Yes, I also know about the lizardmen from Phobos who can crack SSL/TLS keys instantly. If you can show some code all this would be much more credible. After all, this is a Qt mailing list, not a science fiction one.

Rgrds Henry


On 2019-10-07 16:06, Roland Hughes wrote:

On 10/7/19 5:00 AM, Thiago Macieira wrote:
You do realise that's not how modern encryption works, right? You do realise that SSL/TLS rekeys periodically to avoid even a compromised key from going further? That's what the "data limit for all ciphersuits" means: rekey after a
while.
yeah.
You're apparently willfully ignoring the fact that the same cleartext will not result in the same ciphertext when repeated in the transmission, even between
two rekey events.

No. We are working from two completely different premises. It appears to me your premise is they have to be able to decrypt 100% of the packets 100% of the time. That's not the premise here.

The premise here is they don't need it all to work today. They just need to know that a Merchant account service receives XML/JSON and responds in kind. The transaction is the same for a phone app, Web site, even when you are standing at that mom & pop retailer physically using your card. They (whoever they are) sniff packets to/from the IP addresses of the service logging them to disk drives.

The dispatch service hands 100-1000 key combinations out at a time to worker computers generating fingerprints for the database. These computers could be a botnet, leased from a hosting service or machines they own. The receiver service stores the key results in the database.

A credit card processing service of sufficient size will go through a massive number of salts and keys, especially with the approaching Holiday shopping season. 1280 bytes "should" be more than enough to contain a credit card authorization request so this scenario is only interested in fast cracking a single packet. Yes, the CC number and some other information may well have additional obfuscation but that will also be a mechanical process.

Periodically a batch job wakes up and runs the sniffed packets against the database looking for matching fingerprints. When it fast cracks one it moves it to a different drive/raid array, storage area for the next step. This process goes in steps until they have full CC information with a transaction approval, weeding out the declined cards.

When the sniffed packet storage falls below some threshold the sniffer portion is reactivated to retrieve more packets.

This entire time workers are adding more and more entries to the fingerprint database.

These people don't need them all. They are patient. This process is automated. They might even configure it to send an email when another 100 or 1000 valid CCs so they can either sell them on the Dark Web or send them through the "buying agent" network.

Yeah, "buying agent" network might need a bit of explanation. Some of you may have seen those "work from home" scams where they want a "shipping consolidation" person to receive items and repackage them into bulk packs for overseas (or wherever) shipping. They want a fall person to receive the higher end merchandise which they then bulk ship to someone who will sell it on eBay/Amazon/etc.

The CC companies constantly scan for "unusual activity" and call you when your card has been compromised. This works when the individuals are working with limited information. They have the CC information, but they don't have the "where you shop" information. The ones which have the information about where you routinely use the card can have a better informed "buying agent" network and slow bleed the card without tripping the fraud alert systems. If you routinely use said card at say, Walmart, 2-3 times per week for purchases of $100-$500 they can make one more purchase per week in that price range until you are maxed out or start matching up charges with receipts.

The people I get asked to think about are playing a long game. They aren't looking to send a crew to Chicago to take out $100 cash advances on a million cards bought on the Dark Web or do something like this crew did:

https://www.mcall.com/news/watchdog/mc-counterfeit-credit-cards-identity-theft-watchdog-20160625-column.html

Or the guy who just got 8 years for running such a ring in Las Vegas. That's the most recent one turning up in a quick search.

Maybe they are looking to do just that, but are looking for more information?

At any rate, the "no-breach" scenario is being seriously looked at. Yes, the Salt will change with every packet and the key might well change with every packet but these players are only looking to crack a subset of packets. Most organizations won't have the infrastructure to utilize a billion compromised credit cards. They can handle a few hundred to a few thousand per month.

In short, they don't need _everything_. They just need enough to get that much

And don't forget the Initialisation Vector. Even if you could compute the fingerprint database, you still need to multiply it by 2^128  to account for
all possible IVs.

Perhaps. A few of those won't be used, such as low-values and high-values. That also assumes none of the desalination chatter pans out. Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. One thing is certain. We now have the storage and computing power available to create the database or 2^128 database tables if needed.

The people I get asked to think about are playing a very long game. If they are using a botnet the machines to generate the database content cost them nothing. They are only on the hook for a bit of coding and what is becoming cheaper by the month storage.

https://venturebeat.com/2014/07/13/hackers-only-need-to-get-it-right-once-we-need-to-get-it-right-every-time/




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