Infosecurity - Blog

Quocirca’s Report from Infosecurity Europe 2012

Tue, 08 May 2012 09:20:03 GMT

The end of April was a busy time for IT security analysts. April 24^th to 26^th was Infosecurity Europe (InfoSec) at Earl’s Court, the biggest such trade show in Europe and the following week was the Eskenzi PR annual IT Security A ...

Apples and Oranges = Apple and Microsoft?

Wed, 02 May 2012 14:57:27 GMT

Several people have asked me for a response to Eugene Kaspersky’s views on Apple, as expressed at Infosecurity Europe last week, suggesting that App ...

Outsourcing B2B Integration: The Forgotten Option

Tue, 01 May 2012 20:19:36 GMT

By Stuart Lisk

Business continuity remains a major concern for enterprises as they move more mission-critical processes to the cloud. Outsourcing B2B integration while ensuring cloud security in order to effectively integrate business processes is challenging at best, and ambiguou ...

Addressing the Consumerization of IT

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:50:23 GMT

Bring Your Own Device or Consumerization of IT are fairly hot themes in a lot of customer organizations. When I talk to customers, there are typically different reactions, once we bring this up. Some tell us that it is not part of their strategy; some tell us that they plan to d ...

Configuration Compliance in the Cloud

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 20:05:01 GMT

By David Meltzer

As a member solution provider in the Cloud Security Alliance, paying careful attention to risk and planning for improvement is second nature for my own companies’ security services. As a consumer of many start-up cloud services built completely outside the securi ...

Changing Workforce Dynamics: Unleash the Power of the Professional Community

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:11:39 GMT

By the (ISC)² U.S. Government Advisory Board Executive Writers Bureau (EWB)

The title of a recent InformationWeek article, this info-graphic first time around, so thanks to securecloudreview.com for posting a link.

Like all info-graphics, it makes the proces ...

Apple OS X and Risk Reduction

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:07:24 GMT

Some of the confidence Mac users have in the security of their chosen operating system derives from over-reliance on proactive patching. This outbreak highlights the need to be aware that patching of known vulnerabilities in system software or applications is not necessarily prompt enough to fore ...

The Consequences of Failing to Backup Network and Security Devices

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:41:16 GMT

Most IT users will have suffered the frustration of losing work because their access device (PC, tablet, smartphone etc.) fails and has not been backed up, or indeed they may have deleted a file accidentally. This is inconvenient for the individual and those associated with the project they are w ...

Cloud Security Requires All Hands on Deck

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:11:21 GMT

By Andrew Wild

It’s clear there are many compelling reasons, both financial and productivity-related, for enterprises to move IT functionality into the cloud, so it’s not surprising that they’re moving quickly to adopt popular collaboration services like Box.net, Yamme ...

Flashbacks and Backtracks

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 11:15:44 GMT

If you follow my Mac Virus blog, you’ll have noticed that I’ve been tracking some of the coverage of Mac malware incidents to hit my ra ...

Hacktivists Fail to Uphold a Proud Tradition of Protest

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 19:34:47 GMT

A recent law enforcement sting corralled 25 alleged members of the Anonymous hacktivist group. As it turns out, the information fed to the FBI and other participating agencies came from within: Hector Xavier Monsegur (aka, ‘Sabu’) leader of the Anonymous offshoot LulzSec, had app ...

Windows Desktop Admin Rights – An Open Door for Malware?

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:09:34 GMT

Quocirca has written extensively about privileged user management over the years, including two research reports Conquering the sys-admin challenge in 2011 and I’m guessing that the myth of OS X invulnerability to malware is pretty much busted by now: at any rate, there has been wave after wave of OS X-related malware reports in the past week or two. (ISC)² U.S. Government Advisory Board Executive Writers Bureau (EWB)

At a recent GOVERNING Conference in DC, s ...

OSX/Imuler: the Image-Conscious Trojan

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:08:12 GMT

Intego recently posted some information on its blog concerning the Imuler information-stealing Trojan. The variant that Intego calls OSX/Imuler.C uses a different stealth/social engineering techniq ...

Reducing the Number of Sys-admin Errors

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 08:42:41 GMT

In recent Quocirca research, businesses report that on average their system administrators (sys-admins) make errors carrying out about 6% of tasks. This might not sound like much, but actually it adds up to quite a big number.

#copyrightcitp) live from the event, I promise to write more about it in our upcoming news feature on anti-piracy legislat ...

Dogs Are for Life, ‘NOT’ Just for Christmas

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:11:15 GMT

I believe security professionals have something special – they have the knowledge to effect change, and to assist our individual communities, societies, and with proactive willingness to engage, to make that difference, no matter how small, to help secure those who may be exposed to bad thi ...

Security Professionals Do Use AV: Even On Macs…

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 22:20:19 GMT

I’m slightly surprised to realize it’s almost exactly a month since I blogged here, but I was travelling for a lot of that time (a slightly confusing mixture of work and vacation). Still, I’m pleased to see that an email conversation I had with Esther Shein about OS X, security, ...

Seeing Through the Clouds: Gaining Confidence when Physical Access to Your Data Is Removed

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:44:31 GMT

By David Lingenfelter

Cloud computing brings with it new opportunities, new frontiers, new challenges, and new chances for loss of intellectual property. From hosting simple websites, to entire development environments, companies have been experimenting with cloud-based services for so ...

Lock Box: Where Should You Store Cloud Encryption Keys?

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:07:06 GMT

By Todd Thiemann

Whether driven by regulatory compliance or corporate mandates, sensitive data in the cloud needs protection along with access control. This usually involves encrypting data in transit as well as data at rest in some way, shape or form, and then managing the encryption k ...

Satellite of the Motor

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:13:14 GMT

I watched some very interesting television this week on the, thus far ignored, potential danger posed by Solar Storms. This, however, for myself was a cast-back to 1998 when I was working with the industrial giant, General Motors (GM).

GM, like a number of other ‘truly’ global ...

Organisations Failing to Close-off the Risks of Legacy Privileged Accounts

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:41:57 GMT

If you are trying to compromise an organisation’s IT systems in some way, then you need to have access. Getting a given user’s log in details is a starting point but might not get you that far, unless they are a user with privilege. Privileged users have much wider ranging access than ...

CSIRTainly no Chickens Welcome

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 13:49:42 GMT

For some time now, and for some strange reason, there has been an opinion that the biggest threat organisations face was from within their own walls, originating from the very people who have been provisioned with authorised access to corporate systems and information assets. Whilst I agree that ...

Facing Up to the Application Security Challenge

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 12:49:25 GMT

A new Quocirca report underlines the scale of the application security challenge faced by businesses. The average enterprise tracks around 500 mission critical applications, in financial services organisations it is closer to 800. The security challenge arises b ...

The Silver ‘Plated’ Bullet

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:56:12 GMT

I am certain that each and every reader will be familiar with the Term ‘Penetration Testing’ – that panacea of assurance, sometimes promised to deliver ultimate levels of security to protect systems and information assets alike. I am equally confident many, if not all, read ...

Deprovisioning in the Cloud

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:20:34 GMT

By Jon-Michael C. Brook

Let's be honest: how many of you have tried logging in to one of your former employer’s accounts? Maybe you had a CRM solution and you wanted to get the name of that guy who suggested he had the next hot idea. You didn't set your out-of-office message wit ...

Horror from Beyond the Cloud (with caffeine)

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:40:20 GMT

Let me tell you what the work of a reclusive horror writer and a morning cup of coffee can teach us about attitudes toward cloud computing.

The horror writer is Howard Phillips Lovecraft (known by his initials “H.P.”). In ...

Xerox and McAfee: A joint force to integrate security into the print world

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:48:15 GMT

This blog post was written by Quocirca's print speciailst, Louella Ferandes

Despite a continued reliance on printing, many businesses overlook print security in their overall approach to data protection. This may be set to change with the recent announc ...

SIMple Insecurity

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:58:49 GMT

Are Security Professional blessed with super-human power, or is it that they possess x-ray vision to see through the matrix of normality, seeing those wide open insecurities; or is it they possess some special sixth-sense which feels the 'presence' of exposures and vulnerabilities – I wonde ...

Safe Authentication for Remote Sys-Admin Tasks

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:56:24 GMT

Not all systems administration (sys-admin) is done by people. Some applications need administrator access to communicate and make changes. Furthermore, remote management tasks are often carried out using pre-set procedures in sys-admin tools, for example the backup of branch office devices.

...

Malware: a Matter of Definition

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:33:58 GMT

Kurt Wismer has just put up a blog asking is the iphone really malware free? (Don’t be put off by the trademark absence of capitalization). Wismer is not illiterate and ...

Opportunity Knocks Once…

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:00:47 GMT

By Henry St. Andre

In 1983, I was a young electrical engineering student, when I took a job working for a small long distance company in Phoenix, Arizona. For me, Opportunity had Knocked and I had just opened the door on an amazing future. In the world of communications, things were a ...

The Theme Continues – Internet Déjà Vu

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:55:26 GMT

Reading the observations, and recommendations of Dame Pauline Neville-Jones with respect of Internet Security, I must admit to having a flow of Déjà vu sweep over me. This driven by statements of a Government Minister who said “we need to speed up work on cyber security becaus ...

What Can a Hacker Do with Stolen WiFi Credentials?

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:19:42 GMT

Recently HTC acknowledged a vulnerability that can expose a user’s WiFi credentials, including the WiFi SSID and security passwords to a malicious app running on some of its Android phones. Th ...

Facebook Goes Public – Time to Pop the Privacy Champagne?

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:46:15 GMT

First, please excuse me for letting my inner Archie Bunker vent a little. If you are anything like me, then you could care less about updating your Facebook page on an hourly basis. Sure, I have a page, but maintaining it is both a bore and a chore (pardon my weak rhyming scheme). What are even w ...

Hacking Made Easy

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:21:16 GMT

I am honoured to have been invited back to present at the prestigious e-Crime Congress to be held in London, March this year. However it caused a flash-back to the last occasion I presented at Congress in 2009, when things seemed to be very different.

It was around that time when myself, ...

Trustworthy Computing: Looking Back to Look Forward

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:14:40 GMT

Anniversaries are often a time to reflect on the past but also to look to the future. A major anniversary in the field of computer security was reached on the 15th of January this year. That date marked the 10th anniversary of Bill Gates' famous memo marking the start of Microsoft's useful a ...

Web of Protest

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:13:29 GMT

We have come to expect the Internet to be leveraged by Hacktivists to carry their political, or commercial bashing message forward to the masses. We realise that the opportunities presented by the global media channel of the Internet can be utilised to gain access to a reading public made up of b ...

Organisational Responsibility

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:06:56 GMT

Message to ‘Wikipedia’, ‘Google’, and ‘Craigslist’:

We can all protest, but is it acceptable and professional to impact the public?

I Keep Getting Flashbacks

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:19:52 GMT

2012 was looking quite quiet in Apple security terms up to now, but I see that the guys behind the OSX/Flashback Trojan are quietly beavering away. No sooner had Appl ...

Computer says NO

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:02:37 GMT

It was back in 1999 I worked for General Motors (GM), when the topic of internet enabled automobiles entered my professional vocabulary. Around that era, GM were researching the future scene of the motor-car, leveraging a technology called OnStar. At that time, being one of only a few securi ...

10 Years of Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:58:22 GMT

TwC Next this piece by Jo Maitland over at SearchCloudComputing.com was interesting, because it so closely reflects the experiences of a large number of businesses faced with the spe ...

Implications of Wi-Fi Protected Setup Vulnerability

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:38:39 GMT

After mentioning briefly about the recently discovered Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) vulnerability due to certain design flaws in ...

Yellow Dog-Food

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:30:01 GMT

You may have noticed that when it comes to security, 2011 was not one of the best years, with events occurring, ranging from Sony, through to HBGary, and RSA. However, the concern, and focus here is on the two events which impacted organisations that trade in security, as forgive me if I am being ...

Enabling WPS Can Make You Vulnerable

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:29:37 GMT

Adding to the users convenience, Wi-Fi is increasingly becoming a default capability of many consumer devices, including smartphones, printers, cameras, TVs, etc. to wirelessly share contents, access Internet or connect to a particular network.

great job of that I'll ins ...

On the Eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me – ‘Dog Food!’

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:05:12 GMT

Well, here we are at Christmas Blog number four, and in this run-up to the most magical time of the year, we have considered Security Awareness, Santa, and NORAD – a very interesting mix. However, let’s move on to the really interesting bit – the giving, and RECEIVING of present ...

Holiday Prediction Presents: Mind Your Website’s Navigation Layer

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:04:20 GMT

From time to time, I try to share some of our reader feedback via this blog, whether it is positive or negative. As each year draws to a close, our editorial inbox gets bombarded with threat predictions of all kinds for the upcoming year. Some are company-wide predictions, others come from indivi ...

Small Eruption in Peru*: Not Many Infected

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:23:23 GMT

[This is probably my last article here for 2011. Compliments of the season to you all.]

Inevitably, my attention was drawn last week to an article on Mich Kabay’s Infosec Perception based on an essay by ...

Moving on Up

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:31:05 GMT

Within industry circles, 2011 has become known as the year of the hack, or the year of the black hat if you prefer.

Game-changing malware has exploded, proving that the critical national infrastructure is under threat and that cyber war and cyber espionage are very daunt ...

Should Cybersecurity be Treated as a Profession? Your Opinion Counts

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:45:29 GMT

By the (ISC)² U.S. Government Advisory Board Executive Writers Bureau (EWB)

It takes many, many years for a business area of focus to emerge as a recognized profession. Certainly, cybersecurity is moving in that direction. How ...

Giving Thanks to the Infosec Professionals

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:36:35 GMT

In what may qualify as a profound understatement, the past year has been challenging for security professionals across the globe.

Much of what infosec professionals do goes unnoticed, except when things go wrong. And 2011 has had no shortage of these black-eye events. Allow me, however, ...

On the Seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me ‘A Trip to see Santa’

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:25:29 GMT

Well the Seventh day really did bring a prize, in the form of a trip to get close to that very special person who only works once a year. A person who travels faster than Superman – a person every single kid in the world loves. Yes, you have got it, no other than Father Christmas – AK ...

Software Insecurity Thrives

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:02:40 GMT

The fourth half-yearly State of Software Security Report from cloud-based application security tester Veracode makes for painful reading. Based on ...

Secure Disposal of Old IT Equipment

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:26:33 GMT

Network and security devices age just like any other IT equipment. As the IT industry moves toward 100 gigabit/second Ethernet and 100 megabit/second broadband connections, many existing devices will no longer cope with traffic volumes. The need to replace routers, firewalls, load-balancers, cont ...

Implementing the Top 4 Defense Strategies

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:57:06 GMT

The Australian Defense Signals Directorate maintains a list of the Top 35 Mitigation Strategies against targeted intrusions. This is just a reference to the top ...

Who Needs Hackers?

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:53:28 GMT

As a rule I don't comment on unproven allegations, but this time I'm breaking my rule. According to a District of New Hampshire indictment (downloadable from Wired), four Roman ...

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me – Security Awareness…

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:01:14 GMT

Christmas is one of those occasions when people tend to have some spare time on their hands for indulging their passions and interests, which could take them on a journey of Internet discovery. It may well also be the case that a little communication with distant relatives is the order of the sea ...

Carrier IQ: Not Just an Android Issue

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:48:22 GMT

Unless you’re currently trekking through the Gobi, you’ve probably caught some of the fuss about Carrier IQ, accused of conduct resembling a rootkit more than legitimate logging. I think that some of the indignation has been a little overdone, as I commented geek.com and is the latest in an New Quocirca research (sponsored by on-demand software code security specialist, Veracode) underlines a problem faced by financial services organisations when it comes to security and compliance; they track getting on for twice as many critical software applicat ...

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me – An iPad2…

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:11:29 GMT

On the second day, I got a Digital Camera, the third came in with a SmartPhone, the forth, a High Capacity Drive, and the fifth . . . . I guess you have got the picture. It’s that time of year again when Santa will be visiting all the boys and girls to empty his sleigh. So to get us all in ...

Cloud Security: An Oxymoron?

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:21:18 GMT

By Torsten George

Cloud computing represents today's big innovation trend in the information technology (IT) space. Because it allows organizations to deploy quickly, move swiftly, and share resources, cloud computing is rapidly replacing conventional in-house facilities at organization ...

The UK Cyber Security Strategy – is this really progress?

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:28:50 GMT

A UK Cyber Security Strategy has just been released by the Cabinet Office. The first thing I noted was that seven of its 43 pages are have a solid c ...

Could my Cloud Burst?

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 08:52:04 GMT

2010 was the year we ‘thought’ about cloud. 2011 was the era we realised it could be an option which could support improvements in operational efficiencies, whilst at the same time reducing running costs. 2012 'will' be the year when we will see the take up start to evolve and surge. ...

Council of Europe Octopus Conference- Some Thoughts

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:38:16 GMT

l am still sitting in the parliament room of the Council of Europe at the celebration event for the Budapest Convention. It was another very good event advancing the challen ...

Google’s Approach of a “_NOMAP” Wi-Fi ZONE

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 11:07:15 GMT

Google recently announced an approach to provide Wi-Fi Access Point owners an option to opt-out from the Google Location server, thereby addressing specific privacy concerns of certain Acce ...

iPaddling in Corporate Waters

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:35:12 GMT

Computer Weekly, in an article I mentioned in my previous blog here, notes that Tablet device ownership among mobile employees increased from 33% in the second quarter of 2011 to 44%.That statistic dovetails quite neatly with a study from ComScore on

Goodbye Blackberry Way?*

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 10:50:10 GMT

iPass tells us that a recent survey (n = 2,300) indicated that the iPhone now has 45% marketshare in the enterprise, whereas use of the Blackberry is down (slightly) to 35%. Whi ...

Cyber War Will Not Take Place

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:39:18 GMT

I have to admit – it is not my title but it caught my attention. Over the course of the last few years, the term “Cyberwar” came up all over the place. I was recently reading a book on it, where there was a chapter called “Definition of Cyberwar” and I thought that f ...

Auditors want to know about individuals, not groups

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:24:35 GMT

It is pretty obvious that to audit the use of IT resources and applications you need to know who is doing what. This is especially true when it comes to system administrators (sys-admins) who are operating with increased levels of privilege.

...

Cloud Security Considerations – a different view

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:07:33 GMT

Yesterday, looking at my RSS-Feed I saw the post in here called Cloud Security Considerations – and immediately wanted to read it as we (a friend of mine and me) wrote ...

Blue Pill, White Rabbit

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:18:53 GMT

It has been said that 2011 is the year of insecurity, and I guess this is down to the number of successful unauthorised incursions that were ‘reported’ by the press, and in the media. However, in my opinion, 2011 was ‘not’ the year of insecurity, but the period in which we ...

Cyberespionage: The Chinese State of Denial

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:28:03 GMT

Today I spoke with Roger Cressey, a cybersecurity and counterterrorism expert for both the Clinton and Bush administrations, and now a senior VP with Booz Allen Hamilton. I asked him if he was equally amused by the Chinese government’s continuous denials that hackers within its borders acti ...

Cloud Security Considerations

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:59:04 GMT

By Ken Biery

Can a cloud be as secure as a traditional network? In a word, yes! I agree that some may find this statement surprising. Depending on the network, that may be a low bar, but good security principles and approaches are just as applicable to cloud environments as they are ...

How to Manage “Bring Your Own Device”

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:32:42 GMT

Long time since I blogged. It is time to "come back :-)". The kick was that I started to work on a Windows 8 Slate as a secondary PC and thought about the consumerization scenario once more:

A few years back a customer’s CSO left the room when I said that this cu ...

The ‘Dragon’ has landed

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:57:46 GMT

On 2nd Novermber 2011 I was privileged to have visited, and to have participated in the eCrime Wales Summit, hosted at Cardiff Stadium. Before I add comment to the proceedings, I would really like to sing the praises of the very high levels of support the event received from the Minister for Busi ...

Apple Content in Infosecurity Virtual Conference

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:01:36 GMT

It occurs to me that something (else) I haven't mentioned here is that Infosecurity magazine is running one of its virtual conferences on November 8th, with the virtual doors opening at 10.30 EST. If you're i ...

What the Devil(Robber)?

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:52:34 GMT

It occurs to me that while I wrote here about the interesting but apparently work-in-progress OSX/Tsunami (or Kaiten) port from Linux to OSX a while back, I haven't had the chance to mentio ...

Leveraging Managed Cloud Services to Meet Cloud Compliance Challenges

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 18:33:58 GMT

By Allen Allison

Regardless of your industry, customer base, or product, it is highly likely that you face regulatory compliance requirements. If you handle Protected Health Information (PHI), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) – along with the HITECH ...

Cloud Security: Confident, Fearful, or Surprised?

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 18:10:44 GMT

By Ken Biery

This two-part guest blog series explores the topic of cloud security. Part one of the series focuses on the questions enterprise IT decision makers should ask when considering moving business applications to a cloud-based computing environment.

There is no shortage ...

IT security vendors can’t all be right, but they can all be wrong

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:16:00 GMT

From recent briefings with a number of IT security vendors it would seem that most can now identify any new threat immediately and that at the same time none of them can. This contradiction is down to the “we can, they can’t” mantra that any vendor of any product is bound ...

Dr Strangebug

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:09:11 GMT

It would seem that in 2011, hacking went up in the world – literally, with the DroneBug Malware entering the scene in November 2011, and then with the revelation that a hack had been carried out targeting a Satellite. Two scenarios which are also very similar in many ways, and I a ...

Attacking the Human Wall

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 22:31:19 GMT

Good post here from Brandon Williams on the inherent weakness of security processes that ignores the human element.

There's nothing new in saying that humans are the weakest link in the security chain ( ...

The 1985 iPhone In a Truck

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 07:59:28 GMT

People of a certain age often enjoy recalling for younger folk the size of the early mobile phones that were lugged around in the mid-1980s, whilst marvelling at the latest smartphones. These brick-sized devices could not even send text (SMS) messages (the first of which was sent in 1992); ...

OSX/Tsunami: flooding new markets

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 01:03:37 GMT

Matt Hartley asks the question “Linux Malware: Are We There Yet?” It seems strange, after so much exposure to the view that OS X is intrinsically so much safer than Windows, to read a piece ...

Credit and Reservations

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 08:30:43 GMT

Week four October 2011 became infamous when, as part of Operation 'Darknet', Anonymous took down, what was referred to as a Child Pornography site (or as I refer, a Child ‘Abuse’ Site). This was quickly followed by the release of some 1,589 names of subscribers in a mission of naming ...

Consumers Say No (to data leaks)

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:14:45 GMT

A recent Quocirca blog post pointed out there were good business reasons for disclosing data breaches as well as an increasing number of regulatory ones. For those organisations not convinc ...

Don’t Forget the Network

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:36:16 GMT

A recent news story in New Scientist reminds us how important the speed of network communications has become for some organisations:

&helli ...

It’s NOT that Easy (to be an APT or AET)!!

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 08:35:56 GMT

As many of seasoned IT Pros may have noticed, the APT and AET debate has once again been given some tripping space on the boards of the IT security press. However, whenever this happens, the confusion that arises around what ‘they’ are, and what constitutes the ‘label’, se ...

“Testing the Testers”: Certification and Cloud Computing

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:07:38 GMT

By the (ISC)² U.S. Government Advisory Board Executive Writers Bureau (EWB)

Cloud computing is becoming ubiquitous throughout the federal government, and while the adoption of this technology may be more widespre ...

Avoiding (awful) bad practice at audit time

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:54:31 GMT

Quocirca saw an estimate recently that IT security managers can spend as much as 30% of their time preparing for and delivering audits. This is mundane and uninteresting work and if it can be automated – all the better. However, recent Quocirca research, sponsored by sys-admin tools vendor ...

Social Engineering: A Real Persistent Threat

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 14:12:29 GMT

I hear a great deal about 0-day attacks, and a great deal of security vendor PR is (depending on market sector) predicated on the assumption that 0-days are the most prevalent threat. Notwithstanding some highly visible 0-day attacks over the years, I don’t believe that to be true.

Failing PCI Policy?

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:34:53 GMT

This is a good read if you missed it – the most recent report by the ever-interesting Verizon PCI and Risk Intelligence Teams on the state of PCI Compliance.

Goodnight Irene: A Lesson in Disaster Planning

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:22:12 GMT

Many large organizations make preparations for disaster, but the recent hurricane that hit the East Coast of the US illustrates why long-term business continuity planning on a local level can be critical to survival – and your employees’ well being.

While much of what we cover ...

Things that go BUMP in the Night

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:43:18 GMT

I admit it, I am a worrier. Has my wife left her hair straighteners plugged in always jumps into my mind at a juncture when turning back would make not a jot of difference! Going on holiday, I always wonder if I really did close that window in the spare room – and then there is the ever pre ...

Virus Bulletin and the Mac, then and now

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:33:15 GMT

Last week I was in Barcelona for this year's Virus Bulletin conference (the 21st, which makes me feel very old even though I wasn't there at the beginning!). The first time I presented there was in 1997, when A recent survey conducted by Wakefield Research for the WiFi Alliance has revealed that 97% of surveyed WiFi users believe that the data on their devices and networks is “safe and ...

Test Accounts: Another Compliance Risk

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:14:14 GMT

By Merritt Maximi

A major benefit associated with deploying identity management and/or identity governance into an organization is that these solutions provide the ability to detect and remove orphan accounts. Orphan accounts refer to active accounts belonging to a user who is no longe ...

Fluxotonomy!

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 11:50:34 GMT

For more years now than I can to remember, operations have become focused on applications, equipment, and infrastructures to deliver security, and notwithstanding the ever constant warning that this, as a strategy is a flawed approach, nevertheless, organisations continue to follow this direction ...

HyperCard Viruses? You're History!

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:07:46 GMT

I see that Graham Cluley has revised his excellent timeline article
Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:16:17 GMT

The H (Heise) reported today that Apple has added detection for OSX/Revir to its XProtect facility, provided in OS X versions since Snow Leopard.
...

Revir's Ride not a Derby Winner

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:17:41 GMT

Since new Mac-specific malware is pretty rare, I suppose I can't really ignore the malware that most AV companies are calling Revir.A (the dropper and downloader) and Imuler.A (the backdoor that carries the sting, such as it is), though Sophos is calling it Insiders increasingly linked to data breaches in ...

Password Shadowing: The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:42:25 GMT

Patrick Dunstan has put up a disquieting post on Defence in Depth, following up on a 2009 blog post on cracking OS X passwords. No ...

OMG! TLS! You BEAST!

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 08:06:09 GMT

A couple of security researchers are due to present a way to compromise TLS 1.0 at a conference in Argentina next week (scroll to end of page). Thai Duong and Juliano Rizzo have found a way - codenamed "BEAST" - to ...

Responsible Data Leak Disclosure

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:48:22 GMT

There has been plenty written, not least by Quocirca, on the danger of data loss and how to prevent it. Less has been said about how to clear up afterwards; when the measures taken to protect a business from such losses have failed or were not present in the first place. In particular the respons ...

The “Don’t Trust Model” of Cloud Computing

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 20:03:25 GMT

By Ed King

The elephant in the room when it comes to barriers to the growth and adoption of cloud computing by enterprises is the lack of trust held for cloud service providers. Enterprise IT has legitimate concerns over the security, integrity, and reliability of cloud-based serv ...

Disconnect of the RAT

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:34:28 GMT

When I think back to the early days of the Anti-Virus industry, I recall there were lots of good intentions to standardise, and work as a closed community – but of course, where there are interests of commercial implication, profit, and of course leading edge competitive advantage, there is ...

Marketing and Upgrades

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:24:00 GMT

Jonny Evans has made some interesting points at Computer World regarding Apple's belated removal of DigiNotar root certificates from OS X (specifically Lion and Snow Leopard). Clearly, ...

Seven Steps to Securing File Transfer’s Journey to the Cloud

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:58:24 GMT

By Oded Valin

“When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” There’s a lot we can identify with when it comes to reciting FedEx’s famous slogan, especially as it relates to modern file transfer processes. When you think about sharing health care rec ...

The un-Skilling of Information Security

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 14:36:30 GMT

In the last few months, I have noticed there has been a push against, what we term ‘Security Certifications’, insofar it has been inferred they have very little value. However, whilst I can see the argument, I do both ‘agree’, and ‘disagree’ with the observatio ...

Now You See It, Now You Don't...

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 18:26:56 GMT

Apple security, that is.

Clearly, the company's hiring of a product security manager carries a very clear "we need to improve" message, but it's clearly tied to a mar ...

MiFi Security

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 15:27:19 GMT

Some years ago, I attended an Information Security Event in Paris, hosted by a very well-known Research Institute. On day one, I received an enquiry to ascertain if I was interested in WiFi Security, and if so, the hosting representative went to say they had a number of slots available the follow ...

How Not to Secure a CA

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:10:07 GMT

Fox-IT have published a preliminary report on the DigiNotar breach. It appears that the number of spoofed certificates is much greater than previously suspected, and Iran was a prime target, so once again we may have an example o ...

How Signify weathered the RSA breach storm: Eleanor Dallaway chats to Dave Abraham, co-founder and CEO of Signify

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:50:38 GMT

Last week, I went to lunch with Dave Abraham, co-founder and CEO of Signify, an information security company that delivers two-factor authentication.

George and Ian

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:09:06 GMT

When I was young, whilst most boys were interested in train sets, cars, not I – my real interest, and passions were 1) H.G Wells, and 2) Spying! I guess with Mr Wells, it was his predictions of what could be the future, looking out toward the potential dangers that the world may face. Howev ...

Don’t let your brand name be flushed away

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 08:12:15 GMT

A snippet in Private Eye earlier this year (July 8^th, 2011) showed how touchy companies can get about the use of their brand names. Following the unfortunate death of a festival goer in a toilet at Glastonbury (who also happened to be political activist and friend of the UK&rsquo ...

Comex: Scrumper turned Gamekeeper

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:30:41 GMT

So can I resist the temptation to blog about the departure of Steve Jobs? Well, yes, though I wish Jobs, his successor, and the company well. But I'm not really qualified to add to the flurry of business analysis that has preoccupied the media since the announcement. ...

Five Ways to Achieve Cloud Compliance

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:27:04 GMT

By Allen Allison

With the rapid adoption of cloud computing technologies, IT organizations have found a way to deliver applications and services more quickly and efficiently to their customers, incorporating the nearly ubiquitous utility-like platforms of managed cloud services compani ...

Earthquakes and Cloud Servers

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:03:21 GMT

It was at about 2 PM when I had settled into my chair to begin moderating our latest webinar on securing cloud servers. Not far into my introductions, I noticed a bit of a rumble beneath my feet, as if someone where taking a jackhammer to the ceiling on the floor below. It was a slight hum at fir ...

My gift to you: Attend a world-class information security conference in your slippers!

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:41:14 GMT

It's that time of year again. As the rain cruelly chucks itself at our office windows in Richmond, I'm reminded that summer (or what we've had of it) is starting to surrender itself to Autumn, which means that our Magnus Stjernstrom recently pointed out Cisco’s advice on how to detect Dropbox traffic originating in your network.

It’s interesting given what it tell ...

So, What Makes You a Cyber ‘Expert’?

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 13:25:47 GMT

By the (ISC)² U.S. Government Advisory Board Executive Writers Bureau (EWB)

How many cybersecurity practitioners have had a colleague either in information technology (IT), or worse yet, from a ...

Shhh!!! No Roaring in the Library!

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 11:55:55 GMT

It may lack drama after all the excitement of BlackHat (which is my excuse for not having noticed it earlier), but Apple QuickTime 7.7 fixes a stack-based buffer overflow issue that was flagged officially ...

Hero-to-Zero

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:35:26 GMT

Let us set the scene. You are an IT Manager working for a very successful SME, who notwithstanding the economic downturn are commercially flourishing. Keen to maintain the competitive edge, Monday morning the MD sends out a mail to all teams to tease out any ideas which could improve their servic ...

Rethinking Information Security

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:00:47 GMT

I was reminded the other day that the World Wide Web is 20 years old this month, and it came as a shock to realise I've been involved with it for all but the first three years.

Things move very fast in IT: ten years is a lifetime, and 20 is a whole era. Why then, aft ...

The Problem with Black Hat & Defcon - Time to buy a T-Shirt Mr CISO

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:12:44 GMT

OK, I admit it - over the years I have been to most of the security events, and conferences – RSA, ISACA-EuroCACS, BCS, and of course, it simply would not do to miss the annual pilgrimage to Infosecurity Europe in London every April, which for me is an absolute must do!

However, of ...

Not with a Bang, but a Whimper

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 09:57:24 GMT

The high-profile security conference season is usually enlivened with a few Mac attacks, Apple app attacks, and other euphonious assonances. While the most consistent source of such diversions is probably

The Feeding Frenzy

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:30:56 GMT

In 2008 I had the honour to deliver a Keynote at the E-COPP Security event, hosted by Loughborough University. This presentation discussed the aspect of Cyber Crime, and the associated threats that were impacting the interconnected world, users, and global organisations. The theme of this pr ...

Hyperjack of Flickwhitery

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:03:14 GMT

I have been involved with virtual environments for about a decade now, supporting client consultations, and implementations. Over this period, I have observed growth, from what was once considered a novelty technology, through to today’s technological solutions supporting leading edge opera ...

Losing Control

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 19:50:36 GMT

I saw this recently and it really drove home on the key truths about cloud computing when it comes to control over your information.

Here's a great quote:

Beyond black-hat bravado

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 16:03:00 GMT

Another week, another monumental hack. This time it was Italy’s cybercrime unit, the Centro Nazionale Anticrimine Informatico per la Protezione delle Infrastrutture Critiche (CNAIPIC), that (ISC)² U.S. Government Advisory Board Executive Writers Bureau (EWB)

In a recent article, "Infosec Joblessness ...

A Blast from the Past – Gary and the Egg

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 22:44:46 GMT

There would seem to be a suggested lack of understanding as to how the sources are for Cyber Crime flourish. This is linked to a suggested lack of appreciation of what should be considered as 'adequate' levels of Corporate Responsibility for securing the operational enterprise, and othe ...

Spies like Us

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 22:17:38 GMT

The discoveries of widespread hacking, and concerns about Cell, and SmartPhone security have set a notable mood of paranoia in motion, with concerns around the security aspects of telephony. However, this exposure is absolutely nothing new, and the associated threats posed today, have in fa ...

Black, Yellow, Blue: By John Walker

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:23:23 GMT

I'm posting this blog on behalf of John Walker, whose account is temporarily having some 'down time'...

Recent reports have stated that the Anonymous Hacktivists group is to set up its own social networking site and service, after they were understandably re ...

Phantom pie-throwers and keystroke cops

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:39:59 GMT

About 12 hours before some prankster shoved a pie in Rupert Murdoch’s face, some other pranksters (namely LulzSec, back in operation after their brief ‘retirement’) shoved a virtual pie in the face of his organisation. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the group managed to ...

PKI Still Matters, Especially in the Cloud

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 19:55:23 GMT

By: Merritt Maxim
Director of IAM Product Marketing
CA Technologies Inc.

Infosec veterans probably remember (with a smirk) how Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) was heralded as the next “big thing” in information security at the dawn of the 21st century. Wh ...

Mist and Cloud Security

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:34:52 GMT

When it comes to engaging with any new way of working, ‘security’ will always be of interest. However, when it comes to that magic mist called Cloud Computing, this is very much the case. But what has changed here is, it is not necessarily the CISO who is raising the concern, but thos ...

Press regulation won't protect our data privacy

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:53:35 GMT

The current phone hacking scandal has once again propelled data privacy and security issues to the top of the public agenda. While there are many calls for tighter regulation of the press in a bid to prevent any future use of such tactics, I fear such a ...

Mitigating denial of service attacks

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:18:23 GMT

The common view of a denial of service (DoS) attack is that of a flood of requests to a given web server that overwhelms it and render it useless, at least temporarily. Such attacks have most commonly been perpetrated via botnets, a network of hijacked computers compromised by malware coordinated ...

Understanding Best-in-Class Cloud Security Measures and How to Evaluate Providers

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 20:09:11 GMT

By Fahim Siddiqui

Despite a broader interest in cloud computing, many organizations have been reluctant to embrace the technology due to security concerns. While today’s businesses can benefit from cloud computing’s on-demand capacity and economies of scale, the model do ...

Watch Out for the Top 6 Cloud Gotchas!

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 19:56:13 GMT

By Margaret Dawson

I am a huge proponent of cloud-based solutions, but I also have a bailiwick for people who look to the cloud just for cloud’s sake, and do not take time to do the due diligence. While the cloud can bring strong technical, economic and business benefits if ...

The Cost of a Data Breach

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 18:38:20 GMT

As I have done in a previous post, I am taking this opportunity to share with our online audience some of the letters we receive regarding our online and print coverage. This letter comes from a reader of our most recent issue, and my response to his comments can be found below the letter. As alw ...

Editor's perspective: Infosecurity Europe Joins Forces with Infosecurity Magazine

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 14:09:02 GMT

I hope that by now you have heard the good news? A recent Washington Post article, “The great jobs mismatch”, points out that structural unemployment is caused by a mismatch between ...

In people we trust...

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:52:40 GMT

So, thus begins my blog. Admittedly, it’s long overdue. My intention to blog has been very honourable (honestly), it’s just the ‘actually doing it’ bit which has been a little slack, to say the least.

Yesterday, I spent the day at reported that eight million patient records were lost on a laptop. Unencrypted records. No, really.

As a spo ...

Privacy Consequences of WiFi MAC Availability Over the Air

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 09:33:53 GMT

In a recently released report titled “Wi-Fi Positioning Systems: Beware of Unintended Consequences” – by Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner, Dr. Ann Cavoukian, and Kim Cameron, a le ...

The Human Factor Reigns Supreme!

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 21:23:52 GMT

Do you know who has access to your computer? Many agencies and corporations spend a majority of their budgets on new technological security software gimmicks while forgetting the human factor. Personnel security must be included as an integral part of information security. All of the technologic ...

Wild West of Data Security

Tue, 31 May 2011 15:56:51 GMT

Question for the day: What can the turn-of-the century cattle industry teach us about cloud security? Quite a lot, I believe – especially by the ways in which driving cattle and keeping data secure are so very different.

Back in the 1880s driving cattle across the US was big bu ...

Finding a Home for BitLocker

Tue, 17 May 2011 15:54:51 GMT

With the last several posts being about BitLocker (and especially Recovery Keys) hope ...

What, if Any, Cybersecurity Workforce Implications Resulted From the Averted Government Shutdown?

Thu, 12 May 2011 03:47:20 GMT

While the Federal Government shutdown was averted thanks to some last-minute political gerrymandering and concessions by both sides of the aisle, it’s quite instructive to reflect on the implications of shutdown on the federal cybersecurity workforce, including contracts and contractors.

Security Standards – Why they are so Critical for the Cloud

Mon, 09 May 2011 19:32:10 GMT

By Matthew Gardiner

Everyone loves standards, right? When is the last time you heard a vendor proudly say that their product or service was closed and proprietary? However, it also seems that every time a new IT architecture sweeps through the market, this time one based on cloud ...

OAuth – authentication and authorization for mobile applications

Tue, 03 May 2011 20:32:56 GMT

By Paul Madsen

Federation is a model of identity management that distributes the various individual components of an identity operation amongst different actors. The presumption being that the jobs can be distributed according to which actors are best suited or positioned to take them o ...

Who Moved My Cloud?

Tue, 03 May 2011 19:27:07 GMT

By Allen Allison

Managed cloud services are quickly being adopted by large enterprises. Organizations are increasingly embracing cloud technologies for core services like financial systems, IT infrastructure, online merchant sites, and messaging solutions. This adoption rate is creati ...

Five Guidelines for Cloud Computing and Device Security in The “Always Able” Era

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:35:10 GMT

By Mark Bregman

Chief Information Security Officers know instinctively that the world under their purview is undergoing a shift every bit as significant as the rise of the World Wide Web more than 15 years ago. The demand on our workforce to be ever more productive is driving us to reth ...

Amazon Sneezed (and the Cloud Caught a Cold?)

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 17:06:38 GMT

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald

So last week was, depending on who you ask, a terrible week for "The Cloud," a wakeup call for businesses who want to use cloud services, or nothing ...

Protect the API Keys to your Cloud Kingdom

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:08:54 GMT

By Mark O’Neill

Much lip service is paid to protecting information in the C ...

Is Tokenization or Encryption Keeping You Up at Night?

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:27:54 GMT

By Stuart Lisk, Senior Product Manager, Hubspan

Are you losing sleep over whether to implement tokenization or full encryption as your cloud security methodology? Do you find yourself lying awake wondering if you locked all the doors to your sensitive data? Your “sleepless with ...

Constant Vigilance

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:00:05 GMT

By Jon Heimerl

Constant Vigilance. Mad-Eye Moody puts it very well. Constant Vigilance.

Unfortunately, these days we need constant vigilance to help protect ourselves and companies from peril. Th ...

Opening up BitLocker, part 2 – Recovery Keys

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:54:58 GMT

Last time I covered an introduction to BitLocker, the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and what TPM does to assist in keeping your system secure. This time I'm writing about the most important aspect of Bi ...

Cybersecurity: The Road Ahead

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:07:20 GMT

This paper by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) was just brought to my attention. A piece of work that is definit ...

Cloud Annexation

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 20:47:53 GMT

By Stephen R Carter

The Cloud is the next evolutionary step in the life of the Internet. From the experimental ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) to the Internet to the Web – and now to the Cloud – the evolution continues to advance inte ...

The Future of Security

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 16:44:59 GMT

Visitors to the recent RSA Conference in San Francisco were treated to a forward-looking keynote by City University of New York professor and television personality Michio Kaku. His presentation on the next 20 years of c ...

On First Base with Stolen Email Addresses

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 19:22:47 GMT

CNN continues to report on the compromise of email addresses and names from Epsilon systems over the weekend and the potential impact it may have on net citizens. There is fear and uncertainty that comes with any compromi ...

Privileged Administrators and the Cloud: Who will Watch the Watchmen?

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 19:52:55 GMT

By Matthew Gardiner

One of the key advantages of the cloud, whether public or private, flows from a well-known econometric concept known as “economies of scale.” The concept of economies of scale refers to an operation that to a point gets more efficient as it gets bigger &n ...

Opening up BitLocker

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 18:44:09 GMT

It's hard to avoid the flurry of bad press following the recent loss of a laptop by a BP employee. Unfortunately for all concerned, the lost laptop contained the names and person ...

Debunking the Top Three Cloud Security Myths

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:06:45 GMT

By Margaret Dawson

The “cloud” is one of the most discussed topics among IT professionals today, and organizations are increasingly exploring the potential benefits of using cloud computing or solutions for their businesses. It’s no surprise

WiFi Security Still Elusive for Many Users

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:21:43 GMT

WiFi security continues to hog the limelight with the series of related revelations and incidents happening periodically. And the latest in this series ar ...

Does a High-Performance Cloud Make For More Work?

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:05:13 GMT

A couple of quick thoughts here, mostly around the changing scale of the task of securing information in the cloud.

I think we see a couple of interesting trends here and they are, well, not necessarily complementary. The first is that the cloud providers are getting serious about scaling ...

SEC and the Porn Farm

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:59:22 GMT

Thirty-three people at the SEC were found to have been looking at porn at work over the past five years according the a summary of internal probes conducted by the SEC’s inspector general and reported by the Fred Donovan this week regarding cloud security.

It's pretty clear that organizations of all kinds are very concerned about the risks (and the c ...

Trusted Client to Cloud Access

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:10:28 GMT

By Vikas Jain

Cloud computing has become an integral part of all IT decision making today across industries and geographies. This market is growing at a rapid pace. By 2014, IDC e ...

Aligning Security with the Business

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:41:16 GMT

Do you know the feeling? You should share a large file with somebody outside your organization. The file is too big to be sent by e-mail. What can you do? Well, you might have a service by internal IT (we have one) that is not really user-friendly, hard to use and – as you do not need it to ...

Senator Schumer Calls for Increased Public WiFi Security

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:51:22 GMT

Increased use of public WiFi access at hotspots, retail stores, hotels and other similar establishments has recently motivated New York Democrat, Sen. Charles S ...

And the Thunder Rolls: All the Noise about Cloud and What that Means When Lightning Strikes

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:35:20 GMT

By Allen Allison

Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity Planning (BCP) continue to be driving factors for some organizations looking to move to the cloud. Many are looking to manage their Disaster Recovery planning through extensive use of managed cloud services – and for ...

Top Six Security Questions Every CIO Should Ask a Cloud Vendor

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:18:16 GMT

By Ian Huynh

Cloud computing has become an integrated part of IT strategy for companies in every sector of our economy. By 2012, IDC predicts that IT spending on cloud services will grow almost threefold, to $42 billi ...

Cloud, here we come!

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 23:22:51 GMT

Cloud, here we come! Or is it rather more a case of "We're already here, so make the best of it..."?

I spent some time today talking to a good friend of mine who also happens to be the head of security for a large European financial services business. Unsurprisingly we got ...

Quit Worrying About Cloud Security?

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 11:03:05 GMT

Well, it is not THAT easy but at least there are people starting to claim that it is not as hard as it seems to be sometimes. I stumbled across the following article:

Buying the Security Farm

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 22:52:44 GMT

The landscape of network security is a world of transition. However, one thing we know for certain is that the threats are becoming more organized, more advanced, and more focused on obtaining one thing: information the attacker can sell.

What do t ...

Extend the Enterprise into the Cloud with Single Sign-On to Cloud-Based Services

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:18:59 GMT

By Mark O’Neill

In this blog post we examine how Single Sign-On from the enterprise to Cloud-based services is enabled. Single Sign-On is a critical component for any organization wishing to leverage Cloud services. In fact, an organization accessing Cloud-based service ...

Dining in the Cloud

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 15:08:30 GMT

I enjoyed Matthew Gardener's blog this week on the potential for the re-emergence of security silos as a result of the growing move out into the cloud. I think he's right, o ...

Are You Focused On The Wrong Security Risks?

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 09:34:49 GMT

There is an good article on CIO Central: Are You Focused On The Wrong Security Risks?

An interesting discussion, and I partly agree that we have to challenge the way w ...

Building a Secure Future in the Cloud

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:33:40 GMT

By Mark Bregman

Cloud computing offers clear and powerful benefits to IT organizations of all sizes, but the path to cloud computing – please excuse the pun – is often cloudy.

With cloud computing, IT resources can scale almost immediately in response to business nee ...

Moving to the Cloud? Take Your Application Security With You

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:20:26 GMT

By Bill Pennington

Cloud computing is becoming a fundamental part of information technology. Nearly every enterprise is evaluating or deploying cloud solutions. Even as business managers turn to the cloud to reduce costs, streamline staff, and increase efficiencies, they remain wary abo ...

Moving to a “Show Me” State – Gaining Control and Visibility in Cloud Services

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:29:06 GMT

By Eric Baize

In Survey after survey, security and more specifically ...

Neuroprivilogy: The New Frontier of Cyber Crime

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:12:24 GMT

By Shlomi Dinoor

Is your Neuroprivilogy vulnerable? The answer is most probably yes, you simply have no clue what Neuroprivilogy is (yet)…

The first step of this discussion is defining a fancy term to help educate and describe this new phenomenon. As the name suggests, N ...

Will the Cloud Cause the Reemergence of Security Silos?

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:07:10 GMT

By Matthew Gardiner

Generally speaking, in the world silos relate to things that are beneficial, such as silos for grain or corn. In the world of IT security, however, silos are very bad. In many forensic investigations, application silos turn up as a key culprit that enabled data leaka ...

UNODC: Open Ended Expert Group on Cybercrime

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 21:43:06 GMT

From tomorrow on, UNDOC invited for an Open Ended Expert Group on Cybercrime

Certifiable in the Cloud

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 18:35:52 GMT

By Pamela Fusco

Cloud computing remains as much a mystery to some as it is a part of others’ daily lexicon. I spend a lot of time working with people who have connections to various offices of the US government and I find that regardless of the topic, or the backg ...

Cybercrime as a Service – Our Future?

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 09:05:58 GMT

It is not really surprising that criminals will leverage the economy of Cloud Computing for their illegal purposes. Especially activities that consume a lot of processor power will be moved to the Cloud – like any other business.

Some way back, there were discussions on how to lever ...

Summarizing WiFi security revelations for the year 2010

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 14:39:45 GMT

WiFi security remained in focus with noticeable and widely discussed incidents and revelations happening all throughout the year. These events will surely provide strong testimony for advocating the importance of se ...

Insider attack, staplers, and something cloudy

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:56:07 GMT

This piece in InfoSecurity reminded me of a recent webinar I did with Jake Kouns of the Open Security Foundation. (An Firesheep is a recently released Firefox add-on/extension, developed by software freelancer Eric Butler. The intention behind the add-on was to expose the gravity of commonly found security vul ...

Fixing Risk Management

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 07:22:25 GMT

I am not satisfied with the way we (in the industry) are doing risk management. In my early days, before I was actually entering the security space, I was doing project management and as part of it, risk management. The way we did it was fairly simple (as probably most of you do): We had an impac ...

Cyber attacks, power grids, and Mary Poppins

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 17:16:57 GMT

"A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.."

Or at least, that's what Mary Poppins says. Personally, I have my doubts about her training as a medical professional – anyone who talks to their umbrella really shouldn't be prescribing drugs to minors if you a ...

The Value of Government Clouds

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:01:42 GMT

Microsoft recently released a paper called The Economics of Cloud Computing for the EU Public Sector, which is actually valid for every other European country as well, as it is not too narrowly focused on the EU on ...

Turkey signed Cybercrime Convention

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:43:09 GMT

We are huge supporter of the Convention on Cybercrime by the Council of Europe

Russia to revise Cybercrime Legislation?

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 08:19:31 GMT

You know that I am propagating the adoption of cybercrime legislation, which is aligned across the Globe. Something, which is absolutely necessary if we want to fight Cybercrime. Basically we are asking governments to consider the Cybercrime Convention (also known as Budapest Convention) by the C ...

Bad Week For USB Security

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 19:13:14 GMT

It's been a bad week for USB device security.

A couple of potentially ugly breaches have highlighted, once more, the trouble organizations are having with managing removable media security. Over in the UK, the Sellafield nuclear reproces ...

Crimeware-as-a-Service

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:33:51 GMT

There is no doubt that the ingenuity of cyber criminals has always been ahead of the game. In many cases this can leave the less-than-prepared security professional/organisation left playing cat-and-mouse, and open to exploitation, and vulnerabilities.

The opposing side is the world of h ...

Stuxnet talks – do we listen?

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:47:57 GMT

Stuxnet is a severe threat – that’s something we know for sure. But if we look at it, what do we really know? What can we lear ...

PCI and Breach Data

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 22:28:01 GMT

Last week the Verizon Risk Team released an interesting report in which, among other things, they compared breach result information against norms for PCI DSS compliance. I can't imagine anyone is really all that surprised to see th ...

Practicing Continuous PCI DSS Compliance

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 13:53:56 GMT

The importance of ongoing/continuous PCI DSS compliance processes as an effective means to curb security breaches at a merchant’s site is being touted by many experts in the PCI field lately. The main legal concerns related to the cloud model are related to data protection and data security; confidentiality of the information and intellectual property; law enforcement access; cloud service providers (CSPs) professional negligence; subcontracting of ...

The ultimate expression of outsourcing

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 18:44:56 GMT

Cloud computing can be defined as the ultimate expression of outsourcing. Whereby the customer contracts out to the cloud service providers (CSPs) computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services), which are fundamental to run c ...

Cloud Computing Legal Issues

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 18:42:04 GMT

Cloud computing seems an unavoidable fast-paced revolution. Analysts estimate that in 2012, the size of the enterprise cloud-computing business may reach $60 billion to $80 billion – or about 10% of the global IT-service and enterprise-software market (BCG 2009 Center for American Progress (CAP), a DC-based think tank. Although some of what he shared could ...

Path to PCI DSS Compliance: High Incidence of WiFi Vulnerabilities

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 13:51:14 GMT

The Deadline to comply with PCI DSS requirements, set for Level 1 Merchants by VISA, recently passed on Sept. 30, 2010. However, what we do not yet know is how many of these merchants have successfully met the compliance requirements.

WiFi consumerization raising security concerns

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:37:18 GMT

The growing WiFi capability in the variety of consumer devices is readily evident nowadays. These devices include cameras, camcorders, printers, scanners, smartphones, televisions, music/video players, e-book readers and many more. Having been equipped with WiFi capability, these ...

Customer Experience: Security Can Improve in the Cloud

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:03:37 GMT

Last week, when I was in South Africa, a partner of us pointed me to a very interesting paper by KPMG called SearchCIO recently covered the explosive growth of the iPhone and other smartphones in the business sector, and how that growth is re ...

The Risks of Unofficial Patches

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:09:42 GMT

This is quite a normal scenario: A zero-day pops up on the Internet by a security researcher. Immediately afterwards we see the first exploits appearing and being integrated into the different attack tools. Now, the race has started: The vendor has to develop a security update, the criminals try ...

One-sided Explosion

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 20:43:08 GMT

Consumerization – the use of consumer products within the corporate environment, is one of the more challenging issues for security teams to deal with. While a standard, well-defined, and well-protected infrastrucutre is a nice idea, there is more and more pressure to open up the netwo ...

PCI, AV and a life vest

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:38:55 GMT

A good friend of mine over at NetIQ, Todd Tucker, recently blogged about some of the frustrations he sees when lo ...

The Importance of Application Security

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:53:13 GMT

I think I told this story thousands of times, and everybody knows it, but I will do it for the 1001^st time now. When I joined Microsoft and became what is the Chief Security Advisor for Switzerland today, we had an airlift for Windows Server 2003. The Product Mana ...

Should RIM hold its line on the BlackBerry?

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:17:35 GMT

Encryption is the sort of topic that rarely makes it into the mainstream media, but the recent hoopla over BlackBerry security, namely its encryption procedures, has drawn the ire of governments throughout Asia.

India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia – all have taken issue with BlackBerry se ...

Blocking Social Media Sites–a False Sense of Security?

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 18:28:14 GMT

I blog often about it: Blocking certain websites today can fire back in different ways. The CIO published an article called Workarounds: 5 Ways Employees Try to Access Restricte ...

I-Coverage

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:31:46 GMT

I wanted to comment a little on the recent stir concerning the vulnerabilities on the iPhone (iPad, iTouch, I-Robot. No, wait, that's a movie.)

I think the level of interest in ...

Adobe CS7 Searches Saturated With Dangerous Results

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:02:34 GMT

Looking to save a few bucks on software will almost always lead users down a dangerous path. Users either end up at “OEM Software” sites offering unlicensed and illegal software, or to downloading cracks or keygens laced with malware.

One of the big issues h ...

Microsoft and Adobe: Collaboration Against Threats

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:39:18 GMT

You know my opinion on collaboration between countries, on public-private-partnerships, as well as on collaboration between companies.

For quite a while we have been running a program called MAPP – the – Rudya ...

Cloud Computing: Benefits and Risks of Moving Federal IT into the Cloud

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:17:04 GMT

July 1st: Scott Charney, Corporate Vice President Trustworthy Computing was testifying at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Basically the hearing was on the benefits and risk of Cloud adoption for the US government. If you are interested in reading his full test ...

Secure WiFi Networks: WiFi Alliance and Legal Authorities Coming Forward

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 08:12:18 GMT

WiFi, today, has become a near ubiquitous technology, used by most of us, with our WiFi enabled gadgets, while we are at offices, homes, public places or while traveling. However, awareness about WiF ...

Do Enjoy 'One Click' Free WiFi at Starbucks, but Safeguard Your Privacy

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:43:21 GMT

Six months after McDonalds started offering free WiFi, Starbucks also announced it would provide complimentary WiFi service, starting July 1, 2010. As mentioned by Starbucks, the free WiFi will be unlimited and re ...

Russian Spies in the US: Corporate Spies Could Follow their Communication Methods

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:05:39 GMT

As reported recently, Russian spies in US used private WiFi networks as a means for secret communications. These networks were found to be operating in An after look into the cause of WiFi malfunction experienced by Steve Jobs during the recently conducted iPhone 4 launch at Apple's flagship Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) has revealed that around 500 m ...

Google’s WiFi Snooping Controversy Is a Wake-up Call to Stop WiFi Malpractices

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:33:21 GMT

The ongoing storm over Google's collection of private WiFi data doesn't seems to be ending anytime soon. It all started when German authorities asked Google to audit the WiFi data collected by Google's Street View cars and Google responded to this by re-examining the collected data. The re-examin ...

Proposed cybersecurity bill: stop calling it a “Kill Switch”

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:23:54 GMT

Unless I am mistaken – and not being a lawyer, this is a distinct possibility – but the cybersecurity bill proposed in the senate earlier this month does nothing to create a so-calle ...

Raid against Piracy

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:00:29 GMT

There seem to be policy organizations that are serious about fighting piracy! Hungary, actually with 41% pirated software “not even that bad”, seems to be really serious. But first, let me just take those 41% up for a second: This means that 41% of the work you do is stolen. ...

Who's On First?

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 17:12:17 GMT

It’s hard not to love Abbott and Costello.

The“Who’s on first” routine has become a staple of Americana even for foreign transplants like me. But if figuring out the identity of who is on second base (no, wai ...

The Importance of International Collaboration –Even in Exercises

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:52:07 GMT

One of the biggest challenges in Critical Infrastructure Protection or Incident Response is collaboration. Collaboration between the public and the private sector as the private sector is most often running the critical infrastructure; collaboration between different governments as well, as incid ...

Should the Government be able to enforce security updates?

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 07:58:27 GMT

This is actually an interesting question. A lot of governments enforce rules and regulations on how you have to run your car, how often you have to check it, in which condition you have to keep your tires, etc. The same is true for a lot of other devices we are using.

Now, it seems that t ...

Open Source and Hackers

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:49:17 GMT

The debate is probably as old as the Open Source software development model – Which one is more secure: Open Source or shared source as we at Microsoft run it? I know that we could now enter a religious debate about that, which I do not want to as I do not really believe in the value of suc ...

New Email Phish Targets Twitter Users, Abuses Google Groups

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 01:17:50 GMT

A new twitter spam campaign is making rounds, infecting users with rogue anti-virus malware. The spam mail attempts to convince the user that someone was trying to steal their Twitter account information, and to download a “secure module” to protect their account.

The ...

135 000 Fake YouTube Pages Delivering Malware

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:42:06 GMT

The eSoft Threat Prevention Team has uncovered thousands compromised web servers hosting fake YouTube pages. Attempting to play the video on these fake pages prompts the user to install a ‘media codec’ which then infects the machine with malware.

The fake YouTube ...

Security, Cloud and a Little Pixie Dust

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 14:51:56 GMT

When Peter Pan is trying to convince Wendy to fly, he tells her all she needs is “Faith, trust, and a little Pixie dust.” Which, to be fair, appeared to work for the lost boys. In B ...

Customer Stories: Why it is not THAT easy to move to the Cloud

Wed, 19 May 2010 10:33:17 GMT

As you know from my postings on Cloud and security and the paper on the Cloud Security Considerations we wrote, I am convinced that there are five areas you should look at when you try to migrate to ...

Phishing Scams Lure Twitter Users

Fri, 14 May 2010 20:05:08 GMT

The newest phishing scam on Twitter has snared thousands of users hoping to increase their number of followers. Instead, users are sent off to a phishing page where cybercriminals steal their Twitter logins using them to generate more spam.

Thousands of spam messages are floa ...

HITECH, breaches, and a little sunlight

Thu, 13 May 2010 23:06:58 GMT

A good article in InfoSecurity on May 5th on the HITECH act got me thinking (as good articles should) about health records, security, ...

Google Groups Latest Hot Spot for Rogue AV and Malware

Wed, 12 May 2010 19:06:47 GMT

Infosecurity Europe in London. While I understand that this event received its fair share of criticism in the press for being past its prime, there were certainly aspects of the conference that made it worthwhi ...

Pharma-Fraud Continues to Dominate Spam

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:05:26 GMT

Shadows in the Cloud, which is actually a follow-up report of zml.com, which offers 30% of each sale and 5% of rebills paid ...

Council of Europe – Octopus Conference (Cooperation against Cybercrime) – Key Messages

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:51:59 GMT

I blogged on Day 1 and Cracking Down on Botnets

Strong Authentication and Privacy – A Contradiction in Terms?

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:32:49 GMT

You know that I am not a big fan of the requirement for having all Internet users authenticate strongly. There are people in the security arena who think that this is the only way to fight cybercrime – and in parallel accept that they would kill freedom of speech.

Insider Threat of Cloud Computing

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:19:54 GMT

Tonight I got this article forwarded to me: Afraid of outside cloud attacks? You're missing the real threat ...

Data Protection Heat Map

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:27:14 GMT

I was looking at some research done by Forrester, which could be interesting for you as well. They try to lay out the landscape with regards to data protection for you and it looks fairly compelling. So if you are interested in the situation of the different Privacy laws across the globe and how ...

Why it pays to be secure – Chapter 5 – I need tools!

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:25:05 GMT

Our EMEA Security Program Manager, Henk van Roest, started this series internally and with his consent I am publishing it here in my blog as I think it contains a lot of great information for you to use.

So far, in the first 4 chapters, we have addressed the usual excuses for not ...

Virus Alert! Twitter, Google, Hallmark and Others Subject To Attack

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:12:10 GMT

The eSoft Threat Prevention Team is warning customers today of a new email scam circulating very quickly. These fraudulent emails claim to be from Google Staffing, Hallmark, Twitter as well as other social networks and legitimate businesses.

The email persuades the user to op ...

Making the Management of Security Compliance Easier!

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:59:26 GMT

As you all know, I have two main pet themes: Risk Management and Compliance Management as I see very often that there is room for improvement when it comes to such processes within our customers. Internally, we often think about how we can make it easier for our customers to manage compliance in ...

SANS Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors – the same as very often…

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:42:00 GMT

I just worked my way through the list SANS published. Looking at the list it is not surprising but scary to see which errors made it to the top of the list:

Cross-site Scripting

Hotmail Users Look for Answers in Dangerous Places

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:57:33 GMT

An outage of the Windows Live ID service affected a large number of MSN users today, including users of the popular Hotmail email service. Hotmail is one of the largest web-based email out ...

Children – A Threat For Corporate Security?

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:28:50 GMT

I read this article this morning: Safer Internet Day: How children can undermine corporate security and it actually remin ...

Use Music to Fight Cybercrime: ‘Maga No Need Pay’

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:34:59 GMT

When I travel through Africa, the high piracy rate is often something we address. Not necessarily from a commercial perspective but much more from a security angle. We know that pirated software is often infected with malware and therefore used for criminal activities. However, the discussion is ...

IRS Tax Avoidance Scam

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:11:25 GMT

Today, eSoft is alerting customers to a new targeted email scam. This newest twist to the common IRS email scam seems to be targeted to organizations, notifying the recipient of a tax evasion complaint being filed against the company. Opening the file infects the user's machine with dangerou ...

Targeted Attacks – the “Real” Problem

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:00:23 GMT

When I talk to customers, the different attacks are often something we discuss (obviously). I often mention that Virus and Worm attacks on a broad scale (like Conficker, etc.) are a serious problem, but at least they are ones we see, understand, and can fight (because we see and understand it).

Fake Firefox Update Pages Push Adware

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:52:13 GMT

Since its’ release on January 21st, the newest version of the Firefox web browser has received a great deal of attention. In just a short time it has achieved over 30 million downloads. Adware pushers are capitalizing on the success of Firefox, packing ad serving software in with the p ...

SPAM! Well, it's finally caught up with me - as confirmed by the research

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:15:01 GMT

I have lots of email addresses, but there's one that I use as the main catch all one, it’s the one I usually give to most people, and it's the one account I like to clean and clear out regularly. Because it is the most publicised one of all my many accounts, it's the only one that I receive ...

I've been hacked - Give me back my money

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:45:52 GMT

I recently read a story where a business bank customer had $800K stolen from her business account, and although the bank has been able to recover $600K, there is still the outstanding $200K. The customer is claiming that the bank lacked good security, and the bank is claiming that it had good sec ...

Cloud Security Paper: Looking for Feedback

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:58:17 GMT

As most of you well know, I was looking for information and opinions on Cloud Security over the last year. I found a lot of papers, but when I talk to our customers I realize that they think about the Cloud but Cloud Security is mainly something for the specialists – which it is not for me. ...

Data Protection Day: An Interesting Study

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:24:35 GMT

As you might know, it was time for the Data Protection Day in Europe again. Unfortunately I did not find the videos from this year’s competition, yet but I guess we will find them later on the page and o ...

Super Bowl associations: football, nachos, big screens and … malware?

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:29:56 GMT

The Super Bowl is the one of the biggest and most watched television events of the year in the United States. People everywhere scour the internet looking for predictions, gambling spreads and news before the event and scores, stories and clips after the event. In anticipation of the increas ...

Lack of Egress Filtering Spurs Success of Injected IFrame Attack

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:13:49 GMT

The security community at large and the eSoft Threat Prevention Team have recently noticed an uptick in sites compromised by a new injection attack that results in an injected iframe. This attack can be recognised by its attempts to masquerade the malicious script as GNU, GPL or LGPL. GPL a ...

MTaS: Malware Testing as a Service

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:10:36 GMT

Well, in my last post I wrote about the prices for malware. Today I read the next evolution of this: The possibility of having malware tested against anti-malware tools – not to make sure malware is really recognised, no, the other way round: To make sure it is not recognised.

I rea ...

The Cybercriminal’s Wish List

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 11:52:43 GMT

I know that Christmas is over and I know how my kids actually compile a Wish List: They take most of the ads (which are targeted to them) and glue them onto a piece of paper for mum and dad to make sure that everything can be found under the Christmas tree… I guess you know the drill.
...

Live.com Exploited as Pharma-Fraud Cover

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:59:27 GMT

The FDA crackdown on online pharmacy sites has driven a lot of attention to illegal and fraudulent online pharmacies and in particular to their methods for tricking people to visit their sites. These practices include prolific spam and search engine poisoning.

eSoft’s Threat Prevent ...

Algeria: Conference on Certification (eID)

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:05:10 GMT

When I tweeted last week that I am on my way to Algeria, I got quite some reactions and questions that I should report how it was. So, let me try to briefly ...

Boeing 787 searches hijacked by rogue anti-virus

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:52:07 GMT

Today, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet completed its much awaited first flight. As users searched to find videos and news articles related to the story, blackhats quickly moved in for yet another attack against Google search results.

Blackhats Unleash Fake Blog Campaign Spreading Rogue AV

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:17:10 GMT

In September, eSoft reported as many as 720,000 compromised sites hosting fake blog pages and being used to distribute rogue anti-virus programmes. Many of these sites are still active and continue to plagu ...

CoolerEmail Hit by Phishing Scam

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:36:52 GMT

CoolerEmail is notifying customers of a new phishing scam used to steal login credentials. The web based email marketing programme carries an impressive client list including Walmart, Toyota, Pepsi and dozens of other big name brands. Any phished credentials can be used to impersonate these compa ...

Why it pays to be secure – Chapter 4 – I want to learn!

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:18:34 GMT

Use these Learning Paths to find a range of Microsoft training references and resources on information security threats and appropriate countermeasures. Learning resources are organised by level (from basic to expert) and provide information on the planning, prevention, detection, and response ph ...

Embedded open type fonts - The risk lurking up

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:31:44 GMT

The web is getting a playground for different type of attacks. There is lot of talks going around about Microsoft EOT fonts realm which are being used for launching different type of attacks.

Recently I gave a talk at the Excalibur Conference, China in which I talked about launching a CSR ...

How does Google use your information?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:40:20 GMT

Following growing concerns on how the web giants Google are using it’s users information, they have launched Google Dashboard; a service which allows users with a Google account to view the information that Google has stored on them, It also allows users to delete any information that they ...

International Collaboration on Policies for Cybersecurity and Data Protection

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:44:35 GMT

For a few years we have been working with the Council of Europe in a partnership to help to drive a Cybersecurity treaty. We realise that a problem a lot of law enforcement agencies have is inconsistent legislation, which makes it unbelievably hard to catch cybercriminals. The ...

Power of Knowledge: Security Intelligence Report v7

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:15:55 GMT

It has been a good tradition for quite a while that we make the intelligence we (Microsoft) have available accessible to the broad public. This will help our customers to protect themselves much better. The Security Intelligence Report (SIR) is built on a unparalleled set of sensors out there on ...

When is a firewall not enough?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:29:27 GMT

When your employees have laptops, when large quantities of data can be moved around on tiny USB devices, never even touching the network, when malicious outsiders can compromise your servers through the front door, when malware has been specifically designed to be delivered via the web and to avo ...

Ten Computer Hacks In The Movies

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:20:56 GMT

Some of the most successful blockbuster films released in the last two decades have been themed on the potential destruction that computer hackers can cause. Her ...

Could Microsoft solve the scareware problem?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:58:24 GMT

This morning I read the following article: Microsoft can help kill fake antivirus threat. And interesting approach. The proposal is that we could white-lis ...

Compromised Web Servers Host Koobface Malware Cocktail

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:59:35 GMT

The Koobface gang has struck again using compromised web servers to deliver a potent mix of malware. eSoft threat researchers have found hundreds of newly exploited sites hosting malware which includes downloaders, keyloggers and multiple variants of the Koobface worm.

Attackers u ...

Why it pays to be secure – Chapter 3 – But how do I?

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:32:16 GMT

Security — you hear about it every day. Being responsible for information security can be a daunting task, so where do you begin?

From the design of acceptable use policies to preventing insiders from stealing data, the job can be a challenging one. Join Senior Security Strategist w ...

Unresolved Compromised Fox Sports Host Heading Into Third Week

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:17:07 GMT

eSoft first detected a compromise on the Fox Sports website two weeks ago and as of today, at least one Fox Sports host continues to contain automatic links to a multitude of dangerous exploits. E ...

How the US military has weaponised hacking

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:33:41 GMT

“Our technological advantage is a key to America's military dominance. But our defence and military networks are under constant attack. Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups have spoken of their desire to unleash a cyber attack on our country -- attacks that are harder to dete ...

How common is the hacking of secure wifi?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:15:56 GMT

AJAX-JSON - Inside Crux

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:34:07 GMT

The development is occurring at a rapid pace. The innovation is going on. The web is transitioning from the web 1.0 to web 2.0. The implementation structures of various technologies have changed. The Web 2.0 has revolutionized the web in a stringent manner from all the perspectives. The Asynchron ...

Recapping the Fox Sports Website Compromise

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:18:13 GMT

On October 2nd eSoft published a blog warning visitors of the Fox Sports website about compromised pages with the potential to serve malicious software. To date, the threat remains on their website ...

Web 2.0 – Truth and Lies in AJAX World

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:41:07 GMT

Web 2.0 has metamorphosed the complete scenario of internet.

In the AJAX world, most of the working functionality is derived by efficient technology methods and ingrained software dependency. In order to scratch deep down the bottom the differential aspect of this technology must ...

The Africa Cable – A Chance for Africa! – A Threat for the Internet?

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:15:25 GMT

The development in Africa especially with the new broadband services to me is a huge chance for the whole continent.

I just found a map (Image 1) on the next two years.

Even though I have not been in Africa over the last few months, I heard that in different cities fiber is brough ...

Why Linux servers are more secure than Windows

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:49:18 GMT

The Linux/Windows debate is an oldie but a goodie, and there have been many long threads on most computer related forums discussing their relative merits. Linux is free, open-source and community based. Windows is expensive, professionally developed and has ...

Your password isn't safe - take this simple test to find out how many minutes it would take to crack

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:42:14 GMT

There's a well-known saying in information security that the weakest part of any computer system is the person using it. One area where this becomes abundantly clear is in the use of passwords. Allowing users to choose their own passwords can be fatal, with most people not having the first clue a ...

When hacking is legal

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:37:20 GMT

The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives two different definitions of “hacker” related to computer security. A hacker is either “an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer” or “a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with informati ...

Why retina scanning works better for James Bond than it ever would for us

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:18:10 GMT

Since the late 80s retinal scanning has been featured in a whole bevy of sci-fi and action films. It's been the security system of choice for some of the silver screen's top spies: James Bond used it in GoldenEye and Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible movies. As a result, whilst retinal scannin ...

Which famous Twitter accounts have been hacked?

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:41:01 GMT

Early in 2009, Twitter suffered two major security lapses. Once when a wave of highly successful phishing campaigns were successful in obtaining a lot of Twitter passwords, and then again when an 18 year old hacker and student of computer games development brute-force'd an administrator account. ...

Thoughts on the registered traveler programmes at airports

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:07:11 GMT

When I entered the US this time, I got a brochure on how I could avoid the line at immigration and just get a fast track by registering with the Global Entry Program, a programme, which would pre-screen ...

Hey, You, Get Off of My Cloud

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:47:15 GMT

I recently had different discussions with different customers and we were looking into the key questions to ask, when you plan to move to the cloud (yes, I am working on a corresponding blog post). I was then asked whether we have an answer to these questions – well no. For sure not fo ...

Why it pays to be secure - Chapter 2 - Vulnerabilities

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:05:49 GMT

The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) provides an in-depth perspective on the changing threat landscape including software vulnerability disclosures and exploits, malicious software (malware), and potentially unwanted software.

In my first post here, I opened the field for a series on “Why it pays to be secure”. As I told you there, Henk van Roest, our Security Support Program Manage ...

Why it pays to be secure

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:59:07 GMT

You might all know that feeling: You need money to finance security activities and you are asked why this money shall be invested. And then we start to argue that if we do not do it – bad things happen. These are questions that myself and our support get often. That was the reason why we st ...