

Sony’s Precarious PlayStation 3 - ericflo
http://extendedsubset.com/?p=47

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ra
I wonder if Sony every anticipated that the PSN would be THIS big a honeypot?

My PS3 is going in a DMZ, right now.

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Splines
? I'm curious, because I'm not following you. At least in simple home-
networking terminology, wouldn't that be nearly equivalent to putting your
device outside your firewall? You put a device that doesn't play well with
your NAT into a DMZ, losing the passive security of the NAT in exchange for
getting the device to work.

~~~
bradleyland
In "simple home-networking terminology," you're correct. Most consumer-grade
routers misuse the "DMZ" term and aren't capable of creating a "real" DMZ, but
if I had to guess, the author isn't using a typical consumer-grade router or
network.

For anyone curious about what a "real" DMZ is:

A DMZ doesn't always mean "wide open". It means that you create a separate
network with a hard break between the DMZ network and your "trusted" network.
You can, and should, firewall your DMZ network at the internet facing side as
well. The stack looks something like this:

    
    
        <internet>---<firewall>---<DMZ>
                  \--<firewall>---<trusted>
    

Or

    
    
        <internet>---<firewall>---<DMZ>---<firewall>---<trusted>
    
    

Wikipedia actually has some good information that is understandable to anyone
who can interpret basic networking diagrams.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMZ_(computing)>

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ra
Thst's right. It's still firewalled from the Internet, but now also firewalled
from the rest of my LAN.

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younata
Interesting speculation, but this likely isn't what happened.

As others have pointed out, for a MiTM/ddos attack, the ps3 isn't a better
target than anything else out there. In fact, given the amount of ps3s, it
makes more sense to go after windows update and get what is likely an order of
magnitude more infected windows machines.

Even if I had a ps3 (which I don't, while I wanted one about 6 months ago, the
geohot incident has dissuaded me from touching new sony equipment), I wouldn't
be worried.

~~~
0x0
One very important difference between PS3 and WU is that, in the PS3 case, the
signing keys for firmware updates are actually known, as I understand it.

~~~
younata
oh. right. that would make all the difference, wouldn't it?

~~~
0x0
Well, it certainly solves half of the problem!

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watty
I don't understand the whole botnet fluff. Hackers would first have to create
a custom signed image that runs a MiTM attack. Next, they would need to
magically break into the Sony update servers and pull a switcheroo without
anyone noticing. Wouldn't it be easier to "simply" break into the
Microsoft/Google/Apple/etc. update servers and slip in a fake update?

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Unseelie
Arguably, there's utility in the fact that the ps3s are all the same hardware,
and need only one patch.

Of course, the Xbox is also, but the point made in the article was that the
PS3 botnet would be quite a lot stronger than a 360 botnet.

Hacking microsoft/google/apple/etc would lead to having to use software on a
botnet comprised of a wide range of hardware...

So on what applications does that tradeoff of utility against the difficulty
of hacking Sony make sense?

~~~
watty
Maybe a PS3 botnet would be more powerful, but does it matter? The article
itself pointed out two problems (MiTM and DDOS) which would be equally
efficient on PS3 or 360. Forget Xbox 360 altogether, if we can break into an
update server wouldn't Windows Update be the better target? 350M Windows 7
licenses alone, talk about a botnet. Having different hardware doesn't make a
difference.

Edit: I realize none of this this easy, I'm just trying to play devils
advocate regarding the glossed over "If they then compromised the PSN update
servers...".

~~~
Unseelie
Try a reply to both watty and retric, which is, if someone wanted a botnet,
the case is that they went after Sony, which indicates that Sony had a
vulnerability. Of course, everyone has vulnerabilities, but the coincidence is
likely that this is one that both existed, and the hackers knew about. Sorry
that my best answer to the inherent question is 'coincidence'.

That's supposing that someone wanted a botnet..and we're all supposing they
had a great deal of planning. I'd expect such an event to hinge on a great
deal of chance..

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joeconway
Very interesting read. I'm really looking forward to this whole thing being
resolved and it actually being revealed who did what and what their intentions
were. The prospect of a significant proportion of Playstations being bricked
from a malicious firmware update is kinda scary / impressive.

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palewery
TL;DR. PSN is down because Sony is afraid that now that their update servers
are running backdoors or trojans.

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JonnieCache
This is very misleading. The article _speculates,_ primarily for the authors
amusement, that this may be the case:

 _"Surely everyone has heard the basics by now, and I don’t have any new
information to add, but my hobby is putting 2 and 2 together and imagining
worst-case scenarios."_

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chopsueyar
Interesting speculation.

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joeconway
yeah I realise it's all speculation and it's most likely nothing more than
someone poking around in places they shouldn't. Speculation is fun sometimes
though, as long as we don't venture into the realm of scaremongering.

~~~
chopsueyar
I am still incorporating it into my Cory Doctorow fan fiction, "Little
Sister".

