Websec at Campus Party 2010

WebSec was proud to participate in Campus Party Mexico 2010, held from August 10th–16th in Mexico City. Campus Party has evolved into one of the premier events each year for thousands of technology professionals, information age aficionados, and computer enthusiasts to come together, share new ideas, and demonstrate cutting-edge computer technologies, as well as a host of other learning and information-themed events.

Among the highlights are the online activities, which has become the world's largest event of its kind. This year's festivities attracted more than 7,000 participants, marking one of the most successful events yet.

The Campus Party motto sums it up best: “The Internet is not a network of computers... it's a network of people!”


The WebSec Modem Security Conference

Our well-attended 'Vulnerabilities in Modems of Mexico' conference was presented by our security researcher Pedro Joaquín. Pedro specializes in modem security, and he has been working diligently for years tracking & examining the exploitation of vulnerabilities among Mexico's plethora of residential modem brands, including 2Wire, Thomson, Huawei, Motorola, Arris, CMTS, and others.

2Wire routers are are the brand of choice throughout much of Mexico and at Campus Party Mexico 2010 and in prior conferences (including as a featured speaker at DEFCON 17 2009), Pedro revealed numerous high-impact vulnerabilities targeting these routers. Most pressing was his discovery of a vulnerability that allowed DNS poisoning via a cross site forgery request, resulting in authentication bypass and drive-by router pharming.

Pedro's work was also critical to uncovering flaws inherent in the patch designed to remedy this vulnerability – in fact, the patch contained the additional, more severe problem of another authentication bypass vulnerability. Utilizing the results of Pedro's investigation, security of residential systems that utilize the 2wire router has been greatly enhanced.

Pedro debuted several brand new results last week, including three exploits and six vulnerabilities for Thomson routers, including ones that allowed authentication bypass and privilege escalation. Also revealed were new exploits of popular Arris, Motorola, and Huawei routers, as well as advice detailing how to close these gaps in network security.

Our conference was enthusiastically-received, and Campus Party Mexico 2010 was a great event. We look forward to returning next year with another informative program, and our latest network security update.