One of the oldest security tips is: “Only download software from official sources”. “Official sources” are usually the main app stores on each platform, but for millions of useful and free open-source apps, the most “official” source is the developer’s repository on a dedicated site such as GitHub or GitLab. There, you can find the project’s source code, fixes and additions to the code, and often a ready-to-use build of the app. These sites are familiar to anyone with even the slightest interest in computers, software, and programming. That’s why it was an unpleasant discovery for many (including IT security specialists and the developers themselves) that a file accessible at a link like github{.}com/{User_Name}/{Repo_Name}/files/{file_Id}/{file_name} could be published by someone other than the developer and contain… anything.

Of course, cybercriminals immediately took advantage of this.

Breaking down the problem

GitHub and its close relative GitLab are built around collaboration on software development projects. A developer can upload their code, and others can offer additions, fixes, or even create forks – alternative versions of the app or library. If a user finds a bug in an app, they can report it to the developer by creating an issue report. Other users can confirm the issue in the comments. You can also comment on new versions of the app. If necessary, you can attach files to the comments, such as screenshots showing the error or documents that crash the application. These files are stored on GitHub servers using links of the type described above.

However, GitHub has one peculiarity: if a user prepares a comment and uploads accompanying files, but doesn’t click “Publish”, the information remains “stuck” in the draft – and it’s invisible to both the application owner and other GitHub users. Nevertheless, a direct link to the file uploaded in the comment is created and fully operational, and anyone who follows it will receive the file from GitHub’s CDN.

Meanwhile, the owners of the repository where this file is posted in the comments cannot delete or block it. They don’t even know about it! There are also no settings to restrict the upload of such files for the repository as a whole. The only solution is to disable comments completely (on GitHub, you can do this for up to six months), but that would deprive developers of feedback.

GitLab’s commenting mechanism is similar, allowing files to be published via draft comments. The files are accessible via a link like gitlab.com/{User_Name}/{Repo_Name}/uploads/{file_Id}/{file_name}.

However, the problem in this case is mitigated somewhat by the fact that only registered, logged-in GitLab users can upload files.

A gift for phishing campaigns

Thanks to the ability to publish arbitrary files at links starting with GitHub/GitLab and containing the names of respected developers and popular projects (because an unpublished comment with a file can be left in almost any repository), cybercriminals are presented with the opportunity to carry out very convincing phishing attacks. Malicious campaigns have already been discovered where “comments”, supposedly containing cheating apps for games, are left in Microsoft repositories.

A vigilant user might wonder why a gaming cheat would be in the Microsoft repository: https://github{.}com/microsoft/vcpkg/files/…../Cheat.Lab.zip. But it’s much more likely that the keywords “GitHub” and “Microsoft” will reassure the victim, who won’t scrutinize the link any further. Smarter criminals might disguise their malware even more carefully, for example, by presenting it as a new version of an app distributed through GitHub or GitLab and posting links via “comments” on that app.

How to protect yourself from malicious content on GitHub and GitLab

While this design flaw remains unfixed and anyone can freely upload arbitrary files to the CDN of GitHub and GitLab, users of these platforms need to be extremely careful.

Do not download files from direct GitHub/GitLab links that you find in external sources – other websites, emails, or chats. Instead, open the project page (github{.}com/{User_Name}/{Repo_Name} or gitlab{.}com/{User_Name}/{Repo_Name}) and make sure that you can actually download the file from there. Official files from developers should be published and visible in the repository.
Make sure you’re on the right developer page – in GitHub, GitLab, and other open-source repositories, typosquatting is common: creating fake projects with names that differ from the original by one or two letters (for example, Chaddev instead of Chatdev).
Avoid downloading applications that have few stars (likes) and have been created recently.
Use protection against malware and phishing on all your computers and smartphones. Kaspersky Premium provides comprehensive protection for gamers and computer enthusiasts.

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We all know that we’re being tracked online, but the sheer scale of it continues to stagger — at least when this scale is properly communicated. Dry facts like “Your browser connected to 456 advertising trackers in the past hour” usually don’t get the point across. The problem is that such numbers lack context. They fail to connect our online actions with their unseen consequences. But what if we could somehow make online tracking visible — or audible? Electronic music artist Jasmine Guffond did just that a few years back…

The sound of Google tracking

She created a browser extension called Listening Back, which plays a sound every time your browser saves, modifies, or deletes a cookie file. Since these events accompany practically any user action, the result is both eye-opening (or ear-opening, if you will) and rather bizarrely beautiful.

A similar idea occurred to Dutch programmer Bert Hubert, known for creating the PowerDNS software for DNS servers. According to Hubert, when studying network activity logs, he was always struck by how often sites communicate with Google (and other sites too). This inspired him to write a small program he called Googerteller.

In the original version, the program emitted a sound every time a connection to Google was made. The result was also impressive — just listen to how it sounds. For example, here’s a recording of a visit to the official Dutch government job website, which features posts for vacancies in its intelligence agencies.

Almost every click on this site sends information to Google — and the user is never warned about this.

More tracking  — more sound

Not content with just Google, Bert Hubert added to Googerteller addresses belonging to Facebook and a number of other “popular” online trackers. Then, he visited a couple of websites that abuse online tracking much more severely than the Dutch government job site. The results speak volumes.

Unfortunately, Googerteller is only available as source code on GitHub. Anyone interested in listening to online tracking with their own ears can compile it, and then run it on their computer. Here’s the original Googerteller code for Linux, macOS, and other X-systems, and here’s a “fan-made version” for Windows called GoogeDotTeller. The only way to experience Googerteller without compiling it yourself is with this Googerteller-inspired plugin for Mozilla Firefox (and here’s its source code).

However, the above-mentioned electronic musician’s Listening Back browser extension remains readily available in the official extension stores — for both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. No technical skills are needed’ just install and away you go.

Enjoy the silence

If you’d rather not just listen to trackers collecting information about you, but actively block them, our Private Browsing feature is here to help. It effectively counters online advertising trackers. This feature is available in all our home user subscriptions: Kaspersky Standard, Kaspersky Plus, and Kaspersky Premium.

Remember to check your settings: by default, the Private Browsing feature only works in tracker detection and counting mode. Blocking mode must be enabled manually. Once done, fire up Googerteller or Listening Back and compare how your browser sounds with and without protection.

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As usual, for May the 4th (MTFBWY), we’re publishing a report for Star Wars fans, telling how a long time ago in a galaxy far away the Empire was negligent about information security. This year’s report subject is the just-concluded third season of the “Star Wars: The Bad Batch” animated series. As usual, we have to warn that the text below may contain spoilers.

Despite seemingly not the most serious format, the plot twists and overall coherence of the narrative in “The Bad Batch” are much better than in most recent live action series and movies. Ever since in the ninth episode “Palpatine Somehow Returned”, Lucasfilm creative director Dave Filoni has been trying to justify this return logically, at least to some extent. Therefore, the plot of the new animated series revolves around the “Project Necromancer”, conducted at the top-secret Tantiss base. And this is just what we need — a secret scientific institution, with unprecedented (for the Galactic Empire) protective systems, which, nevertheless, regularly fail.

Measures to protect the secrecy of the Tantiss base’s location

Doctor Hemlock, leader of the Tantiss base and head of the “Project Necromancer”, has the full trust of the Emperor and unlimited resources. One of his tasks is to ensure the security and secrecy of the base. And unlike most of the Imperial leaders we’ve seen before, he approaches his task responsibly.

There’s no information about the location of this facility in any imperial database. This, of course, causes certain difficulties with supply-ship flights — Hemlock put safeguards in place to make the coordinates to his base a secret. Any ship heading to Tantiss base must dock with Imperial Station 003 in the orbit of the Coruscant, capital of the Galactic Empire, and undergo a thorough check, which includes an inspection of the entire crew. The access code needed for docking changes once every rotation. Tantiss’s coordinates are downloaded directly into the ship’s navigation computer immediately after takeoff and are somehow not stored there. Obviously, they are downloaded from some isolated computer, since this data isn’t accessible from the base network. Even accessing the station’s manifest, which stores information about ship destinations, requires a separate access card.

Science ships that fly to Tantiss use enhanced safety protocols. In particular, they’re equipped with proximity sensors that detect suspicious objects near the ship’s hull (it’s totally unclear why this technology isn’t used anywhere else in the Empire). In addition, when someone is accessing the flight computer through the connection port for droids, an alarm signal is sent to the pilot’s console. And this is the first case of at least some cyberprotection of this data port.

Why these measures aren’t enough

Unfortunately, all precautions turn out to be completely pointless. The main characters of the series, “Clone Force 99”, dock with the station using a recently stolen shuttle, with a still valid clearance code in its computer. Their unscheduled arrival of course arouses certain suspicions, but a defector in an officer’s uniform who joins the clone squad uses social engineering methods to convince base personal that his arrival at the station is legitimate. He advise some suspicious officers to contact their superiors (and no one wants to contact Admiral Tarkin), and dismisses the door guards from their posts by threatening them with some “article 15 of Imperial Standing Order 10”.

Next, Echo, a clone with a bunch of cybernetic enhancements, connects directly to the base computer through the droid’s port and finds out which ship is heading to the Tantiss base. He gets on board the science vessel through a separate dock for droid loading — for some reason nobody controls it, while the human crew is being thoroughly scanned! On board the shuttle, he connects to a similar droid port and it indeed triggers a signal of “unscheduled droid activity in the cargo hold”, but Echo simply stuns the trooper sent to investigate, and through his communicator assures that everything is fine: it was a malfunction. And then simply turns off the proximity sensors.

How to avoid repeating imperial mistakes:

equip all computer systems that have a droid connection port with an alarm system in case of an unauthorized connection — not just those located in the hold of science ships;
periodically conduct security awareness trainings for the base crew. In particular, teach them to recognize social engineering methods.

Tantiss base defenses

Tantiss base also employs several protection technologies unique to the Imperial facilities. For example, the droids working at the station are capable of remotely triggering an alarm. But the main cybersecurity innovation is that access to a number of key scientific systems and zones is possible only after connecting an employee’s personal datapad through a special cradle. Those datapads are well encrypted; they stop working when taken away from the base, and activation of lockdown mode in the lab makes all datapad cradles inoperable.

The outer perimeter of the base is guarded, among other things, with the help of trained local predators (lurca hounds). There are tunnels leading to their stables at the base, but they are protected by force fields, activated on a signal from the supervisor. Moreover, the tunnels have some presence sensors that sound an alarm when unexpected activity is detected.

The central laboratory in which the experimental subjects are kept is protected not only by security squads and force fields, but also by a door locked with a special key (only Hemlock himself and the chief scientist of the base have copies of the same key). Regular blood samples are taken from the experimental subjects by medical droids and are sent through technological tunnels (opened also by medical droids).

Why these measures aren’t enough

Personal datapads don’t have their own authentication system. If an attacker manages to get hold of the device, he’ll be able not only to open doors and operate elevators, but also gain access to classified information systems (and even drop heavy containers on droids). Yes, datapads are encrypted, but the encryption can be bypassed by connecting one to any Imperial terminal, at any Imperial base.

The motion detectors in the lurca tunnels don’t activate protection mechanisms automatically. The order is given by an officer, and he may not be fast enough.

The technological tunnels for transporting blood samples are large enough for experimental subjects to crawl through. The hatches covering those tunnels can be opened mechanically using stolen medical instruments. They can also be used not only to paralyze a medical droid, but also to reprogram one.

Access to some systems doesn’t require authentication at all. In particular, the field that restrains a dangerous and practically invulnerable animal (Zillo Beast) is turned off from a nearby control panel by pressing several buttons and pulling one lever. And we’re talking about an animal capable of destroying the base entirely.

Unauthorized connections to droid ports that are scattered throughout the base are once again not controlled in any way. However, there’s a system on the shuttle that’s capable of monitoring such activity! Moreover, at some point the attackers try to connect to the blood testing station, but are denied access. And this failed attempt to access classified information doesn’t cause any alarm.

And the final touch: there’s no data backup for research materials on which “the future of the Empire depends”. One grenade exploded in a research laboratory is enough for all the results of Dr. Hemlock’s activities to be irretrievably lost.

How to avoid making the same mistakes:

it makes sense to make backup copies of critical information and store it on media isolated from the network in a separate room;
all systems that provide access to classified information or to secret premises must be equipped with a two-factor authentication system;
strictly speaking, what this scientific base lacks is something like a SIEM system that can manage security data and events. It can analyze cybersecurity events from various information systems, such as loss of signal from droids, access attempts and so on. It can even automate responses to those alerts – turn on isolation mode, force fields and alarms when necessary.

But in general, advancements in defense systems cannot be denied — other Imperial institutions we’ve seen in the Star Wars universe lack such a level of protection. But, as usual, it’s hard to call it progress. After all, this is a kind of prequel: the series takes place 18 years before the Battle of Yavin — the Death Star incident occurred much later. So the screenwriters probably would have to explain this in subsequent movies and animated series.

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The first Thursday in May is a special day. For over a decade, this day has been celebrated as World Password Day. For us at Kaspersky, it’s an important occasion; we don’t throw a party, but rather take the opportunity to once again remind you of one of the important things in life. That’s right — passwords! So let’s discuss how to create them, where to store them securely, and why “qwerty12345” is a no-no.

This conversation is crucial because many people still rely on weak and reused passwords that are too easy to guess and have repeatedly fallen into the hands of hackers. Why this happens and how to address it — we explain in today’s post.

How do we discover leaks?

Our global threat intelligence network — Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) — plays a key role. It gathers and analyzes cyberthreat data from around the world, with most of the data being provided by our customers anonymously and voluntarily. This de-personalized data is analyzed by our machine learning algorithms (AI) and human experts, enabling us to respond rapidly to emerging cyberthreats: the average time between a new threat appearing and KSN participants’ learning about it is only 40 seconds!

Thanks to Kaspersky Security Network, we know that in 2023 there were over 32 million attempted attacks on KSN users’ passwords. In 2022, the number was even higher — a whopping 40 million. This translates to password hacking attempts happening more than once per second globally! Additionally, our late 2023 research showed that attacks don’t only affect home users — businesses aren’t immune either. 76% of small business entrepreneurs surveyed have faced at least one cyber-incident in the past two years, with nearly a quarter of attacks (24%) caused by the use of weak, repeated, or old passwords.

How we check your data

We employ three methods to check if your data and passwords have been compromised:

By email address for Kaspersky Standard, Kaspersky Plus, and Kaspersky Premium. It’s simple: you enter into the application the email addresses you and your close ones use for online accounts. We tell you if any of your personal data, including passwords, has leaked to the internet or dark web. Rest assured, our application doesn’t receive or store the compromised data itself but only provides information about its type. We’ll alert you if a breach involves your password, home address, ID or passport data, bank card number, or any combination thereof. And we won’t just alert you; we’ll also provide sound advice from our cybersecurity experts on the appropriate actions to take, as different types of leaks require specific responses.
By phone number for Kaspersky Premium. This method operates similarly to the email check, but focuses on accounts linked not to email addresses but to phone numbers. These accounts often belong to more “serious” services like banks, government institutions, and major online marketplaces, where data leaks can have severe consequences. You just need to specify your phone number in the application for us to check if it has appeared in any data leaks. You can even check not only your own number but also the numbers of all your family and relatives. The best part is that you only need input the email addresses and phone numbers once; we’ll continuously monitor the web for leaks from then on. If your data gets exposed, you’ll receive an immediate alert with recommendations on what to do.
By special algorithm in Kaspersky Password Manager. Unlike the two previous methods, which check all possible leak scenarios, our password manager focuses on analyzing the passwords you store in it. Even offline, we can tell you which of your passwords are weak or reused, and which ones are sufficiently strong. Additionally, Kaspersky Password Managerregularly checks all your passwords against databases of compromised credentials and notifies you of any matches.

You can also check if a password has been compromised using our online Password Checker service. Simply enter the password you want to check, and the system will tell you how many times it’s appeared in leaked databases and whether it can be considered secure.

However, this method has one drawback compared to the previous three: it requires manual checks, while Kaspersky Password Manager, Kaspersky Plus, and Kaspersky Premium automatically monitor for leaks in the background.

So does Kaspersky store the passwords of all its users? Absolutely not. None of the company’s employees — a developer, analyst, editor, designer, or even Eugene Kaspersky himself — has access to your sensitive data. We’ve already discussed our zero-knowledge policy in detail, here. Below, we’ll explain why we can’t access your passwords stored in Kaspersky Password Manager.

Why storing passwords in Kaspersky Password Manager is easier and safer

Memorizing all your passwords or keeping them in, say, note-taking apps is risky. The dedicated Kaspersky Password Manager is designed specifically for this purpose. It creates, stores and automatically enters strong and unique passwords on websites and applications, checks them for compromise, and generates two-factor authentication codes.

Here’s a simplified explanation of how Kaspersky Password Manager works. All your passwords are stored in a vault encrypted using the AES-256 symmetric encryption algorithm. This encryption standard is considered strong enough by the U.S. NSA to be used to store government secrets. The encryption key is your main password, which you create during the initial setup of the application. Every time you try to access the data vault, Kaspersky Password Manager prompts you for this password and uses it to decrypt the data.

You can keep not only passwords but other important data line bank card numbers, scanned documents, notes, etc. in the same vault. Thus, your confidential data is stored and synchronized among all your devices in “top secret” encrypted form.

This level of security far surpasses storing passwords in browsers. We advise against agreeing to the persistent suggestions of your browser to store your passwords for you — such passwords can be extracted from the browser in mere seconds.

Access to the encrypted vault in Kaspersky Password Manager is granted exclusively through your main password. We don’t know this password and never store it anywhere. If you forget it, the vault’s contents will be irretrievable, and you’ll have to create a new vault. This approach ensures the highest level of security: even if a hacker somehow gains access to the encrypted vault of Kaspersky Password Manager, they won’t be able to uncover your passwords, bank card details, or any other stored documents.

How can we check your passwords for leaks if we don’t know them in the first place?

This is where a Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA-1) comes in handy. It takes any data and uses it to create a hash value – a fixed-length binary string unique to the input data. For example, if your actual password is “qwerty12345”, its “SHA-1 language” representation would look like this: 4e17a448e043206801b95de317e07c839770c8b8.

Each unique password always produces the same hash, and if two hashes match, then the original passwords also match. KSN stores calculated hashes for all known hacked and leaked passwords. To check your password, we calculate its hash locally on your device, then send only the first half of this hash to Kaspersky servers, and find all hashes of compromised passwords with the same beginning. Those hashes are sent back to your device, where each of them is compared with the entire hash of your password. If an exact match is found, your password has been compromised.

Thus, we do not know your passwords – they never leave your device in an unencrypted form. It’s theoretically possible to recover the original password from its hash, but… full hashes of your passwords are also never sent anywhere from your device! Only fragments of them are sent to KSN servers for comparison, and it’s impossible to restore the original password from a part of its hash. Therefore, checking your passwords for leaks is completely safe.

How to come up with a main password

With Kaspersky Password Manager, you only need to remember one – main – password. The application uses the main password to encrypt your data in the vault. Therefore, we recommend taking its creation seriously. Using “qwerty12345” as your main password is like putting all your valuables in a safe and then leaving the key in the lock. To make the process easier and ensure you remember the password, here’s a tip on making it strong yet memorable:

Think of a favorite phrase, quote, or song lyric. Take one letter (not necessarily the first one!) or a combination of letters from each word in the phrase and insert special characters between them. Replace letters that resemble numbers or special characters with their respective symbols.

For example:

“May the Force be with you” — M@y!T!4!B!W!U

A good password isn’t necessarily one with many difficult-to-remember special characters, but one that is resistant to cracking. Test your newly created password using our Password Checker online service. If it confirms that your password is strong, you can use it as your Kaspersky Password Manager main password. And this is the only password you have to remember, since our password manager will generate, save, and automatically fill in all your other passwords on websites and apps.

If you prefer the old-school method of storing passwords in your head, use the combination you came up with as a base, and for each service and website, add a mnemonic “extension” to it to ensure all your passwords are unique. We’ve a detailed guide on this technique. And guess what? Many services, including Kaspersky Password Manager, allow creating passwords using… emojis and emoticons.

Summary

Use reliable protection. This ensures that your passwords and other sensitive data are safe.
Create mnemonic passwords. This technique helps you create passwords that are both cryptographically strong and easy to remember.
Store passwords in a password manager. You create and remember a one-and-only cryptographically strong main password, and we protect all your valuable data with it.
Don’t reuse passwords across services and websites. A data leak from one service could expose your password to hackers, making it easier for them to compromise your other accounts. Unique passwords are the way to go, and here’s why.
Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) wherever possible. This adds an extra layer of security to your accounts. Even if your password is compromised, the unique 2FA code will prevent unauthorized access. You can even store 2FA tokens and generate one-time codes in Kaspersky Password Manager.

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