Securing peripherals is a really big deal when it comes to I.T. Security so I've got a couple of examples
laying around here now when we talking about peripherals.
We're talking about anything from a printer to keyboards to mice to displays to even things like security
cameras.
And in a small way we're also going to be talking about how smart devices interface with these peripherals
as well because these are a big problem child when it comes to dealing with these guys.
So the exam itself covers a number of different and rather unique objectives when it comes to peripherals.
So what I did is I looked at that I kind of organized it in a different way because you may have lots
of different peripherals but they tend to always have the same problems.
So the first thing I want to talk about is the idea of wired versus wireless peripherals.
Now if you're an old guy like me I actually remember a time when everything was wired my keyboard was
wired my network was wired my display's was wired my sound was wired a lot more wireless these days
and when you have something that's wired it is very difficult to create security problems with these
devices simply because there's.
You've got to physically get to the device to do something now when it's wireless.
Things change.
Probably one of the greatest examples is this keyboard mouse that I have in front of me right here.
This is a good old Bluetooth keyboard mouse so when we're talking about wireless peripherals the word
Bluetooth comes out an awful lot.
Bluetooth has been around for 20 some odd years now.
It is a complicated messy protocol.
The 10:42 protocol is only about the entire document.
The ATO 211 documents not even 500 pages.
The Bluetooth documentation is almost 3000 pages.
And any time anything complicated it tends to be easier to muck it up.
And Bluetooth is no exception to that.
Now there's two terms on the exam that I want to at least make a mention of first is called Blue jacking
back in the old days I could take my phone for example and it has Bluetooth on it and I could take this
phone and I could link in pair up with any other Bluetooth device.
And that way I could use whatever that device might be and I could make long distance phone calls to
Africa or whatever I wanted to do.
And we called that blue jacket.
Now blue jacking by itself is really rare today.
We've got a lot of updates to the Bluetooth standard.
So the idea that somebody can just connect into a bluetooth device is I'm not going to say it's impossible
but it's rare in the classic sense.
Blue snarfing is a little bit different.
Blue snarfing means that I'm actually connecting to a bluetooth device in order to grab data and steal
data and take it whether I'm getting on a personal area network Appin and Bluetooth and accessing files
on a smartphone or if I'm just intercepting data between two pair devices if I'm actually grabbing and
stealing data that's a blue snarf if I'm just making a connection to try to take advantage of a resource
that's blue jacket.
Now both of these are pretty much obsolete.
However there are a lot of scenarios with Bluetooth that even up to today have problems there are little
nooks and crannies within the complicated standard where we can still take control of Bluetooth devices
where we can still steal data from that.
So while classic blue jacket and classic blue snarfing are considered obsolete I assure you that there
are plenty of people out there who can easily connect to any device that has Bluetooth running.
So the big question you have when it comes to any Bluetooth device at all is number one do you have
to have bluetooth on my phone here.
I actually use Bluetooth quite a bit and I have to keep it on.
But I know lots of people who they simply turn Bluetooth off.
They have no bluetooth connections.
Also remember that Bluetooth comes in three different classes so class one is only about a three foot
distance whereas class 3 goes way out or did I get that backwards either way when you're buying Bluetooth
devices.
Think about distances.
This is a big deal.
One of the most fun things I used to do to people is I would get a Bluetooth keyboard and I would just
plug the little bluetooth dongle into the U.S. be on one of my buddy's systems and I'd stand way back
and I would be able to wreak havoc.
OK.
I got bored a lot.
Anyway what you see today with a lot of Bluetooth things like keyboards and such.
They're actually designed to work very very close by in order to prevent evil guys like me from having
fun and messing up your Excel spreadsheets.
Now the other thing about wireless that we need to watch out for isn't so much Bluetooth but it's actually
Ayro to 11.
Now we cover this in more detail in other episodes.
But for example this multipurpose device right here multifunction device this is a printer and a fax
machine and a copier and I think it actually makes ice cream cones to this device uses an 8 to 11 feature
called WPX and WPX is very convenient what it's designed to do is if you want to connect this guy to
an SS ID there's a button on here somewhere.
Here I'll pretend it's over here and press that button and then I can go over to my wireless access
point and press a button there and they will automatically sync together using WPA to personal shared
key encryption.
That sounds very convenient doesn't it press two buttons and you're connected.
Watch other episodes and you'll see the WPX is a big problem.
So that's something we really want to avoid.
Now the other issue that we run into with peripherals is what I'm going to call hidden Wi-Fi.
So first of all if you take a look at this little camera I've got here and I love these Amyris cameras
I use them like crazy but they've got a problem you see a little slot right there that little slot is
for a micro SD card.
Now they can be convenient with these cameras because this camera has battery backup or something and
if I can't get a live feed It'll store imagery on that SD card.
Now the other thing if you take a look over at this multifunction device here you're going to see that
this multifunction device also has a bunch of connections including SD connections on there.
The problem with these SD mini SD micro SD is that the SD standard isn't just for storage devices.
I can have a Wi-Fi SD card and a great little trick that people love to do is they will go ahead and
they'll plug these little tiny SD wireless NICS into these devices now that allows us to do one of two
different things.
Number one they can piggyback on somebody else's wireless network which may or may not be a problem.
But the other thing is that these little eddies really just use that connection as a power source and
they can plug in and make their own wireless access point and all of a sudden they're grabbing all kinds
of data and nobody's ever going to figure out where it came from who's looking in these little slots
for a little tiny mini or micro SD card and trying to figure out that that's actually a complete functional
wireless access point.
The last one I want to talk about our displays and when I'm talking about displays.
I mean monitors now I've got one down there I'm too lazy to pull up and it's not necessary because displays
in and of themselves are pretty secure devices.
The big downside we run into with most displays are those U.S. ports.
When I buy a big display I always get one with us B because it's convenient as opposed to making my
whole body reach way down onto a system.
I can just plug into the side of a monitor and I've got us connectivity.
Now these can be a big problem too.
The problem that we run into it's not the monitor so much it's the U.S. b itself.
So I want to take a second and take a look at this little device right here.
Now if you take a peek at it you'd say oh Mike that's an old school U.S. beef stick.
It's not.
It's actually called a rubber duck.
What that device does it when I can plug it into any system and it will emulate a keyboard.
It can start grabbing data it will start capturing information.
I could have it run scripts.
This is a very dangerous although a lot of fun tool to have around.
And you can actually buy these they're from an organization called Hack five like 30 bucks and they're
a wonderful tool.
So I can walk up to a system plug this in come back 20 minutes later after I've pretended to be the
cleaning people or something like that.
Pull it out and I can grab all kinds of data I can steal passwords whatever it might be.
And these displays what they're handy little U.S. connections are a real problem in terms of somebody
just being able to plug something in and boom they've got access to your system.
So do we do about all this.
Well the problem is is that people don't think about what they're buying.
First of all though that little camera you saw earlier with the SD card did I really need that.
Again we come down to lease functionality in these situations.
So if somebody like this guy my answer is going to be if you can buy the device that has what you need
and nothing else.
So you want to avoid these back doors cash or other terrible backdoor you run into a lot.
If you go out and you get these cameras not a not like this but like a little cheapie $80 cameras and
they will have an app that you can install on here.
Know unfortunately all of that information whatever you're watching on your camera is also being watched
by multiple organizations in China.
Documented but it's not against the law because if you read the fine print where you say I agree.
They tell you they're doing exactly that.
Nothing illegal about that whatsoever.
So don't go buying devices with the unnecessary ports.
Don't go buy devices with back doors you don't need.
The other thing you need to think about is turn off unneeded ports.
It's actually very interesting but on this printer right here it is trivial.
There's one little setting it's a hardware setting that says turn off all those ports.
So with one little click I can turn these off and you're completely safe.
Now we talk about shutting down unnecessary ports and other episodes.
But keep in mind with peripherals it's twice as important.
And the last one.
Boy this is a biggie when it comes to peripherals.
Don't forget these things need patches and updates just like your Windows system just like your Macs.
I can't tell you how many exploits that have taken place over the last few years because people fail
to update patches on their cameras on their routers even on their multifunction devices.
You've got to keep everything patched.