Happy new year, cybersecurity community! I hope you are well rested; it’s bound to be an eventful year.Way back when at the end of November 2016, I wrote a blog post about an evolutionary trend I see happening around cybersecurity analytics and operations technology. Historically, large enterprises have relied on SIEM products to anchor their security operations centers (SOCs). This will continue, but I see SIEM becoming part of a more global cybersecurity software architecture called SOAPA (security operations and analytics platform architecture). To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It took a year from proof of concept to in-the-wild attack, but ransomware for Android-based smart TVs is now here. As one victim discovered this Christmas, figuring out how to clean such an infection can be quite difficult.
Ransomware for Android phones has already been around for several years and security experts have warned in the past that it's only a matter of time until such malicious programs start affecting smart TVs, especially since some of them also run Android.
In November 2015, a Symantec researcher named Candid Wueest even went as far as to infect his own TV with an Android ransomware application to highlight the threat. While that infection was just a demonstration, this Christmas, the owner of an LG Electronics TV experienced the real deal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security researcher Claudio Guarnieri has experience working with journalists and human rights organizations which have exercised freedom of speech, reported on some form of corruption and wound up becoming targets because of it; their computers may be compromised with spying malware such as those in the hands of the Hacking Team, FinFisher or NSA to name but a few. Their electronic communications may be intercepted, messaging programs may be blocked. All of that may be because the journalists and human rights organizations in our modern connected society were standing up for what is right, being the voice of dissent, getting out the news about injustice.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There certainly was a ton of hype in Software Defined-WAN arena in 2016 but to be fair there was a lot of actual deployment of technology and services as well.In December Gartner wrote that spending on SD-WAN products will rise from $129 million in 2016 to $1.24 billion in 2020. “While WAN architectures and technologies tend to evolve at a very slow pace — perhaps a new generation every 10 to 15 years — the disruptions caused by the transformation to digital business models are driving adoption of SD-WAN at a pace that is unheard of in wide-area networking,” Gartner wrote.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Donald Trump showed off his IT security credentials at a New Year's Eve party, suggesting that the best way to keep secrets from hackers is a huge air gap."No computer is safe," he told journalists gathered at his Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida, a warning many computer security professionals would probably endorse.Trump also shared his advice on managing data security risks. Forget switching to TLS or quantum key exchange: "If you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier," he said, according to a report from Associated Press.Trump's suggestion -- echoing his July 29 infosec advice for military commanders -- would put the biggest of airgaps around secret communications, ensuring that they could not be hacked into from afar. If he were to apply it to government communications, though, it would leave officials needing a veritable army of trustworthy little hands to carry messages.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If Mark Stokes, Scotland Yard’s head of digital, cyber and communications forensics unit, is correct, then IoT devices will play an increasingly important role in crime scene investigations. “The crime scene of tomorrow is going to be the internet of things,” Stokes told the Times.The police are being trained to look for “digital footprints” – IoT gadgets that “track or record activities” which might prove or disprove alibis and witness statements as well as record what occurred during a murder victim’s final moments.Cops will be relying on evidence from smart devices which spy on you – such as internet connected refrigerators, light bulbs, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, coffee makers and voice-controlled robotic assistants.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Keeping the lights onImage by ThinkstockMost businesses are critically reliant upon their IT systems. If these systems go down due to a natural disaster, temporary power outage, loss of data center, ransomware or hacker attack, lost or corrupted files, or an application failure due to a software virus, the results can inflict significant financial harm. In the worst case, the business will be unable to continue functioning.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As with previous years, 2016 saw no shortage of data breaches. Looking ahead to 2017, the Information Security Forum (ISF), a global, independent information security body that focuses on cyber security and information risk management, forecasts businesses will face four key global security threats in 2017."2016 certainly lived up to expectations," says Steve Durbin, managing director of the ISF. "We saw all sorts of breaches that just seemed to get bigger and bigger. We lurched from one to another. We always anticipate some level of it, but we never anticipate the full extent. I don't think anybody would have anticipated some of the stuff we've seen of late in terms of the Russians getting involved in the recent elections."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
DowntimeImage by Thinkstock2016 has seen major downtime events lead to lost revenue for a number of highly-recognizable brands and caused a severe knock to their reputation and consumer confidence. One of the most common causes of outages is unplanned configuration changes to a system, often when an immediate fix for a bug or potential system vulnerability unintentionally creates a much larger problem.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. government has sanctioned Russia's main two intelligence agencies, four military intelligence officers and is kicking out 35 Russian diplomats over what it says was aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations around the 2016 presidential election.
The move follows up on a pledge made by President Obama to retaliate against Russia for hacks of the Democratic National Committee and other political targets.
The U.S. also released a detailed assessment by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of the cyber attacks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In November, researchers from cybersecurity firm Invincea reported a vulnerability that could have allowed hackers to infect Belkin WeMo smart plugs with malware. The flaw was located in a configuration protocol that worked over the local area network and didn't require any authentication.In 2015, when researchers from vulnerability intelligence firm Rapid7 analyzed nine Internet-connected baby monitors, they found hardcoded credentials in four of them. Those backdoor accounts provided administrative access to the devices over the local network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The travel booking systems used by millions of people every day are woefully insecure and lack modern authentication methods. This allows attackers to easily modify other people's reservations, cancel their flights and even use the refunds to book tickets for themselves, according a team of researchers who analyzed this online ecosystem.
Karsten Nohl and Nemanja Nikodijevic from Berlin-based consultancy Security Research Labs have spent months investigating the security employed by the Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) that are used by travel agencies, airlines, hotels and car rental companies. They presented their findings Tuesday at the 33rd Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The high-water line in information security gets higher each year. Just as we think we’ve finally figured out how to defend against attacks, then attackers come up with something new and we are right back to trying to figure out what to do next.For example, ransomware has surged in the last year. Although that kind of malware has been around for years, the current model of encrypting user files to hold data hostage came about just recently. Infections quadrupled in 2016, with the FBI estimating an average of 4,000 attacks a day. A recent IBM survey of 600 business leaders in the United States found that one in two had experienced a ransomware attack in the workplace, and that companies paid the ransom 70 percent of the time. As a result, criminals are on track to make nearly $1 billion this year from ransomware, IBM X-Force said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Getting duped online by a cybercriminal is infuriating. You let your guard down for a minute and the thieves find their way in to your machine.And then the “fun” begins if ransomware is involved. Hopefully you have your data backed up, but if not now starts the dance with those who have ultimately taken you hostage. Ransomware is obviously analogous to kidnapping, and dealing with the perpetrators can feel much like negotiating with a jumper standing on the edge of high-rise roof.Look no further for help than the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology report that in part describes how to deal with criminals when they are holding your data hostage. The report talks of what to do once a breach has been found.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A critical remote code execution vulnerability in PHPMailer, one of the most widely used PHP email sending libraries, could put millions of websites at risk of hacking.The flaw was found by a security researcher named Dawid Golunski and an initial fix was included in PHPMailer 5.2.18, which was released Saturday. However, it turns out that the patch was incomplete and can be bypassed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Companies are investing more money in emerging technologies that can help anticipate and detect a variety of threats, including phishing scams and advanced persistent threats, both of which are weighing heavily on the minds’ of corporate board members. For 2017 CIOs are eyeing tools that use anomaly-detecting analytics and machine learning algorithms to protect their companies’ data.“Our level of investments is increasing because of the increasing capabilities of the threat actors,” says Bob Worrall, CIO of Juniper Networks, who spent 12 percent more on cybersecurity tools in 2016 that he spent in 2015. His budget will increase more in 2017 as he purchases tools to shield Juniper’s corporate data and intellectual property. “As the bad guys get smarter we have to as well.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Despite some significant arrivals, 2016 also failed to deliver some long-awaited technologies. And some of what we eagerly ripped the wrapping paper off proved to be a letdown.Here’s a rundown of the gifts IT didn’t get in 2016.Professional-grade 3D printing
If you want to print out a stand for your phone or a model for a new product, you can easily find a 3D printer for the office that can do that — as long as you want to print them out in plastic. You can spend more and get a 3D printer that can UV cure resin and make small objects like custom-fit earplugs in about 10 minutes (I watched my ACS Custom in-ear monitor headphones get printed from digital scans of my ear canals earlier this year). Even HP’s $140,000 Multi Jet Fusion printers — promised for this year and offering multi-color printing — only just went on sale, and they still only print nylon. You can prototype a (plastic) circuit board with conductive ink circuits with the Voxel8 Developer Kit, as long as you pause the printing and add the chips by hand.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please Continue reading
Technology development seems to gallop a little faster each year. But there's always one laggard: encryption. Why the deliberate pace? Because a single, small mistake can cut off communications or shut down businesses.Yet there are times when you take stock—only to discover the encryption landscape seems to have transformed overnight. Now is that time. Although the changes have been incremental over several years, the net effect is dramatic.[ Give yourself a technology career advantage with InfoWorld's Deep Dive technology reports and Computerworld's career trends reports. GET A 15% DISCOUNT through Jan.15, 2017: Use code 8TIISZ4Z. ]
Some of those changes began shortly after Edward Snowden's disclosures of the U.S. government’s extensive surveillance apparatus. Others are the natural result of cryptographic ideas reaching the marketplace, says Brent Waters, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the recipient of the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2015 Grace Murray Hopper Award.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As if holding your data hostage and seeking cash payment weren’t harsh enough, security experts foresee the next stage of ransomware to be even worse.Scott Millis, CTO at mobile security company Cyber adAPT, expects ransomware to spin out of control in the year ahead. That is an astounding statement when you consider that there were more than 4,000 ransomware attacks daily in 2016, according to Symantec’s Security Response group (Report).Corey Nachreiner, CTO at WatchGuard Technologies, predicts that 2017 will see the first ever ransomworm, causing ransomware to spread even faster.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bold predictions are in order at this time of year. Zeus Kerravala looked into his crystal bowl for the networking space, and Taylor Armeriding did the same for security. We went rummaging through our fortune cookies and came up with this Yoda-like one for 2017:Security shall networking become.What did that really mean? Our Yoda translator was of no help. Could networking replace security (or vice versa) in 2017? Should CIOs and CISOs prepare themselves for the inevitable assimilation (head nod to you aging Trekies)? How should, then, security and networking personnel prepare themselves for the inevitable onslaught?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here