Andrei Costin (Author, MiFare Classic Universal Toolkit)

PRESENTATION TITLE: PostScript – Danger Ahead – Hacking MFPs, PCs and Beyond

PRESENTATION ABSTRACT:

After very successful “Hacking printers for fun and profit” series of talks, I have decided to continue the research onto PostScript realms – an old, very powerful and nicely designed programming language, where (as a coincidence or not, given it’s numerous security flaws) Adobe owns most PostScript interpreters instances.

This time I demonstrate that PostScript language, given it’s power, elegance and Turing-completeness, can be used more than just for drawing dots, lines and circles – and to a certain extent it can be a hacker’s sweet delight if fully mastered. I will be presenting a real-life implementation of unusual, security-flawed, PostScript APIs (along with it’s dissection and reconstructed documentation) that interact with various levels of OS and HW, implementation have found in a TOP10 printer vendor product line.

Also, investigation will be taken to check whether a PostScript-based (hence platform-independent) virus (18+ years after first proposals of such theory) can be acomplished, thus giving theoretical hints and few building blocks in this direction. I will also present some of the PostScript’s dangerous aspects for PCs and other implementations. In the end, I will try to summarize conclusions and possible solution for all parties involved (vendors, users, sysadmins, security experts).

With this research I hope it can be can proven that entire <FP/printer industry (devices, printing software/drivers/subsystems, publishing and managed services) have to be rethought security-wise, so that it can withstand in the long run the current and future security landscape and threats.

This talk will cover a mix of overlapping areas like:

• Reverse Engineering
• Embedded Device Security
• Unconventional Malware

ABOUT ANDREI COSTIN

Born and raised in Moldova, Andrei is a Computer Science graduate of the Politechnic University of Bucharest where he did his thesis work in Biometrics and Image Processing. He is the author of the MiFare Classic Universal toolKit (MFCUK), the first publically available (FOSS) card-only key cracking tool for the MiFare Classic RFID card family.

While starting out his IT-career in the Computer Games industry, he has worked in the Telecom field and is currently senior developer at a specialized firm producing custom embedded systems utilizing GSM/UMTS/GPS technologies. He is passionate about IT/App/Info security and has spoken at various security conferences. He usually doesn’t have too much free time, but when he does he simply enjoys the Cyprus’ shores and sea.