Category Archives: Security und Security-Tools

VPN Provider with OpenVPN access – check your DNS settings to avoid DNS leaks!

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You have bought a VPN account at one of the major VPN providers. You have done so, because you e.g. have a second residence in another country. You may even have a dual citizenship.
Let us assume that you are abroad and want to work with web services offered in your home country for its citizens.

You are abroad, but electronically you may need to operate as if you were located in your home country. There are a lot of services which check the geolocation of your IP and only serve you if you call from “inside” the country, i.e. if the IP is located there.

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After the Bundeswehr Leak and the explanation of the Minister of Defense – some more questions …

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Today I heard the explanation of the German Minister of Defense regarding the probable cause of the leak of last Friday. What I understood was:

  • WebEx is hosted in a special variant (WebEx BWI) on servers of the Bundeswehr.
  • Clear rules are in place, but were not followed. One participant attended the WebEx session via telephone.
  • Systems were not compromised.

Are these explanations sufficient? Do they cover all concerns described in my previous post
“Some simple questions after the Bundeswehr Leak …”
on this topic?

In my opinion some questions remained open:

  • Why and by whom was the WebEx session set up such that a participant could access it via telephone at all? With a zero-trust and MLS-based session this should have been excluded …
  • Did the participants get an invitation with an option that offered an access to the session via telephone? If yes: Who sent this information via which channels? Is it excluded that already the invitation was accessible to foreign powers?
  • Why did nobody check by which devices and communication channels the participants were attending the session? At the beginning and during the session? Why did a log- and intrusion system not react?
  • Why did none of the other participants react to the fact that the poor guy in Singapore talked over telephone? Despite the clear rules in place …
  • How did the eavesdropping happen? Were the telephone lines of the hotel tapped? Or did the participant use a wireless headset with Bluetooth?

So, if it was a human failure it may have happened due to mistakes and unawareness on multiple sides – on the side of IT-administrators responsible for the session setup, on the side of the person which sent the respective invitation, on the side of the participant who did not use a BWI- or SINA-device to access the session.

Well, and I would say that when a session running through servers of the Bundeswehr was overheard by Russia, at least the session was compromised. And if someone can access an audio-session, which is enabled by and via a Bundeswehr server and which is intended to be secure, via an open telephone line then something is severely wrong in the overall security measures.

So, my dear Minister, as a concerned citizen I still do not sleep well. More explanations have to follow …

 

Some simple questions after the Bundeswehr Leak ….

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I am following the present discussion about the leak of a communication between some generals of the German Air Defense from abroad. It really feels extremely embarrassing that the Russians could overhear a communication of high-ranked German army officers. And I do not know how to answer questions of retired Norwegian IT-specialists (of my age) here in the north of Europe … With German troops participating right now in huge Nato maneuvers in northern Norway. And believe me I have often criticized my Norwegian friends for a lack of IT-security awareness, in particular regarding the use of Microsoft and Zoom. And now this disaster in my home country …

From my point of view establishing a formal Untersuchungsausschuss (investigation committee) of the German parliament is only one of the necessary steps required to clarify what has happened. But it is an important one, together with internal and technical investigations within the Bundeswehr.

In this post I want to ask some simple questions which, in my opinion, should be answered. Any IT-guy having worked with or for public governmental institutions in Europe could ask them. None of the links I give below is classified.

Why WebEx at all?

The first point in all the TV and newspaper discussions is that there seems to be no doubt that the communication is authentic and that WebEx was used. Now, anyone with a basic idea about information security would ask the following question:

Why for heavens sake did the German officers use Webex at all? A product of Cisco, i.e. of a commercial US company? With published security problems during the Corona years? Why does the German military not have its own security protocols and measures in place?

Well, we and the US are allies, but … Yeah, but, … and Trump on the horizon.

It is a German company, “Secunet”, who has developed mobile systems (SINA workstations) compliant with for NATO certifications on different levels of security. See e.g.:
https://www.secunet.com/ loesungen/ sina-workstation-s
https://www.ia.nato.int/ niapc/ Product/ SINA-Workstation-S_730
https://www.bundeswehr-journal.de/2020/mehr-als-6000-geraete-sina-workstation-s-fuer-die-bundeswehr/
https://www.secunet.com/ueber-uns/presse/artikel/sicheres-mobiles-arbeiten-bwi-beschafft-sina-workstations-s-fuer-die-bundeswehr
https://www.secunet.com/ueber-uns/presse/artikel/secunet-beliefert-die-bundeswehr-mit-sina-sicherheitstechnologie-fuer-schnelle-eingreiftruppe-der-nato

These systems were bought by the Bundeswehr in relatively large quantities.

So, my first two open question are:

  • Why was WebEx used at all? Did the generals not have SINA-workstations available? If they had not, why not?
  • Under what conditions is the usage of WebEx regarded secure by the the responsible IT-specialists of the Bundeswehr?

Actually, the answer to the second question may not be independent of the answer to the first one … as WebEx may be hosted on servers of the Bundeswehr.

Addendum, 05.03.2024: Another point which comes up during TV discussions is that some “experts” say there is reason to believe that the WebEx-session was set up without any end-to-end-encryption. This is really implausible. What is more plausible is that the session was set up with standard encryption and Cisco’s standard management of encryption keys. And maybe – due to mistakes – with allowance for some participants to use a telephone. Making the session insecure again …

A success message of the BWI of 2021 regarding the rollout of Cisco’s WebEx in the Bundeswehr

What did we read in 2021 as a success message regarding the digitalization of the German defense and public institutions?

” … Zusammen und in Echtzeit an Dokumenten arbeiten, E-Mails austauschen, gemeinsame Termine planen, Webkonferenzen mit und ohne Video abhalten, chatten und telefonieren – wenn alle Services komplett ausgerollt sind, ermöglicht Groupware Bw dies auf einer einheitlichen technischen Plattform und über alle zivilen und militärischen Bereiche hinweg. Die BWI startete am 1. Oktober den Rollout mit den Produkten Cisco Jabber und Webex. In einem zweiten Schritt werden im kommenden Jahr auch die Services E-Mail und Enterprise Content Management mit Microsoft Outlook und SharePoint ausgerollt.”

See: https://www.bwi.de/ magazin /artikel/ groupware-bw-bei-der-bundeswehr-perfekt-vernetzt-von-chat-bis-videokonferenz

Even without translation the combination of tools praised here would make a security aware person more than nervous. And one can only hope that the introduction of these systems only concerns the civil sector of the Bundeswehr. If not, well, … just ask the CCC what they would think of it.

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