The Dark Visitor

Maarten Van Horenbeeck informed us that his recent SANS Fire 2008 presentation on targeted attacks has been released for the public. You can find it at Maarten’s website here.

You may also want to check out another presentation of his titled “Crouching PowerPoint, Hidden Trojan”.

My Xcon 2006 pass

Jumper sent me an e-mail about the upcoming Xcon 2008 Conference that will take place in Beijing from 18-19 October:

If you have any questions, comments, please shoot against Casper
Though I am happy to forward it.

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 4:40 PM, Sowhat <smaillist (at) gmail (dot) com [email concealed]> wrote:
> Got couple of emails with comments (language mistakes) and questions,
> Thanks guys!
>
> Actually XCon is held by XFOCUS guys (Casper and others), they wrote
> it up and I was just helping to post the CFP.
>
> If you have any questions regarding the schedule, the conferences,
> the hotel, etc.
>
> Welcome to XCon! Welcome to China!
>
> Best
> Sowhat
>
> On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Sowhat <smaillist (at) gmail (dot) com [email concealed]> wrote:
>> XCon 2008 Call for Paper
>>
>> Nov. 18th ? 19th, 2008, Beijing, PRC (http://xcon.xfocus.net)
>>
>> XCon is wholeheartedly expecting papers from those who are passionate
>> about information security technique and their participation and sharing of
>> the conference.
>>
>> Attenders
>> Anyone who loves information security, including information security
>> experts and fans, network administrators, network security consultants, CIO,
>> hacker technique fans, etc.

More details on the conference here at Security Focus.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Xcon,  I’ll give you a little background.  The yearly host of the Xcon conference series is a group  going by the name Xfocus.  One of their 2007 conference attendees, XYZreg (Zhang Yi), a regular member of their security group,  claimed to have broken Kaspersky Anti-Virus Technology.  When I went to the conference in 2006, two of the major sponsors were Microsoft and NSfocus. NSfocus was one of the very first hacker sites in China, originally called the Green Army.  The organizaton has a very confusing history.

If anyone is planning on attending the conference, please drop me a line.

Got to confess, I don’t get most Chinese humor.  The couple of times I’ve searched for jokes in Chinese hacker forums, this one pops up. Never bothered to tranlate it because it’s bad, very bad.  Somone has taken the time to translate it for me so, without further delay:

Hacker = 黑客 = black rogue(??)~ short for BR
Pc newbie = 小白 = xiao bai ( most probably Ms white) ~ short for XB

A conversation between BR and XB

BR:I am now in control of your PC
XB：How did you do it?
BR：By using a trojan
XB：……………….where？I dont see it
BR：Open your control panels
XB：………………where is my control panels
BR：………………Below your computer!!
XB：I dont see it in “My Computer”
BR：…….Forget it，just forget everything i said

later on~~
BR：I am now in control of your PC again
XB：oh~~
BR： ….scared？！
XB：what good timing，can you help clear those annoying virus? these days there are alot of them in my PC
BR：………..

then……..
XB：why do you always come and go as you please?
BR：well….you could always use a firewall
XB：but…….if there is a firewall, then u wont be able to access my PC
BR：its not that，its just that i wanna have more fun hacking ur PC，if its secureless like this its real damn
boring

If you feel you can’t live without learning the fate of Xiao Bai and the hacker…go here masochist.

Gives valuable stats on Chinese hackers attacks:

According to the Korea Information Security Agency, there were some 2,120 cases of hacking or hacking attempts against various Korean government agencies and entities during the month of March, 2008.

Of them, 53 percent originated from Chinese Internet addresses, while 14 percent came from the United States. Some five percent came from Japanese sources.

I think an International Space Station official said something about having a secure system too…100% hack proof.

Breaking!! Double-edged sword turns out to be…well, double-edged.  A Chinese hacker broke into the Tsinghua University website and left a stinging rebuke of the education system under the university president’s name.  Turned out to be hugely popular, go figure.

GOOD: Standing army ready to fight all your political battles abroad

BAD: Same standing army ready to take you to task domestically

The Web site of the elite Tsinghua University, considered as competitive as Beijing University and even superior in the sciences, was victimized by hackers recently. An article purporting to express the views of the university’s president, Gu Binglin, criticized China’s university education system in harsh and even dirty terms. The majority of Chinese netizens expressed support and understanding toward this unidentified hacker, however.

Throw the hacker in jail? With a 92% approval rating, the university’s president should have kept his mouth shut and hired the kid as a speechwriter.