Hector Martin, a hacker who is porting Linux to Apple Silicon Macs through Asahi Linux, has discovered a novel covert channel vulnerability on the M1 chip, calling it ‘M1RACLES’ and tracked as CVE-2021-30747. The flaw lies in the design of the chip itself, allowing any two applications running under an OS to covertly exchange data between them without using memory, sockets, files, or any other features that are meant to be used for data exchange. "While this shouldn’t be allowed as it bypasses OS security layers, it is nothing to worry about in practice." . This problem applies even if the two intercommunicating processes belong to different users and run on different privilege levels. Because this vulnerability is bound to the chip itself, it doesn’t matter if the user is running macOS, or Linux, or OpenBSD, or anything else on it. Every M1 device is affected by M1RACLES, and the only mitigation that can address the issue is to run the entire OS as a virtual machine. Obviously, this would impact the performance greatly, but would it be worth it? Is M1RACLES that serious to call for such a drastic measure? . SHADOWLINK, a hidden vulnerability on Apple M2, enables apps to share information discreetly, impacting various operating systems.. M1RACLES, Apple Silicon exploit, covert channel security flaw, Hector Martin discovery, Linux on M1. . Brittany Day
A team of researchers has presented a steganographic technique which can be used to conceal data on a hard drive. The technique is essentially based on targeted fragmentation of clusters when saving a file in the FAT file system. . When decoded, the distance between clusters reveals the binary sequence of the hidden data. Two (numerically) sequential clusters, for example, mean that the following bit is equal to the previous one. If the distance to the next cluster is greater, this means that the next bit is not equal to the previous bit. In this way, a series of clusters making up a saved file yields a defined bit stream. If the reader knows the state of the starting bit, he is able to obtain the correct bit stream. The link for this article located at H Security is no longer available. . When decoded, the distance between clusters reveals the binary sequence of the hidden data. Two (num. researchers, presented, steganographic, technique, which, conceal. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
The tool, dubbed VoodooNet or v00d00n3t, uses the ability of most computers to encapsulate next-generation network traffic, known as Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), inside of today's network communications standard, or IPv4. Because most security hardware appliances and host-based intrusion detection programs have not been programmed to inspect IPv6 packets in depth, data can bypass most network security, said independent security researcher Robert Murphy, who presented the tool at the DEFCON hacking conference last weekend. . "Most network hardware only knows to pass the traffic along," Murphy said. "For example, the Windows firewall does not handle IPv6 so these packets pass right though." The tool takes advantage of a lack of understanding of many of the issues that the next-generation network data standard poses to organization's network security. The U.S. federal government and many major corporations are transitioning to the standard by the end of the decade. The U.S. Department of Defense and the White House's Office of Management and Budget have mandated that the military services and federal agencies move their backbone systems to IPv6 by June 30, 2008. The link for this article located at SecurityFocus.com is no longer available. . VoodooNet leverages IPv6 to bypass traditional security systems, exploiting its vast address space to create numerous unique IP addresses for evasion.. VoodooNet Tool, IPv4 IPv6 Encapsulation, Covert Channel Tool. . Brittany Day
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