Two dozen Linksys router models are vulnerable to attacks that could extract sensitive information from their configurations, cause them to become unresponsive and even completely take them over.The vulnerabilities were discovered by senior security consultant Tao Sauvage from IOActive and independent security researcher Antide Petit while working together to analyze the Linksys EA3500 Smart Wi-Fi wireless router.The two researchers found a total of 10 vulnerabilities that affect not only the EA3500, but two dozen different router models from Linksys' Smart Wi-Fi, WRT and Wireless-AC series. Even though these devices are marketed as consumer products, it's not unusual to find them running in small business and home office environments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Those high-dollar Bose headphones? A lawsuit filed in Chicago contends Bose has been spying on users via the Bose Connect app, which enables users to remotely control their Bose headphones, and violating their privacy rights by selling the information about what they listen to without permission. Furthermore, Kyle Zak accused Bose of illegal wiretapping.The lawsuit claims the app also has a data miner called Segment.io; Segment, the company behind the data miner, advertises, “Collect all of your customer data and send it anywhere.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Visibility and security controls for internet-based applications such as social media, file sharing and email have been widely adopted at the perimeter. As we transition from the legacy perimeter security model to a cloud security model, there is a need to ensure we don’t forget the principles we have established. Virtualization has changed how applications are built, deployed and used. It has also created challenges to how security is applied and deployed for these environments. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing; the result of these challenges has driven new innovation in the cloud security space.+ Also on Network World: The tricky, personal politics of cloud security +
Discovering and mapping application communications and dependencies is one of the first steps in defining and creating security policies for east-west data center traffic. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of understanding about these relationships, making east-west security policies difficult to implement and often prone to misconfiguration. As a result, we still see an abundance of successful attacks and the loss of critical data, even with traditional perimeter security models in place.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The internet never forgets, which means data that should have been deleted doesn't always stay deleted. Call it "zombie data," and unless your organization has a complete understanding of how your cloud providers handle file deletion requests, it can come back to haunt you.Ever since the PC revolution, the concept of data deletion has been a bit misunderstood. After all, dragging a file to the Recycle Bin simply removed the pointer to the file, freeing up disk space to write new data. Until then, the original data remained on the disk, rediscoverable using readily accessible data recovery tools. Even when new data was written to that disk space, parts of the file often lingered, and the original file could be reconstructed from the fragments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
At this year's Infiltrate Security Conference in Miami, John Grigg walked the audience through a common target network where a known and commonly used SIEM had been integrated in order to show participants how to exploit onto the SIEM, find intel, and cover their tracks.Though SIEM technologies are supposed to help secure the networks, Grigg said that they are often misconfigured, which creates more vulnerabilities.Even though some of the legacy tools are pretty cool, Grigg said the problem is that no one really knows the platform that well. "The vendor who built it knows it from a design standpoint. Then there's the re-selllers, the guys who install it, the internal IT guys who inherit the systems, but they tend to never really focus on it." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco had a pretty large dump of security advisories today – seven “high priority” and one “critical” – impacting a variety of products many with the threat allowing a remote attacker to cause a denial of service.First up this week Cisco said a vulnerability in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) UDP throttling process of Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Cisco Unified CM) software could let an unauthenticated, remote attacker cause a denial of service (DoS) attack.+More on Network World: Cisco certifications target business professionals eyeing software roles+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Humans remain the weak link in corporate data protection, but you might be surprised hat it isn't only rank-and-file employees duped by phishing scams who pose risks. Some companies are lulled into a false sense of cybersecurity by vendors. You read that right:Some enterprises believe the shiny new technologies they've acquired will protect them from anything.Just ask Theodore Kobus, leader of BakerHostetler’s Privacy and Data Protection team. BakerHostetler
Theodore Kobus, BakerHostetler’s Privacy and Data Protection team.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Is a vigilante hacker trying to secure your IoT device from malware? The mysterious developer behind a growing computer worm wants people to think so. The worm, known as Hajime, has infected tens of thousands of easy-to-hack products such as DVRs, internet cameras, and routers. However, the program so far hasn't done anything malicious.Instead, the worm has been preventing a notorious malware known as Mirai from infecting the same devices. It's also been carrying a message written from its developer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Virtual assistants like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Google Now have the potential to make enterprise workers more productive. But do “always listening” assistants pose a serious threat to security and privacy, too?Nineteen percent of organizations are already using intelligent digital assistants, such as Siri and Cortana, for work-related tasks, according to Spiceworks’ October 2016 survey of 566 IT professionals in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The survey also found that 46 percent of organizations plan to adopt intelligent assistants within five years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
You could probably see this one and others like it coming, given the current immigration quagmire that is the United States immigration environment. Today the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a fraud alert saying criminals have been using the agency’s Hotline as part of a spoofing scam to steal personal information.+More on Network World: DARPA to eliminate “patch & pray” by baking chips with cybersecurity fortification+The DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) said perpetrators of the scam represent themselves as employees with “U.S. Immigration” and can alter caller ID systems to make it appear that the call is coming from the DHS OIG Hotline telephone number (1-800-323-8603).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Industrial IoT's big future is starting to become a reality, but many companies still don't think they're ready for it.Those are some of the findings in surveys released on Tuesday by the Business Performance Innovation Network and the Eclipse IoT Working Group. They reflect the views of hundreds of executives and developers from a range of industries.More than half of the executives think their industries are already adopting IoT through either pilots or large-scale deployments, and 57 percent are at least in the planning stages themselves, BPI Network said. About 350 executives from around the world responded to the survey by BPI Network, an organization of business leaders.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Although Microsoft blocked Windows updates to Windows 7 and 8.1 PCs powered by new CPUs, one unhappy user found a way around the block so devices with next-generation processors can continue to get security updates for the older operating systems.Microsoft warned users several times that they needed to jump on the Windows 10 bandwagon. That didn’t go over very well, so Microsoft extended Windows 7 and 8.1 support on some Skylake-powered devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While blockchain is among the hottest technologies in the enterprise security, data storage and file-sharing arenas, many experts question its use or even whether it's really as secure as billed.As marketplaces struggle with how best to deploy the distributed ledger technology, IT vendors are beginning to test it in their products -- in some cases, as a reaction to customer inquiries rather than a proactive move."It's a very hot topic right now," said Zulfikar Ramzan, CTO of RSA Security, a subsidiary of the Dell EMC Infrastructure Solutions Group. "We are definitely getting a lot of inbound inquiries around blockchain and its implication within enterprise environments. I think it's driven largely by the fact that when there's a new technology out there, to some degree people want to be buzzword compliant with the latest and greatest."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In canvassing the security industry, CBInsights came up with a list of startups with early-to mid-stage high-momentum that have pioneering technology with the potential to transform cybersecurity. They split the companies into the following categories: Quantum Encryption, Predictive Intelligence, Deception Security, Autonomous Systems, IoT Security, Mobile Security, Automobile Security, Critical Infrastructure Security, and Cyber Insurance.CB Insights created a Company Mosaic, which uses data to track private company health, using signals including recency of financing, total raised, and investor quality. We’ve gathered this data via our machine learning technology (dubbed The Cruncher) as well as via several thousand direct submissions from firms and individual professionals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Oracle has released a record 299 security fixes for vulnerabilities in its products, including patches for a widely exploited vulnerability in the Apache Struts framework and a Solaris exploit supposedly used by the U.S. National Security Agency.The Struts vulnerability allows for remote code execution on Java web servers and was patched on March 6. Attackers have quickly adopted it and have used it in widespread attacks since then.Oracle uses Apache Struts 2 in several of its products, which is why Tuesday's critical patch update (CPU) fixed 25 instances of the vulnerability in Oracle Communications, Retail and Financial Services applications, as well as in the MySQL Enterprise Monitor, Oracle WebCenter Sites, Oracle WebLogic Server and the Siebel E-Billing app.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
On Jan. 6, weeks before he was due to become president, Donald Trump sat down with U.S. intelligence officials for a two-hour briefing at Trump Tower on cyberattacks conducted during the U.S. election. The meeting resulted in a pledge: a plan to counter cyberattacks against the U.S. within 90 days of taking office.On Wednesday, President Trump marks his 90th day in office with no sign of a report or indication that one is on the way. That’s a surprise, given the recent string of successful, high-profile cyberattacks against the federal government.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft delayed its February security update slate to finish patching critical flaws in Windows that a hacker gang tried to sell, several security experts have argued."Looks like Microsoft had been informed by 'someone,' and purposely delayed [February's] Patch Tuesday to successfully deliver MS17-010," tweeted Matt Suiche, founder of Dubai-based security firm Comae Technologies.MS17-010, one of several security bulletins Microsoft issued in March, was just one of several cited Friday by the Redmond, Wash. developer when it said it had already patched most of the vulnerabilities exploited by just-leaked hacking tools.Those tools -- 12 different Windows exploits -- had been included in a large data dump made April 14 by a hacker group dubbed Shadow Brokers, which is believed to have ties to Russia. The exploits, as well as a trove of documents, had been stolen from the National Security Agency (NSA), Shadow Brokers claimed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cybercriminals have another easy-to-use ransomware kit to add to their arsenals, thanks to a new variant called Karmen that hackers can buy on the black market for $175.A Russian-speaking user called DevBitox has been advertising the ransomware in underground forums, security firm Recorded Future said in a blog post on Tuesday. Karmen is what experts call ransomware-as-a-service -- a particularly worrisome trend. Amateur hackers with little technical know-how can buy access to them, and in return, they’ll receive a whole suite of web-based tools to develop their own ransomware attacks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I spoke to a 5th grade class about identity theft the other day. I quickly discovered that these kids were struggling with EXACTLY the same problems most of us struggle with in our workplace and our personal lives. They were swimming in a sea of dubious information, not able to tell what was real and what was not, or if they were being scammed or by whom.“Sometimes I’m gaming,” said one kid, “and someone asks ‘What’s your real name?’ and I’m like, why does he need to know?”“I was on this chat board, and I could just tell this person was totally fake, but I didn’t know what to do,” said another kid.+ Also on Network World: What fake news means for IT—and how IT security can help fight it +
The truth is, every day, in every possible way, we get bombarded with fake information. It doesn’t matter how old we are, how smart we are, whether we’re at home or at work. The world is full of falsity, whether it’s phishing, fake news or some weirdo trying to learn more about us when we’re playing a video game.To read this article Continue reading
In the school district of La Crosse, Vicki Lyons depends on mobile device management software from Jamf to manage the Wisconsin district’s fleet of iPads and MacBook Air devices. The Apple device management platform plays a key role in the district’s efforts to provide equitable access to technology to all of its students.“We use Jamf Pro as our device management solution for our 1:1 iPad program district-wide. As a result, we are driving student success with iPads and meeting their individual needs via personalized learning — something we weren’t able to previously do,” says Lyons, technology service director for the School District of La Crosse.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here