster ride for many fans, says Jake Aurand, counterintelligence lead for Binary Defense, a cyberthreat intelligence firm that counts the Cleveland Browns among its customers.

"Teams have a lot of customer information — whether it's biometric or credit card data from people purchasing game tickets — so we're constantly out there on the darknet looking to see if any of that data has been stolen and is being reposted somewhere on a forum," he says. "But what we're also doing is looking for \[potential threats on the\] physical side."

For instance, among the most major of concerns to operations continues to be ransomware, says Brad Garnett, director and general manager of the Talos Incident Response team at Cisco, which has a partnership with the NFL.

"Ransomware is not going anywhere," he says. "Anything that would impact the integrity of the game — whether that's football, baseball, basketball, or footy — anything that would attack the game's integrity or around infrastructure availability" is a concern for cyber defenders.

Cyberattacks on the operational systems of an arena or stadium could cause a broadcast outage or take an approach as simple as posting a bomb threat on a scoreboard, National Football League CISO Tomás Maldonado said in an interview in June.

"I think a lot of people don't fully appreciate the convergence between cyber physical and the ... ramifications of a cyber event ... they don't usually make that connection right off the bat," said Maldonaldo, who is securing his sixth season with the organization.

**A Game of 1s and 0s**

About half of the threats detected by the company have some cyber-physical component, but the other half are purely about data, Binary Defense's Aurand says. Using the Browns' branding to fool fans into purchasing fake merchandise or just giving up their payment card details are common scams, he says.

Teams should take an active approach to defense, he adds. There are tools for doing just that: CISA and the NFL conduct annual tabletop exercises to workshop incident response, for instance.

"You need a first line of defense put in place, ... looking for those attacks immediately, in real time and throwing them off or identifying them extremely quickly," Aurand says. "And two, you need to stop the attacker from being able to move any further in their attacks."

Don't miss the latest Dark Reading Confidential podcast, where we talk to two cybersecurity professionals who were arrested in Dallas County, Iowa and forced to spend the night in jail — just for doing their pen-testing jobs. Listen now!

**About the Author**

Veteran technology journalist of more than 20 years. Former research engineer. Written for more than two dozen publications, including CNET News.com, Dark Reading, MIT's Technology Review, Popular Science, and Wired News. Five awards for journalism, including Best Deadline Journalism (Online) in 2003 for coverage of the Blaster worm. Crunches numbers on various trends using Python and R. Recent reports include analyses of the shortage in cybersecurity workers and annual vulnerability trends.

NFL Teams Block &amp; Tackle Cyberattacks in a Digital World

A recent National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation led to the arrest of a teenager in Walsall, England, linked…

A recent National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation led to the arrest of a teenager in Walsall, England, linked to a cyberattack on Transport for London (TfL). While the attack caused some disruptions, core services were largely unaffected.

National Crime Agency (NCA) has apprehended a teenager in Walsall, England, in connection with a cyber security incident that impacted Transport for London (TfL). The arrest is part of an ongoing investigation into the attack, that caused some disruptions, though the impact on core public transport services was minimal.

> Transport for London (@TfL) is addressing an ongoing cybersecurity incident. No customer data has been compromised, and services are unaffected. They're working with government agencies and will provide updates. Stay informed via the TfL website. #CyberSecurity #London pic.twitter.com/ozUDOs18uw
> 
> — Hackread.com (@HackRead) September 2, 2024

The teenager, whose identity has not been released due to their age, was arrested by NCA officers in Walsall. The arrest follows 2 weeks of investigation into the cyber attack. Charges have not yet been formally filed, but it is anticipated that they will be related to the incident.

The arrest and the age of the alleged hacker align with the **NCA’s February 2024 findings**, which revealed that 1 in 5 youths in the United Kingdom engage in cybercrime. The agency disclosed that one in five children aged 10-16 in the UK have participated in online activities that violate the Computer Misuse Act.

Jake Moore, Global Cybersecurity Advisor at ESET, provided insights into the potential motivations behind the attack and the importance of educating young people about the consequences of cybercrime.

Moore suggested that if a single individual was responsible for the TfL attack, it might have been a “cyber trial” rather than an organized attack. He explained that many young people experiment with their hacking skills without fully understanding the potential consequences of their actions.

“Hopefully, this can be a lesson to all those with similar skills to make sure they use them legally and for good,” Moore said. “When personal and financial details such as bank account numbers and sort codes are compromised, it no longer becomes a game of who can go the furthest and instantly becomes serious.”

> A teenager has been arrested by the NCA, as part of the investigation into a cyber security incident affecting Transport for London (TfL).
> 
> FULL STORY ➡️ https://t.co/TFbZdJ3FDO
> 
> — National Crime Agency (NCA) (@NCA\_UK) September 12, 2024

The involvement of teenagers in cybercrime is quite a serious issue. Unlike older individuals, who may be motivated by financial gain or organized crime, teens often view these activities as a game, without fully understanding the legal and ethical consequences.

Moreover, early involvement in cybercrime could set them on a dangerous path, limiting their potential for positive career opportunities while contributing to an increase in sophisticated online threats. As cyber criminals get younger, the challenges for law enforcement and cybersecurity professionals grow more difficult, demanding targeted interventions to prevent a generation from falling into cybercrime.

Nevertheless, as the investigation into the TfL cyber attack is underway, it is expected that more information will emerge regarding the teenager’s involvement and the extent of the damage caused.

1.  Aussie Arrested for “Evil Twin” Wi-Fi Scam Targeting Travelers
2.  MIT Graduate Brothers Arrested for $25 Million Ethereum Heist
3.  4 Arrested as Operation Endgame Disrupts Ransomware Botnets
4.  23-Year-Old Arrested for Running 100M Incognito Dark Web Market
5.  Teen among suspects arrested in Android banking malware scheme

NCA Arrests Teenager in Walsall Over TfL Cyber Attack

In the "PixHell" attack, sound waves generated by pixels on a screen can transmit information across seemingly impenetrable air gaps.

Source: Miscellaneoustock via Alamy Stock Photo

A newly devised covert channel attack method could undermine diligently devised air gaps at highly sensitive organizations.

In industrial control systems security, the term "air gap" is contested. It typically describes a total physical separation between networks — a literal gap through which no Wi-Fi signals, wires, etc., can pass. The most critical military, government, and industrial sites use air gaps to prevent Internet-based cyber threats from penetrating the kinds of networks that protect state secrets and human lives.

But any medium capable of transmitting information can, in theory, be weaponized to transmit the bad kind. Mordechai Guri of Israel's Ben-Gurion University has long researched ways of crossing air gaps with sound waves: via computer fans, hard disk drives, CD/DVD drives, and more. His latest attack scenario, "Pixhell," enables data theft using sounds produced by specially generated, rapidly shifting bitmap patterns on an LCD screen.

**How Pixhell Works**

It's midnight, and everyone working at the top secret intelligence facility has long gone home for the night, when all of a sudden a computer screen flashes with what appears to be random noise, as if it's missing a signal. It isn't missing a signal — the apparent noise is the signal.  

Pixhell only works if an attacker can infect or control at least one device on each side of an air gap.

Air gaps typically connect critical networks with less critical networks, so the latter half of that job might be achieved by an Internet-based attack, while the former will require more stringent measures. Still, a machine behind an air gap can be infected in any number of ways: via supply chain compromise, a removable drive in the hands of a malicious or unwitting insider, or assorted other options.

Then, with no other obvious means of communicating — not Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a speaker, or anything else — a computer can be made to transmit information over an air gap via the sounds generated by its screen.

Simplified, LCD screens have capacitors — which store and release electrical charge — and inductors — which help manage the voltage to those capacitors. While they're working, these components generate the faintest of high-pitched frequencies, inaudible to the human ear.

However, "Speakers and microphones generally have a frequency range that is broader than human hearing," explains Andrew Ginter, vice president of industrial security at Waterfall Security Solutions. "The high end of the frequency range is where you can encode the greatest amount of information — the largest number of bits per second — and it's ultrasound. Dogs might freak out in the room, but humans can't hear it."

In experiments, the Pixhell malware manipulated pixels on a screen in such a way as to cause its inductors and capacitors to vibrate at specific frequencies. In so doing, they generated sound waves translating stolen, encoded data to the machine on the other side of an air gap, with varying fidelity at distances of up to two and a half meters. As Ginter puts it, "An attacker can send information from either computer to the other's microphone, and you can be sitting in the room and not realize information is being communicated."

**The Wide World of Covert Channel Attacks**

Besides acoustics, there are any number of other, equally creative means to carry out covert channel attacks in theory.

"It's been reported that with sufficient effort, you can use Ethernet wiring as software-defined radio transmitters and receivers," Ginter notes. Some 20 years ago, 56-kilobit-per-second modems had an LED on the front so users could see if their data was moving. Ginter says you could turn the LED on when there was a one bit being transmitted, or off when it was a zero bit. "And it turned out that the LED was extremely responsive — so responsive that if you had a fast enough camera or detector, you could actually detect every bit that was being sent through the modem by watching the LED," he adds. 

Countless other fun examples can be found in the annals of computer research archives. "Some computers have the ability to do detailed measurements on the voltage that's coming into the battery. And what that means is that if you have two computers plugged into the same circuit, even if they're using different outlets, one computer can consume more power briefly and less power a fraction of a second later, and the other one can detect these very tiny changes in voltage, so they can signal to each other that way. Even though they're electrically connected to different networks, they're both connected to the same power," he explains.

**What the Best Air Gaps Look Like**

For the overwhelming majority of organizations, a physical air gap is sufficient to protect against even high-level adversaries, who aren't likely to pull off Pixhell-style attacks.

Those few most sensitive sites on the planet that have to worry about covert channel attacks — spy agencies, military headquarters, power plants — have already dedicated significant time and resources to building not just air gaps, but air gaps that make these scenarios impractical.

"At some extremely sensitive OT sites, they will have all of the OT equipment in one server room, and they'll have the IT equipment in another server room down the hall. And the only connection between the server rooms is a single fiber-optic connection that is a unidirectional gateway from OT to IT," Ginter explains.

Past that, he adds, the greater the distance between communicating computers, the more difficult it is to exploit covert channels. "If it's an electrical \[channel you're worried about\], you've got electrical noise between rooms. If it's audible, there are closed doors in the way. If it's temperature, you can heat up the room in a region very slightly \[at intervals\], so there's so much thermal noise that it becomes impractical to send any information out." The operative idea is signal-to-noise ratio (SNR): How much noise does one have to generate to make a covert channel attack impractical?

Whether such science-fiction-level defenses are warranted will depend on the organization at risk. "Some of the countermeasures were given for scientific discussion, but they are less practical to deploy in real life," Guri says. As an example, he points out that acoustic jammers would stop Pixhall right in its tracks: "Such a noise jammer may work in countering the attack, but it will make the environment too noisy for people to work."

Don't miss the latest Dark Reading Confidential podcast, where we talk to two cybersecurity professionals who were arrested in Dallas County, Iowa and forced to spend the night in jail -- just for doing their pen-testing jobs. Listen now!

**About the Author**

Nate Nelson is a freelance writer based in New York City. Formerly a reporter at Threatpost, he contributes to a number of cybersecurity blogs and podcasts. He writes "Malicious Life" -- an award-winning Top 20 tech podcast on Apple and Spotify -- and hosts every other episode, featuring interviews with leading voices in security. He also co-hosts "The Industrial Security Podcast," the most popular show in its field.

Air-Gapped Networks Vulnerable to Acoustic Attack via LCD Screens

The spy agency that dared not speak its name is now the Joe Rogan of the SIGINT set. And the pod's actually worth a listen.

My first story for WIRED—yep, 31 years ago—looked at a group of “crypto rebels” who were trying to pry strong encryption technology from the government-classified world and send it into the mainstream. Naturally I attempted to speak to someone at the National Security Agency for comment and ideally get a window into its thinking. Unsurprisingly, that was a no-go, because the NSA was famous for its reticence. Eventually we agreed that I could fax (!) a list of questions. In return I got an unsigned response in unhelpful bureaucratese that didn’t address my queries. Even that represented a loosening of what once was total blackout on anything having to do with this ultra-secretive intelligence agency. For decades after its post–World War II founding, the government revealed nothing, not even the name, of this agency and its activities. Those in the know referred to it as “No Such Agency.”

In recent years, the widespread adoption of encryption technology and the vital need for cybersecurity has led to more openness. Its directors began to speak in public; in 2012, NSA director Keith Alexander actually keynoted Defcon. I’d spent the entire 1990s lobbying to visit the agency for my book _Crypto_; in 2013, I finally crossed the threshold of its iconic Fort Meade Headquarters for an on-the-record conversation with officials, including Alexander. NSA now has social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. And there is a form on the agency website for podcasters to request guest appearances by an actual NSA-ite.

So it shouldn’t be a total shock that NSA is now _doing its own podcast._ You don’t need to be an intelligence agency to know that pods are a unique way to tell stories and hold people’s attention. The first two episodes of the seven-part season dropped this week. It’s called _No Such Podcast_, earning some self-irony points from the get-go.

In keeping with the openness vibe, the NSA granted me an interview with an official in charge of the project—one of the de facto podcast producers, a title that apparently is still not an official NSA job posting. Since NSA still gotta NSA, I can’t use this person’s name. But my source did point out that in the podcast itself, both the hosts and the guests—who are past and present agency officials—speak under their actual identities. We conducted the interview via Microsoft Teams; my spokesperson and one of the hosts were in a room with an impressive background of the official seals of the NSA, the Central Security Service, and the United States Cyber Command. I did my end from a World Trade Center conference room, praying my Wi-Fi wouldn’t cut out.

Why an NSA podcast? The spokesperson explains that the NSA has the world’s best cryptologists and cryptanalysts, all of whom work in silence, and the agency wanted to talk about their critical and amazing work. “The podcast,” the spokesperson says, “is a medium that allows for good storytelling and conversation that is distinct from things we already engage in. It provides a different level of connection.” I later received a statement from Sara Siegle, the NSA’s head of strategic communications, echoing that point: “NSA believes in showcasing the incredible, dedicated work of our diverse, expert workforce. _No Such Podcast_ extends our existing efforts into a new and growing medium.” Got it.

I suggest some secondary motivations. Some of the NSA’s social media posts solicit workers, and this podcast seems likewise designed to appeal to STEM graduates who might place patriotism over working for Google or a startup. My source acknowledged that this was the case. “Recruitment is not the number one goal of the podcast, but we are certainly hoping that by showcasing the work we do here, and the real people on the show who work here, listeners might say, ‘Oh, that sounds like a really cool job—and that person seems pretty normal, right?’”

The NSA also apparently sees the podcast as a chance to answer some critics who charge that the agency is a Big Brother-ish snooping operation that threatens our privacy. In the very first episode, guest speaker Natalie Laing, the NSA’s director of operations, speaks at length about how the NSA limits itself to information relevant to national security and similar imperatives. “Compliance is our number one focus,” she says. By hitting this note so hard that my Apple Watch sent me a volume alert, the NSA seems to be using the podcast format to address suspicions that it violates privacy—especially after the shocking revelations from Edward Snowden about how much stuff the NSA does grab. (I am told Snowden’s name is not uttered in the entire NSA podcast series—no such person?)

The NSA used fairly traditional marketing skills to figure out the format of its podcast. It checked out not only popular pods, but those of its sister intelligence agencies. Yes, the CIA and FBI are already in the game. The NSA finally settled on a classical interview format where a revolving set of four hosts—not outside professionals, but the winners of an internal talent search for employees with broadcast skills—talk with officials about the agency’s operations and exploits. “We definitely wanted that conversational tone that provides space for our guests to share their expertise and stories in a way that doesn’t really feel like lectures,” says my spokesperson. The podcasts were recorded in the NSA’s own in-house video studio. That is a sentence that you will never find in a John LeCarré novel.

As you would expect, there is a lot of vetting to make sure that none of the stories shared on the pod are classified, or would compromise future operations. No, we will not find out whether there is a quantum computer in the basement of the NSA’s Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters. While the numbers of reviewers varied by episode, I was assured it was more than a dozen and less than a hundred.

I’ve read the transcripts for the first two episodes. The series opens with a bang, with episode 1 recounting the NSA’s role in finding Osama Bin Laden. As background to the narrative, Laing and the other guest, former director of operations Jon Darby, provide a rather detailed precis of the workings of signals intelligence, or SIGINT in spook-speak, which is the core activity of the agency. They give a once-unthinkably straightforward rundown of what the NSA calls its “production cycle”—the way it grabs signals, analyzes them, and distributes them to US officials, the military, our allies, and even some people in the private sector. The information is familiar to those who have been studying intelligence agencies, or at least reading spy novels, but for many years the NSA would confirm none of this.

The description of how SIGINT helped find Bin Laden was gripping, but I missed a journalistic toughness in the questioning. Paging Barton Gellman or our own Andy Greenberg! At one point Jon Darby said, “… the fall of 2001—that’s when we really started really looking for Bin Laden.” Since the NSA was well aware al-Qaeda had already run terror operations against the US, why not earlier? And maybe an explanation of why we were blindsided by 9/11? Another question: While it’s an inspiring triumph that we located Bin Laden, it did take over 10 years. Given how much we pay for the NSA, is that acceptable?

The second episode is about cybersecurity. It struck me as relatively vague, with a lot of talk about the importance of protecting information for the military and even the space program but fewer concrete examples. The guests talk about stopping ransomware attacks but don’t say how. I would have liked to have heard more about how the NSA works with private industry to protect our infrastructure. Or doesn’t. A few spectacular breaches in recent years exposed critical government information, including several whopping hacks of Microsoft by the Russians and the Chinese. Those didn’t make it in that episode.

Still, _No Such Podcast_ can be revealing. The Bin Laden episode had a brief but intriguing digression about encryption. (Future episodes, I am told, will dive deeper into the subject, including one about the history of cryptography.) During the 1990s the NSA had been an active opponent of strong public encryption. But at the end of the decade, the Clinton Administration seemingly ended the Crypto Wars by allowing the private sector to employ the techniques. Nowadays we’ve got the FBI and other law enforcement officials caterwauling about the danger of end-to-end encryption in software made by Apple, Meta, and others. But in this podcast, the NSA’s head of operations is not crying doomsday. To the contrary, Laing brags about how the great codebreakers at the NSA, despite the revolution in private sector cryptography, are still able to get the job done. “Our ability to impact in a positive way our nation's national security, to defend our nation, that has not changed … Every day I am a little gobsmacked at the talent that we have at this agency and the things they are able to do. That absolutely has not changed. And what else hasn't changed is, we can't tell people about it generally.” While the FBI is screaming that we’re doomed if we don’t rein in end-to-end crypto, here is the NSA saying, “We got this.”

For that reason I’ll give a thumbs-up to _No Such Podcast_. Yes, it’s kind of propagandistic—how could it be otherwise?—but despite the podcast’s selective spin on its activities, there’s more signal here than noise. As a bonus, there are no ads for energy drinks, gold bullion, or newly minted cryptocurrency tokens. Also, I’m curious to hear the NSA’s take on artificial intelligence, the subject of an upcoming episode.

Before I end my discussion with the NSA, I ask a question that is top of mind for every podcaster: Will _No Such Podcast_ be picked up for season 2? “We can neither confirm or deny,” says the unnamed person I spoke to. Now _that’s_ the NSA I know.

**Time Travel**

During the six years I spent writing _Crypto_, I begged and begged to visit the NSA, to no avail. After many months of negotiation, I finally got an official interview with a key source. It was conducted at the National Cryptologic Museum, just outside the agency’s gates. Maybe that was an early sign of the thaw that has led to this podcast. But as I documented in my book, in the NSA’s first decades, silence—and an electrified, triple-layered barbed-wire fence—enveloped all that the agency touched or dealt with.

_Since all the salient information about modern crypto was withheld from public view, outsiders could only guess what happened in “The Fort.” The NSA undoubtedly operated the most sophisticated snooping operation in the world. It was universally assumed (though never admitted) that no foreign phone call, radio broadcast, or telegraph transmission was safe from the agency’s global vacuum cleaner. Signals were sucked up and the contents analyzed with a multi-MIPS computer, combing the text for anything of value. …_

_What’s more, the NSA considered itself the sole repository of cryptographic information—not just that used by the civilian government and all the armed forces, as the law dictated, but that used by the private sector as well. Ultimately, the triple-depth fence surrounding its headquarters was not only a physical barrier but a metaphor for the NSA’s near-fanatical drive to hide information about itself and its activities. In the United States of America, serious crypto existed only behind the Triple Fence._

**Ask Me One Thing**

Chris asks, “All things considered, has the internet been a good or bad thing? Or, what percentage good or bad?”

Thanks for the question, Chris. You do realize that the internet is the big, all-encompassing blob where we all now live, right? You might as well ask whether civilization is a good thing. I can think of lots of reasons to answer in the negative, but none that would send me into a cave.

Look, a lot of us went overboard 30 years ago when we realized that the internet was going to be pervasive and revolutionary, and it seemed like an opportunity to do a constructive reset on a lot of things that stood in the way of access and equality and the generally calcified way that media operated. Some of those lofty visions came true, and some unexpected hellscapes arose. Overall, the mistake that the optimists made was somehow forgetting that it would be _people_ who would make the internet what it was, and what it would become. No matter how technology might nudge us into comity, a lot of humanity won’t go there no matter what. And the massive scale of the internet, as well as the riches to be gained, can lure even the most idealistic founders into breaking bad.

I still believe that the internet provides a pathway for the best of humanity to shine. But a lot of people are simply awful, and way too many of them are in your face all the time now. So my answer is 58-42—on the side of the good. No cave for me.

_You can submit questions to_ _mail@wired.com. Write **ASK LEVY** in the subject line._

**End Times Chronicle**

1943: Publication of Herman Hesse’s futuristic, trippy final novel, _The Glass Bead Game_. Last week: Analysis of material from a Chinese space probe reveals glass beads on the moon. Just sayin’.

**Last but Not Least**

Russia’s most feared military intelligence agency now has a cyber warfare team. A meaty subject for _No Such Podcast_!

It wasn’t the NSA but the State Department that discovered the Chinese hacker of Microsoft—and that’s just one thing Secretary of State Anthony Blinken talks about in our Big Interview.

Blinken also goes on camera as the Big Interview now has video!

WIRED hunted hidden police signals at the Democratic Convention–our own SIGINT op!

_Updated 09-06-24, 12:20 pm ET: The story was updated to correct the description of the seals in an NSA meeting room._

_Don't miss future subscriber-only editions of this column._ _**Subscribe to WIRED (50% off for Plaintext readers)**_ _today._

The NSA Has a Podcast—Here's How to Decode It

Using special software, WIRED investigated police surveillance at the DNC. We collected signals from nearly 300,000 devices, revealing vulnerabilities for both law enforcement and everyday citizens alike.

As thousands took to the streets during August’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago to protest Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza, a massive security operation was already underway. US Capitol Police, Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations, sheriff’s deputies from nearby counties, and local officers from across the country had descended on Chicago and were all out in force, working to manage the crowds and ensure the event went off without any major disruptions.

Amid the headlines and the largely peaceful protests, WIRED was looking for something less visible. We were investigating reports of cell site simulators (CSS), also known as IMSI catchers or Stingrays, the name of one of the technology’s earliest devices, developed by Harris Corporation. These controversial surveillance tools mimic cell towers to trick phones into connecting with them. Activists have long worried that the devices, which can capture sensitive data such as location, call metadata, and app traffic, might be used against political activists and protesters.

Armed with a waist pack stuffed with two rooted Android phones and three Wi-Fi hot spots running CSS-detection software developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights nonprofit, we conducted a first-of-its-kind wireless survey of the signals around the DNC.

WIRED attended protests across the city, events at the United Center (where the DNC took place), and social gatherings with lobbyists, political figures, and influencers. We spent time walking the perimeter along march routes and through planned protest sites before, during, and after these events.

In the process we captured Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular signals. We then analyzed those signals looking for specific hardware identifiers and other suspicious signs that could indicate the presence of a cell-site simulator. Ultimately, we did not find any evidence that cell-site simulators were deployed at the DNC. Nevertheless, when taken together, the hundreds of thousands of data points we accumulated in Chicago reveal how the invisible signals from our devices can create vulnerabilities for activists, police, and everyone in between. Our investigation revealed signals from as many as 297,337 devices, including as many as 2,568 associated with a major police body camera manufacturer, five associated with a law enforcement drone maker, and a massive array of consumer electronics like cameras, hearing aids, internet-of-things devices, and headphones.

WIRED often observed the same devices appearing in different locations, revealing their operators’ patterns of movement. For example, a Chevrolet Wi-Fi hotspot, initially located in the law-enforcement-only parking lot of the United Center, was later found parked on a side street next to a downtown Chicago demonstration. A Wi-Fi signal from a Skydio police drone that hovered above a massive anti-war protest was detected again the next day above the Israeli consulate. And Axon police body cameras with identical hardware identifiers were detected at various protests occurring days apart.

“Surveillance technologies leave traces that can be discovered in real time,” says Cooper Quintin, a senior staff technologist at the EFF. Regardless of the specific technologies WIRED detected, Quintin notes that the ability to identify police technology in real time is significant. “Many of our devices are beaconing in ways that make it possible to track us through wireless signals,” he says. While this makes it possible to track police, Quintin says, “this makes protesters similarly vulnerable to the same types of attacks.”

The signals we collected are a byproduct of our extremely networked world and demonstrate a pervasive and unsettling reality: Military, law enforcement, and consumer devices constantly emit signals that can be intercepted and tracked by anyone with the right tools. In the context of high-stakes scenarios such as election events, gatherings of high-profile politicians and other officials, and large-scale protests, the findings have implications for law enforcement and protesters alike.

WIRED initially focused on finding cell-site simulators due to the secrecy around their use, especially at protests. Cell-site simulators work by tricking nearby phones, cars, and other devices that use cellular infrastructure into connecting to them. They can be used on planes or retrofitted onto trucks.

The dragnet surveillance tool has largely been used by law enforcement to track a specific target’s location, but due to the indiscriminate way it functions, the devices will log the IMSI (international mobile subscriber identity) numbers, unique to each SIM card, of every single device that connects to it.

For years, protesters have suspected that the surveillance technology has been deployed against them during demonstrations. In 2014, following a wave of protests in Chicago over a grand jury's decision not to indict Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting Michael Brown, a Black teenager, activists overheard a police officer on a scanner asking another officer if he was gathering information from the protest organizer’s phone. Protesters at the time believed this to be a sign that an IMSI-catcher was deployed.

In Illinois, local law enforcement is required to obtain a warrant to use cell-site simulators. However, according to the ACLU of Illinois, the public is not able to verify whether the Chicago Police Department complies with this law, as CPD lawyers have instructed technicians managing cell-site simulators not to keep a log of their use.

Similarly, federal agents, including those from Homeland Security at the DNC, are also required to secure warrants before deploying one of the devices, except in the in cases of immediate threats to national security. A 2023 DHS Inspector General report found, however, that both the Secret Service and Homeland Security Investigations did not always do so.

Given that some lawmakers have attempted to link American anti-war demonstrators to groups like Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the US government, demonstrators have been concerned that cell-site simulators will get deployed against them. “They think we are terrorists, so they treat us like terrorists,” an anti-war protester who declined to give their name told WIRED at a protest on the first day of the DNC. They say that they wouldn’t be surprised if any of the law enforcement agencies present at the DNC were using an IMSI-Catcher. “I feel my phone getting hot, and I know they are watching.”

For years, the EFF has been developing tools to detect cell-site simulators. In 2019, it released Crocodile Hunter, which uses software-defined radios to identify unusual activity from 4G towers in a specific area. More recently, Quintin, and Will Greenberg, another staff technologist at the EFF, started working on a cheaper and more user-friendly tool called Ray Hunter, designed to detect unusual cellular activity in a similar way.

WIRED worked with Quintin and Greenberg to install Ray Hunter on three wireless hots pots, which allowed reporters to walk around the DNC and related events in Chicago to attempt to detect whether the devices connected to cell-site simulators.

The Rayhunter software works by detecting three key indicators based on a review of academic literature about how cell-site simulators work. First, it checks if the network you're connected to tries to force a downgrade to 2G, which has less security than a 4G or 5G connection. Second, it detects if the network asks your device for an IMSI number. Finally, the software checks if the network requests a "null cipher," a technical term for asking your phone not to use encryption between the phone and the tower.

According to CSS documentation obtained through public records requests, some CSS allow users to connect via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. So alongside Ray Hunter, WIRED used two rooted Android phones running an app called Wigle, which logs the GPS coordinates of Bluetooth, mobile, and Wi-Fi signals that the phone encounters. This setup enabled us to collect and store data on observed Wi-Fi and Bluetooth activity. Neither phone connected to any Wi-Fi or cellular network, nor did they upload any data to the cloud. We analyzed the data locally.

WIRED focused on identifying MAC addresses, which are unique identifiers assigned to network devices, and OUIs (organizationally unique identifiers), which are usually the first three bytes of a MAC address. We looked for any OUIs of known CSS manufacturers like Harris, KeyW, Jacobs, and Digital Receiver Technology.

One of our first stops in Chicago was at Union Park, where a coalition of political and community organizations had planned a march to call for an end of US aid to Israel.

On Monday afternoon, a smaller-than-expected but still massive crowd of thousands of protesters prepared to march toward the DNC to protest Israel’s deadly siege of Gaza. Hundreds of Chicago police on bicycles lined the approved route, ready to respond. Farther down the planned route, Secret Service agents and other DHS officers observed the demonstration. The march started off peacefully, but by 4:30 pm local time, tensions escalated.

A small group of protesters breached the first of two security fences around the United Center. As some tore down sections of the fence, others climbed over and faced off with law enforcement standing behind the second barrier. Police began photographing the protesters tearing down the barricades, and a CPD helicopter circled as low as 650 feet, according to publicly available flight data WIRED reviewed at the time. CBS later reported 13 arrests from the first day of the convention.

While Rayhunter didn’t pick up any suspicious cellular infrastructure, our other equipment detected three new cell towers that hadn’t been there the day before. According to Quintin, because Rayhunter did not detect any suspicious behaviors, these towers were likely “cell on wheels,” aka COWs, temporary cell towers that companies roll out to provide extra cellular coverage during large events.

Leaving the protest, our Android detected a Wi-Fi network named Skydio X10-c9z2 with a hardware identifier associated with Skydio, a California-based company that sells drones to law enforcement. Skydio equipment has been used as part of Drone as First Responder programs around the country for years. According to marketing material, the Skydio X10 is equipped with multiple high-resolution cameras, including thermal imaging, powerful zoom capabilities, and onboard AI. It’s unclear which agency the drone belongs to.

CPD did not respond to WIRED’s questions about the Skydio drone.

It wasn’t just American law enforcement we suspected may deploy cell-site simulators. In 2019, the FBI alleged that Israel had placed one near the White House—a claim Israel has denied. Similarly, in 2016, protesters opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline suspected that a private security firm, TigerSwan, had used one against them.

On Tuesday of the DNC, an unpermitted protest organized by a self-described militant anti-imperialist group called Behind Enemy Lines was scheduled to take place outside the Israeli Consulate at the Accenture Tower, located two miles east of the United Center. Hours before the planned demonstration, police had already saturated the area. CPD officers on bicycles lined both sides of Madison Street in front of the building’s entrance, while the surrounding plaza served as a staging area for additional officers, who mingled with Secret Service and other DHS personnel.

Data collected by our fanny pack detected a Skydio drone near the Israeli consulate matching the hardware identifiers we identified the previous day. WIRED detected no cell-site simulators near the Israeli consulate.

By 7 pm, approximately 200 protesters had gathered outside the consulate. After a few speeches, tensions escalated as some protesters attempted to continue marching, leading to confrontations with the officers. Outnumbered by both police and journalists, more than 50 people were arrested, including three reporters.

WIRED could not determine the exact number of officers deployed at the protest, and CPD has yet to respond to our request for comment. However, our analysis of Bluetooth signals collected from the Android devices detected hardware identifiers associated with Axon, formerly Taser International, from as many as 720 different devices. Axon develops technology for law enforcement, including Tasers, body cameras, evidence management systems, and other software. The signals we observed were most likely from body-worn cameras used by officers during the demonstration.

The trackability of Axon’s body cameras is a known vulnerability. Last year at the Defcon hacker conference, Alan “Nullagent” Meekins and Roger “RekcahDam” Hicks, cofounders of the Bluetooth tracking platform RFParty, demonstrated that their platform could decipher signals emitted by body cameras, allowing them to detect the presence and approximate position of police officers.

In an email, Axon spokesperson Victoria Keough said that some Axon products have wireless features that enable real-time monitoring of officers during patrols and critical incidents. “While BLE \[ Bluetooth Low Energy \] and other wireless communications can be susceptible to monitoring from other nearby devices, the benefits of BLE in ensuring incidents are captured with maximum visibility are crucial to public safety,” she wrote. Keough added that the current generation body-worn cameras offer the ability to be in “airplane mode” for specific tactical situations.

WIRED’s wireless survey appears to confirm Meekins and Hicks’ findings. Over the course of six days at the DNC, we detected signals from as many as 2,568 different Axon devices. Mapping these signals reveals information about where we encountered police and how they were deployed. For instance, the day after the incident at the Israeli consulate, we returned to the park where protesters had broken through barricades on Monday. Ahead of another planned protest, we found officers blocking entry to the park, designated a “free speech zone” by the city. On a map, a chain of closely clustered circles shows how tightly officers on bikes had formed a perimeter around the side of the park facing the expected protest route.

CPD did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

WIRED is not publishing the data collected for this story, partially because of how law enforcement could be able to use that data to identify devices at protests. “This is a known issue within the cybersecurity community,” Quintin of the EFF says. “I think police are starting to get wise to the fact that this is a technique they can use to find people. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bluetooth and wireless tracking is the next big wave of police technology.”

A company called Latent Wireless may be a pioneer in Wi-Fi signal tracking for law enforcement. Founded in 2019 by David Schwindt, a former police officer, Jeff Bromberger, and Peter Scott, both computer scientists, the company developed a Wi-Fi dongle that connects to patrol car computers. This device passively scans and analyzes metadata from Wi-Fi signals encountered by the car and matches detected MAC addresses against a list of stolen electronics or devices linked to criminals or missing persons. If a match is found, the system alerts officers, who can then use a directional antenna to locate the signal’s source.

In one instance that Schwindt and Bromberger shared with WIRED, local police used software from Latent Wireless to locate a suspect in an office building knowing only the MAC address of the employee’s device. In another case, a robber connected to a Wi-Fi network at a local coffee shop before committing a crime. Police identified the MAC address of his device through the coffee shop’s router logs and eventually tracked him down by detecting the signal from that device as they drove around.

Schwindt and Bromberger emphasize that privacy is a priority for the Latent Wireless. They avoid bulk data collection, do not attempt to decrypt traffic, and do not store the locations of observed MAC addresses unless they’re on the hot list.

On Wednesday evening, hundreds of protesters gathered for another march toward the United Center. Thirty minutes after the speakers began addressing the crowd, the thumping of a CPD helicopter's rotors overhead interrupted them. The aircraft, a Bell 206L-4 LongRanger IV or a similar model, circled low—at 500 feet, according to flight data. Its tail number, N911YY, was clearly visible. Something appeared to protrude from a window.

Among the demonstrators, a man in a DHS vest weaved through the crowd, eyes scanning as he spoke into his phone. Curious about what the helicopter might be up to, I asked a freelance photographer, Wali Khan, to try to capture an image with his telephoto lens of whatever was sticking out of the door. Unfortunately, the helicopter was too far away to get a clear picture.

The helicopter circled for about half an hour. Despite my repeated attempts, the Chicago Police Department has yet to respond to my request for records regarding the helicopter’s mission that evening. What is clear, however, is the impact it had on those below. The hovering presence interrupted speeches, causing more than one protester I spoke with to wonder whether they were being singled out. Some people thought the officer was sticking a rifle out the window, while others assumed it was a camera.

None of WIRED’s devices picked up the hidden connections of cell-site simulators that day, or throughout the entire trip, but there were times like this when the surveillance was impossible to miss. “If what comes out of this is that activists spend less time worrying about protecting themselves from IMSI catchers and more time protecting themselves from drones, cameras, and things we know are being used,” Quintin says, “that’s a good outcome.”

_Additional reporting by Makena Kelly_

We Hunted Hidden Police Signals at the DNC

This Metasploit module enumerates wireless access points through Chromecast.

    ### This module requires Metasploit: https://metasploit.com/download# Current source: https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework##class MetasploitModule < Msf::Auxiliary  include Msf::Exploit::Remote::HttpClient  include Msf::Auxiliary::Scanner  def initialize(info = {})    super(update_info(info,      'Name' => 'Chromecast Wifi Enumeration',      'Description' => %q{        This module enumerates wireless access points through Chromecast.      },      'Author' => ['wvu'],      'References' => [        ['URL', 'http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/chromecast/index.html'] # vendor website      ],      'License' => MSF_LICENSE    ))    register_options([      Opt::RPORT(8008)    ])  end  def run_host(ip)    res = scan    return unless res && res.code == 200    waps_table = Rex::Text::Table.new(      'Header' => "Wireless Access Points from #{ip}",      'Columns' => [        'BSSID',        'PWR',        'ENC',        'CIPHER',        'AUTH',        'ESSID'      ],      'SortIndex' => -1    )    res.get_json_document.each do |wap|      waps_table << [        wap['bssid'],        wap['signal_level'],        enc(wap),        cipher(wap),        auth(wap),        wap['ssid'] + (wap['wpa_id'] ? ' (*)' : '')      ]    end    unless waps_table.rows.empty?      print_line(waps_table.to_s)      report_note(        :host => ip,        :port => rport,        :proto => 'tcp',        :type => 'chromecast.wifi',        :data => waps_table.to_csv      )    end  end  def scan    send_request_raw(      'method' => 'POST',      'uri' => '/setup/scan_wifi',      'agent' => Rex::Text.rand_text_english(rand(42) + 1)    )    send_request_raw(      'method' => 'GET',      'uri' => '/setup/scan_results',      'agent' => Rex::Text.rand_text_english(rand(42) + 1)    )  end  def enc(wap)    case wap['wpa_auth']    when 1      'OPN'    when 2      'WEP'    when 5      'WPA'    when 0, 7      'WPA2'    else      wap['wpa_auth']    end  end  def cipher(wap)    case wap['wpa_cipher']    when 1      ''    when 2      'WEP'    when 3      'TKIP'    when 4      'CCMP'    else      wap['wpa_cipher']    end  end  def auth(wap)    case wap['wpa_auth']    when 0      'MGT'    when 5, 7      'PSK'    else      ''    end  endend

Tag

#wifi