2y ago

"Never use hotel internet if you want to do a secure call:" How spies listened in on German general

www.bbc.com

Singapore sting: How spies listened in on German general

Four German military officials discussed what targets German-made Taurus missiles could potentially hit if Chancellor Olaf Scholz ever allowed them to be sent to Kyiv, and the call had been intercepted by Russian intelligence.

According to German authorities, the "data leak" was down to just one participant dialling in on an insecure line, either via his mobile or the hotel wi-fi.

The exact mode of dial-in is "still being clarified", Germany has said.

"I think that's a good lesson for everybody: never use hotel internet if you want to do a secure call," Germany's ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger, told the BBC this week. Some may feel the advice came a little too late.

Eyebrows were raised when it emerged the call happened on the widely-used WebEx platform - but Berlin has insisted the officials used an especially secure, certified version.

Professor Alan Woodward from the Surrey Centre for Cyber Security says that WebEx does provide end-to-end encryption "if you use the app itself".

But using a landline or open hotel wi-fi could mean security was no longer guaranteed - and Russian spies, it's now supposed, were ready to pounce.

74 comments

This doesnt add up... If the software was properly encrypted they shouldn't have been able to carry out a man in the middle attack right?
- A researcher in cryptography in Berlin, Henning Seidler, believes the most likely theory is that the officer dialled in via his mobile phone and the call was picked up by spies' antenna who can also "forward" the traffic onto the main, official antenna.
  Seems like the more likely theory
  
  Yes, it is a boomer move. But don't let Cisco off the hook. What kind of specially certified security feature is that, if it can be turned off so easily by accident.
  
  He most likely did, at least from what I can deduce from the published recording.
- Sounds like the encryption is automatically turned off if someone calls in via phone. So technically e2e encryption is supported, but it's a shit design just waiting for someone to accidentally misuse it.
  
  It sounds like this especially secure, certified, version of webex should probably not allow dial in via phone should it?
- It they used the client, yes. But in you dial in via sip, that opens up so many ways to screw up. Old software, open wifi, legacy hardware, you name it.
- yes, one side has to automatically or manually accept a fake certificate/key to MITM end to end encryption. you know, like when your browser says "certificate error" and you click on advanced->accept anyway or something like that. if the software always accepts or he manually accepted one, the MITM guy can substitute his own encryption key/cert and decrypt and re-encrypt on the fly.
  
  If you're looking at who is allowed to issue trusted root certificates in common browsers and operating systems, nobody needs to accept nothing to have every possible man in the middle from every major country's intelligence services already in there.
  
  It's always one of two possibilities: shit software or idiot users
- Yes, it’s not the 90s anymore. The network is hostile. If it’s not, nice but you’d be a fool to trust even your own. Encryption all the way!
"I think that's a good lesson for everybody: never use hotel internet if you want to do a secure call," Germany's ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger, told the BBC this week.
…
The exact mode of dial-in is "still being clarified", Germany has said.
OK, well the exact mode kinda fucking matters before you just scapegoat a hotel.
This smells like a coverup.
- Oh no. They're not referring to a specific hotel. Seriously never use hotel Internet on a sensitive device or for sensitive business. You will regret it.
In a world where I can deploy end to end encrypted comms servers to an old computer in my house, the fucking military of any country should, at a minimum, require encryption to join meetings where military strategy is being discussed.
- Yes
- The simplest and most straightforward answer is usually the correct one: The hotel room was probably bugged.
End to end encryption
USE IT
They can discuss missile targets but they don't know how to set a secure comm channel, it makes me wonder... how old were they? why don't they give a device with pre-installed VPN (incl. Killswitch) to all certain-rank officials and get done with this?...
- They do. Its much more than a built in vpn, they also have specialized, hardened versions of communications apps on them. The weakest link in cybersecurity is usually the end user.
- Not sure what their age has to do with it
- I think one issue is for high officials that outrank everyone, they can get away with getting an insecure device because they prefer an iPhone over the custom hardened phone on Android 10 locked down for secure reasons.
an especially secure, certified version
Bwahahahahahhahahahhahahhaa
This happened because of an unintended backdoor into an end to end encrypted conversation.
The British Government are actively trying to get back doors put into end to end encryption by law.
They are doing this so they can spy on their own citizens to ostensibly make Britain safer.
But as you can see, it actually would make it less safe.
This is what happens without E2EE.
What an amazing feat of incompetence! They’d be better off just using Signal…
They’d be quantum proof as well 😅 https://signal.org/blog/pqxdh/
- They even have their own Matrix Messenger they could have used...
  BWMessenger
  
  Yeah def this is what they should’ve been using.
- I love Signal but military should use their own messenging service (and they do).
  
  Yeah agree, just saying it would’ve bedn better then the hot garbage they were using.
I don't see how it matters if you use hotel WiFi or mobile if the mobile mast you connect to is controlled by a hostile government.
What matters is what you were sending wasn't secured at source.
Although Wikipedia tells you the range and I'm pretty sure even Russia have access to maps and a compass.
It is fine if you use unprotected wifi and then connect to a VPN.
- You don't even need a VPN if the software uses proper TLS encryption or equivalent
  
  TLS downgrade attacks are a thing, and can enable MITM attacks. There are server-side mitigations (such as only allowing TLS 1.2+ which should be the case but often isn't because the server has to support a niche user or application that only supports TLS 1.1), and since you usually don't know which TLS version you are using, for very sensitive connections it should be assumed that TLS is not enough.
  Don't even get me started on the non-security of standard mobile/landline calls. They're basically transparent for an attacker with means like Russia's.
  Proper E2E encryption and/or a VPN should be mandatory for a call to be considered secure, period.
- These VPN ad campaigns are incredibly detrimental to people's understanding of security mechanisms in the internet.
  
  How would this not have helped out in this case? I imagine the Bundeswehr must have an organization-wide VPN which would render any MITM in a local Wifi network impossible, barring user error.
How is it possible to accomplish a man in the middle attack on a TLS secure connection ? Hotel wifi or not, unless something major like Singaporean gov interfered with the connection, forced forged certificates into his phone, I don't see how this was put off by compromising the connection .
I bet they are covering for the Fact that one of them has downloaded malware into his device to masturbate to a hot girl living next to him kinda ad. and then malware shared back that data to Russia. or they have a spy among them and Germany isn't ready to admit having its defense forces compromised with Russian assets.
- The easiest explanation is the room was bugged and the general stayed there.
  
  Everyone forgets the old school stuff. It doesn't matter how well your connection is encrypted if the GRU has the room next to you.
- they were using an insecure method to connect with webex, so something like a dial-in number for using it without a computer i guess. that is probably not encrypted. the meeting could have been a fax anyway
  
  Do you think Webex doesn't reject insecure connections ? it is the bare minimum for any web app.
- All the data goes to the man in the middle. Worse, there's nothing stopping a user from connecting for other things. So a man in the middle can act like a trusted source while sending malware to the device. If they compromised the phone/computer then the encrypted tunnel is moot. It has to be decrypted at some point, even if the malware literally just creates a recording.
- TLS means dick if you have a nation-state that can mint a cert that would be trusted by your browser. Unless you're using a site that does cert pinning (which is basically a list your browser has of URLs and expected cert fingerprints as published by the site owners) or the fuckery that Google gets up to in chrome (they monitor and immediately ping the mother ship if a Google property is detected using an unauthorized cert), you can't really stop or detect it as an end user.
  Your computer trusts so many companies to vouch for other sites' legitimacy that it's not out of the realm of possibilities that they leaned on a CA and minted a cert to let them MITM the connection. You're still connecting to a "trusted" cert, even if it isn't the legitimate one.
Isn't like very basic security advice to not use random connections for sensitive information? But than again it's Germany, pretty sure he has his password written down on a sticky note.
- günther2
EvE Online should be mandatory training for anyone with a security clearance. Minimum of six months in Goonswarm, Pandemic Horde, Fraternity, or The Initiative.
https://cad-comic.com/comic/one-of-us/
That's only a slight exaggeration. I had a "chat" with one of our intel officers at one point due to a IRL purchase of PLEX.
Edit: maybe just Goonswarm. They do the intelligence and spy stuff the best.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
He sounds relaxed on the line as he chats with two colleagues about the "mega" view from his room, and how he's just come back from a drink at a nearby hotel where there's an incredible swimming pool.
Over the next 40 minutes, the group appear to touch upon highly sensitive military issues, including the ongoing debate over whether Germany should send Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.
The four participants discussed what targets German-made Taurus missiles could potentially hit if Chancellor Olaf Scholz ever allowed them to be sent to Kyiv - a contentious issue in Germany.
"You have to choose a certain kind of disguise for this disaster," says Mr Kiesewetter, who's also worked at the Nato military alliance and is a member of Germany's opposition conservative CDU party.
But German government figures find suggestions that they are somehow soft on Russia increasingly irritating, particularly because Berlin has donated more weapons aid to Ukraine than any other nation in Europe.
It's further exposed domestic divisions about whether to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine and prompted a wider discussion about the country's perceived defence and security weaknesses.
The original article contains 1,075 words, the summary contains 187 words. Saved 83%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Bad article
- The point of encryption and signature is to allow just that.
  
  For all we know, they were on speaker & the room was bugged
- Called in via SIP or unencrypted mobile network, i bet. Probably because the client via VPN was "too slow"
Should have used jitsi... It's free too!

74 comments