How safe are messaging apps

With the massive rise in popularity of messaging apps in the past few years with Snapchat said to have at least 30 million active monthly users while WhatsApp and LINE sport 400 million and 300 million registered users, respectively. The ever increasing risk of cyber attacks against such accounts and there retrospective servers is a given. The issue with a lot of these apps is they request a mountain of personal information in order for you to be able to use the service. Giving this information requires a lot of trusting of the application developer and from past exploits its hard to say a lot of these developers deserve your trust. The question now is "how do you protect yourself whilst using such application?"

Well in order to help you with this I have compiled a number of steps that if followed should help minimize your risk of exposure if your account becomes victim to a cyber attack.

1) Be discreet. If you want to use messaging apps as a way to contact certain people, avoid using real-life identification details that can be traced back to you. If that can’t be avoided, use as little real information as possible, depending on the app you’re using. Avoid linking your social networking profiles to your messaging app accounts.

2) Secure your messaging app accounts. Use a unique email account for your messaging app. Don’t reuse passwords.

3) Don’t share anything you wouldn’t want the public to get wind of. Oversharing is one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make online; using messaging apps is no exception. Be aware of what you share. And when in doubt, keep sensitive information to yourself.

4) Limit what access you give your messaging application eg don't give access to your location or photos unless you need to.

Recovering "Deleted" snapchat messages

You have just arrived at this post and read the heading "recovering deleted snapchat messages" and now your thinking snapchat deletes my messages after 10 seconds doesn't it? Well the simple answer to that question is no. This isn't any kind of a new revelation the research has been around since 2013 it just doesn't seem to be well known so I have decided to do my part to try and highlight it. The main reason for writing this post is to try and get the message through to teenagers and young adults that the content you are sending may not be secure and could come back to bite you. There is also a massive legal issue with the sending of explicit images if both parties are seen as minors and you could land yourself in a whole lot of trouble with the law. It is important to presume that anything you send or do online can be traced and made public so the safest approach to take is think twice before sending anything out there that may prove harmful to yourself or others.

If you would like to read through the report on how to recover snapchat messages and I suggest that you do the link can be accessed here. After reading this report maybe you might consider sending a snap to your friends just to let them know you have a code red situation and you need to meet up. For anyone who is to lazy to click on the link I have copied in the body of the report below.
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Methodology

We used two android devices to examine artifacts left behind by Snapchat. An account (rhickman1989) was created on a Samsung Galaxy Note 2, and pictures and videos were sent to another account (DeciphForensics). The receiving account was logged into on a Samsung Galaxy S3, when some of the images and videos were viewed, while others were not. We then acquired the phone using AccessData’s Mobile Phone Examiner+ version 5.2.1.499. After the acquisition was complete, the image was exported as an .AD1 image file, and then imported to AccessData’s Forensic Toolkit version 4.0.2.33.

After a brief examination of the contents, a different account (decipforensics2) was created on the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, and more pictures and videos were sent to the account on the Samsung Galaxy S3 (rhickman1989). This was to determine if there are identifiers for the sender account of a “snap.” The same acquisition process was followed again after the second batch of “snaps” were sent.

After another brief examination of the contents, pictures and videos were sent from the Samsung Galaxy S3 with the rhickman1989 account to both the DeciphForensics and DecipForensics2 accounts. The same acquisition process was followed again after sending these “snaps.”

All examination took place using AccessData’s Forensic Toolkit version 4.0.2.33.

Snapchat Structure

The majority of Snapchat data is stored within the data/data/com.snapchat.android folder. There are four folders within this directory, with two folders within the cache folder.

Examination of the Samsung Galaxy S3 revealed that within the shared_prefs folder are several XML files: CameraPreviewActivity.xml, com.google.android.gcm.xml, com.snapchat.android_preferences.xml, and SnapPreviewActivity.xml.

The com.snapchat.android_preferences.xml File

This file is where the majority of information stored by Snapchat is located. Within this file is a listing of all the contacts stored on the device. This is done with the permission allowed by the user for the application to read the contacts on the device.

Below the list of contacts is a listing of Snapchat messages. It appears that there is a set of fields stored for each message in Snapchat. The following are the fields stored in this section of the XML file: type, mSender, mWasViewed, mCaptionPosition, mCaptionOrientation, mIsLoading, mIsTimerRunning, mIsBeingViewed, MWasOpened, mWasScreenshotted, mDisplayTime, mId, mTimestamp, mStatus, mIcon, and mMediaType.

We sent only two pictures from the DecipForensics2 account, and one was viewed and expired. Within this XML file are two records that show the mSender field set to “decipforensics2.” Of those two records, one has the mWasOpened set to “true.” The author kept documentation as to which images were opened and allowed to expire and which are not, so it is known which image is tied to this record.

The mTimestamp field is stored in Epoch format. Upon conversion of this value, it showed the time that the image was either taken or viewed. Further research will need to be done to determine which it is, however, the time is within the timeframe of both being sent and viewed. Unfortunately, the author did this within a few minutes of each other and did not record the exact time sent.

The mId field for the picture shown to the left is “270518365528484358r.” The mTimestamp field in the same record is “1365528484358.” After converting the Epoch time format to readable format, the time stamp is for April 9, 2013 11:28:04 MDT. The similarities here will be address further in a later section of this paper

The received_image_snaps Folder

Within this folder were located every image sent to the DeciphForensics account on the Samsung Galaxy S3, including the images that had been viewed and were expired. There were some duplicate images with different names as well, the reason for this is unknown.

Android developers created a way for media files such as graphics to be stored on the phone for application use and function without being put into the Gallery application as an image to be viewed. The way that they did this was with .nomedia files. “If a directory has a file named .nomedia, then the media store will not scan and record the metadata of files in that directory” (Hoog, 2011).

Each of the images within the received_image_snaps folder had a .nomedia extension appended to the end of the file name. For example, the name of the file figure 3 is “h1a81hurcs00h1365528700423.jpg.nomedia”. This was likely done to prevent the images stored within this directory from being placed in the gallery or from being scanned by the media store. AccessData’s Forensic Toolkit recognized the .nomedia extension that was appended to the end of the file name and ignored it, displaying the images.

Correlations between the XML Records and the Image Names

There is a small correlation between records within the com.snapchat.android_preferences.xml file and the name of the image file stored in the received_image_snaps folder.

As shown above, there are three correlations between the name of the image, the mTimestamp value, and the mId value. While this is consistent with this image, it is not always consistent with all images. The section in blue is present in several of the other images, only with different numbers following to separate the image.

Conclusion

The author began this research in an attempt to answer several vital questions about the Snapchat application as it is stored and used on Android devices. The author has concluded that metadata is stored for Snapchat images, as shown by the com.snapchat.android_preferences.xml file, and that it contains metadata about expired “snaps” as well as unexpired “snaps,” and that images that are sent via Snapchat are indeed recoverable, and do not “disappear forever.”

Securing your iot devices

2016 has been named the year that the internet of things (iot) takes hold, with a reported 50 million plus devices sold worldwide to date with everything from smart fridges to smart plugs iot is here to stay. It must be noted however with all of this extra connectivity comes a juicy threat surface for cyber criminals to prey on. The main thing consumers need to remember that if you bough a devices that connects to the internet then you can be guaranteed that it needs to be secured. In this post I am going to outline a number of steps you can take to help protect yourself and your family from becoming victims of a cyber attack.

1) Keep your devices up to date

This goes for all devices that connect to the internet but I would especially recommend it for iot devices as new exploits are exposed manufactures may push down patches to solve the vulnerability and therefor you should regularly check to make sure your device is running the latest software.

2) Change the default password on your device

This is a very important step to take as the majority of iot devices are mass produced with a default login and not changing this on day one will leave yourself vulnerable to attack. May I suggest using a password that is at least 10 character long with special characters and capitals and numbers i.e don't use your last name and type 123 after it.

3) Be familiar with your devices privacy section

What kind of information are you saving or sharing through this device and what guarantees are put in place that this information is been protected. Don't assume just because the manufacturer says its a secure device to use that it is and make sure your information isn't been shared with third parties.

4) Be carefully buying a second hand device or selling your own device

Buying a second hand device on line may come pre-installed with malware or a backdoor only buy second hand devices from a reputable dealer. On the flip side think long and hard about selling your device, resetting a device may look like all your data has been cleared but with a little know how a lot of this information may be retrieved. There are a number of programs out there that ensure proper data erasure and this may be something you should look into first.

Securing your android (the basics)

I have been asked a bit lately about securing android devices as I tend to focus on the apple side of things as I myself use the iPhone. There is a myth out there that android is inherently insecure and this really isn't true, android out of the box is pretty good its the user that make the device insecure. The real issue with android is anyone can make an app and upload it to their store they don't check first to see if you are a potential cyber criminal. I think from memory that at one stage in the past few years the top 5 apps in the android store were in fact trojan horses this might be wrong but I am pretty sure their is some truth their I need to go back and double check this. So to minimize the waffle you ask "what do I need to do to secure my android?" Well I have put together a number of steps that if followed will definitely help you get to a place where you can feel "secure".

1) Do not save all of your passwords in your device! I don't know why I need to say this but people naturally tend to save their passwords for easy access of whatever the reason on their devices. This is a very bad practice and you should avoid this, think of memorizing your passwords of a way to delaying Alzheimer's and not getting ripped off by cyber criminals.

2) Use your devices inbuilt security features, If you are running on Jelly Bean, you can have a screen lock and encryption enabled to further enhance your security. Use these features they will help you keep your device safe.

3) Androids allow you to lock your apps you should use this feature especially for apps that hold sensitive information. Their is a free app that you can download to enable this feature called App Lock.

4) If you are installing an app read what permissions the app want's!!! If you are downloading some recipe app it doesn't need access to your camera, microphone and contacts. This should be common sense but for some reason people download apps and click ok to everything.

5)  Download a mobile security app, androids are very much open to virus's and malware in comparison to their i0S counterparts. An app I think is pretty good is avast!mobile security.

6) One of the most important things you can do to secure your android is secure your network. I know you wont listen but try to avoid using public networks. You can protect your information by using apps like Hideninja VPN so that your outgoing connection is always encrypted, making it harder for anyone to sabotage your data. If you suspect that your device is being attacked, WiFi Protector can help fend off these attackers. To further enhance your network security you can apply settings from SecDroid but note that this app is only for rooted phones.