TheInterW3bs.com

I can’t keep up with all the issues the folks at Hakin9 are kicking out but continuing my reviews, the latest issue of Hakin9 is mainly focused on Apple security concerns.  A few articles sway off the Apple topic but for the most part the articles can give anyone entering into the Apple security space a well rounded introduction.

The first article “Hacking Tools on iOS” covers some of the more popular jailbreaking apps available.  I don’t have much experience with iphones or ipads but I found this article pretty informative.  It covers how to patch your jailbroken iphone, which apps are available for the most common hacking tools.  If you are new to Apple iOS hacking this article should give you a great start.

The next article discussed a small little bit of C code called osxmem, osxmem-chunks, osxmem-react.  The code allows you to poke around what’s floating in your memory, cause some segfaults all without dumping memory and carving.  It seems like a nice way to possibly poke around certain area of memory you are interested in.  Definitely something I think I may have to give a whirl.

The next article, titled “As Apple Devices Gain Popularity, Do they become more vulnerable to exploitation” is a odd little article.  It lists out a ton of CVE directly related to Apple hardware and software then discusses some recommend methods for hardening your devices.  I frequent CVE’s and vulnerability tracking sites enough that I thought it was odd to read an article listing so many CVEs but listing the vulns out helped detail a lot of the risks that are growing for Apple devices.  As odd as I found it, I liked seeing an article list out some of the more concerning vulnerabilities in CVE form.

The following article “Import Hooks for Encrypted Python Modules” is about using hooks to import your encrypted python code.  I started reading the article but shortly into it my eyes started to glaze over.  Even with my eyes drifting, it was probably my second favorite article of the bunch.  It was well written and it was pretty informative and thorough.  I just haven’t yet had the need to encrypt any of my Python code (It’s bad enough that I probably should) so I will have to say that this article is perfect for anyone who has the need to encrypt their code.  Until then I will shelve this topic for when the need arises.

The article “Apple OSX and iOS Hacking News” is a little different spin from the previous article discussing CVE’s.  This article goes into a high level view on some of the hot security concerns that have happened over the last year.

The next article “Interception with Paros Proxy” is a pretty nice little article for any newcomer to web analyzing or attacking via a proxy.  If you are totally new to this topic then I give the article a read, it should help get you a quick 5 minute intro into proxying traffic.  My only real comment to this article is that the reader should also check out the Paros fork Zed Attack Proxy.

The following article “From Praying to Preying” migrates over from Apple to Android and discusses the Android application, Prey is an android application that Geo tracks your device and notifies you via SMS messages.  This app looks promising for those that are interested in monitoring their devices in the case of theft or loss.

The next article, Facebook and the Fuzz is a fairly decent article dealing with smart phones and their use when incidents and news worthy situations are happening.  It discusses current trends in legislation, possible future restrictions on smart phone devices and law enforcement situations.  Facebook really isn’t the main focus of the article as is the use and public nature of social media and the responses that can happen due to them.

The last article is an interview with the UK researcher David Harley.  The interview was pretty interesting to hear a prominent voice discuss his views of some subjects that are sometimes ignored by the higher level folks.  In particular his Mac Security viewpoints are very interesting and informative.