Some things never change. Computer security, however, is not one of them. New threats, patches and problems emerge each and every week.Many of the key questions and knowledge gaps remain remarkably consistent, and the patterns become clear when you tap into a platform with tens of thousands of those questions.That’s what Experts Exchange does. The sum of this computer security community is a reflection on the top computer security anxieties in the world right now.So, join me as I reveal the most commonly asked security questions.1. How can I surf the web anonymously?
To browse the internet without fear of targeted advertising or traceable questions posted online doesn’t seem like a big ask. As online tracking systems become more sophisticated and harder to shake, however, the likelihood of private, anonymous browsing is becoming a long-ago memory. Take into account the latest ISP changes, where the U.S. government allows providers to not only track, but sell your browsing history without your consent. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel's finally washing its hands of McAfee after seven up and down years, which included a lawsuit last year from John McAfee, after whom the company is named.The chip maker has divested its majority holdings in McAfee to investment firm TPG for US$3.1 billion.McAfee will now again become a standalone security company, but Intel will retain a minority 49 percent stake. The chip maker will focus internal operations on hardware-level security.For Intel, dumping majority ownership in McAfee amounts to a loss. It spent $7.68 billion to acquire McAfee in 2010, which was a head-scratcher at the time. Intel's McAfee acquisition will stand as one of the company's worst acquisitions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security researchers have uncovered the Android version of an iOS spyware known as Pegasus in a case that shows how targeted electronic surveillance can be.Called Chrysaor, the Android variant can steal data from messaging apps, snoop over a phone’s camera or microphone, and even erase itself.On Monday, Google and security firm Lookout disclosed the Android spyware, which they suspect comes from NSO Group, an Israeli security firm known to develop smartphone surveillance products.Fortunately, the spyware never hit the mainstream. It was installed less than three dozen times on victim devices, most of which were located in Israel, according to Google. Other victim devices resided in Georgia, Mexico and Turkey, among other countries.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The notorious hackers behind a string of banking heists have left behind a clue that supports a long-suspected link to North Korea, according to security researchers.The so-called Lazarus Group has been eyed as a possible culprit behind the heists, which included last February’s $81 million theft from Bangladesh’s central bank through the SWIFT transaction software.However, hackers working for the group recently made a mistake: They failed to wipe the logs from a server the group had hacked in Europe, security firm Kaspersky Lab said on Monday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe. Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) has become a fairly standard practice in most businesses today. Who among us hasn’t pulled out their cell phone to do a quick check of company email while killing time in a restaurant or a checkout line? The prevalence of public Wi-Fi makes it so easy to connect and tend to a little business while on the go.Many people look at public Wi-Fi as a convenience, or even as a requirement, when choosing where to spend time and money. Look in the window of any coffee shop today and count how many people are engaged with a laptop, tablet or mobile phone. How many of them would still be there if the shop didn’t provide free Wi-Fi?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
March came in like a lion with news breaking on March 6 that spamming operation River City Media exposed 1.34 billion email accounts, some of which included personal information including full names and addresses. How did this happen? The company failed to properly configure their Rsync backups, wrote CSO’s Steve Ragan.Later that week, WikiLeaks released a trove of information on the CIA’s hacking tools, including descriptions of how the agency targeted iPhones, Android phones, Samsung smart TVs, and routers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Users of Azure cloud services have a new option for stopping the misuse of privileges as well as managing vulnerabilities through an alliance with Beyond Trust.Azure customers who buy Beyond Trust licenses can host PowerBroker, the company’s privileged access management (PAM) and its vulnerability management (VM) platform, Retina, in their Azure cloud instances.They can host BeyondSaaS perimeter vulnerability scanning in Azure as well. Both are available via the Azure Marketplace.These new services give Beyond Trust customers a third option for how they deploy PAM and VM. Before they could extend a local instance of Beyond Trust’s security to the Azure cloud via software connectors or deploy it within the cloud using software agents deployed on virtual machines there.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Over the past few years, the world has seen ransomware threats advance from living inside browsers to operating systems, to the bootloader, and now to the low-level firmware that powers a computer's hardware components.Earlier this year, a team of researchers from security vendor Cylance demonstrated a proof-of-concept ransomware program that ran inside a motherboard's Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) -- the modern BIOS.On Friday, at the Black Hat Asia security conference, the team revealed how they did it: by exploiting vulnerabilities in the firmware of two models of ultra compact PCs from Taiwanese computer manufacturer Gigabyte Technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Micro-segmentation is nothing new, we starting talking about the concept a few years ago, with the onset of software-defined networking technologies like OpenFlow. More recently, micro-segmentation was most often associated with establishing trusted connections between cloud-based workloads.Micro-segmentation is simply a new software-based spin on the old practice of network segmentation which organizations have done for years with a variety of technologies – firewalls, VLANs, subnets, switch-based access control lists (ACLs) etc. In fact, many organizations use a potpourri of some or even all of these technologies. According to ESG research (note: I am an ESG employee):To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Micro-segmentation is nothing new. We starting talking about the concept a few years ago with the onset of software-defined networking (SDN) technologies such as OpenFlow. More recently, micro-segmentation was most often associated with establishing trusted connections between cloud-based workloads.Micro-segmentation is simply a new software-based spin on the old practice of network segmentation that organizations have done for years with a variety of technologies—firewalls, VLANs, subnets, switch-based access control lists (ACLs), etc. In fact, many organizations use a potpourri of some or even all of these technologies. According to ESG research:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Move over, Microsoft Windows. Thanks to mobile, Google’s Android is now king, as it has become the world’s most popular operating system for getting online.Web analytics firm StatCounter reported that, for the first time ever, Android topped the worldwide OS internet usage market share. In March, looking at combined usage across desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile, Android usage hit 37.93 percent. That was enough to narrowly overtake Windows’ 37.91 percent. StatCounter
“This is a milestone in technology history and the end of an era,” said StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen. “It marks the end of Microsoft’s leadership worldwide of the OS market, which it has held since the 1980s. It also represents a major breakthrough for Android, which held just 2.4 percent of global internet usage share only five years ago.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Recently inboxes have been hit by the so-called “airline phishing attack.” It is a new take on an old phishing email. It uses multiple techniques to capture sensitive data and deploy an advanced persistent threat (APT).Barracuda Networks has seen this attack with several of its customers, especially in industries that deal with frequent shipping of goods or employee travel, such as logistics, shipping, and manufacturing. The attacker will either impersonate a travel agency or even an employee in HR or finance who is sending an airline ticket or e-ticket. The email will be constructed to appear inconspicuous.The attacker will have researched his target, selecting the airline, destination and price so that these details look legitimate in the context of the company and the recipient, Barracuda reports. After getting the employee to open the email, an APT embedded in an email attachment goes into action. The attachment is typically formatted as a PDF or DOCX document. In this attack, the malware will be executed upon opening the document. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A trusted channelImage by ThinkstockEmail is a critical enterprise communication tool synonymous with sending important documents quickly and efficiently between employees, managers, HR, finance, sales, legal, customers, supply chain and more. That said, organizations often don’t understand that the file types used every day to share important information – standard files like Word docs, Excel spreadsheets and PDFs – are also the most common attack vectors widely used for the distribution of malware. For cybercriminals, it’s often too easy to target a user with a spoofed email or phishing attack, and trick them into opening an infected attachment that appears to be legitimate.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If your mobile device contains any personal or private data, then it's crucial you protect it. In many cases, mobile devices contain sensitive information that, if breached, can cause significant problems for the users.For example, more people are storing copies of their driver’s license, employer data, insurance details, social security card, bank account information and passwords on their mobile device. Even personal pictures can be a major security concern. When applying for loans, instead of faxing, many people take pictures of important financial documents and email them to the requestor but do not delete the pictures from their phone.One very critical step you can take to secure this is to encrypt your mobile data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If I could give only one piece advice for CTOs and IT teams, it would be this: Data security is not just an IT task—it comes down to people and processes. As a startup CTO, you’re often going to lead the charge when it comes to information security for your firm. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, U.S. companies and government agencies suffered a record 1,093 data breaches in 2016—a 40 percent increase over 2015. We’ve all seen the headlines and the high-profile victims, but attackers don’t discriminate when it comes to security breaches. Any company can become a victim, leading to losses of your data, your customers’ data, financial information, proprietary product information, and, ultimately, a loss of goodwill in the market. As more processes move online and into the cloud, companies increasingly feel this burden of staying secure.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Editor’s Note: First in a series of articles on the best ways to deploy and secure smart home technologyLast fall, we saw the rise of the weaponized smart device as the Mirai botnet compromised webcams and other Internet-connected things. Then in February, VIZIO agreed to pay a $2.2 million fine to the FTC for collecting the viewing histories of 11 million smart TV users without their knowledge or consent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
New products of the weekImage by MicroStrategyOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.JumpStartImage by cloudjumperTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The win in Ecuador’s presidential elections of leftist government candidate Lenin Moreno will likely have provided relief to WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, who had been threatened with eviction from the country’s embassy in London by the opposition candidate.The election in the South American country had aroused interest in part because the conservative opposition candidate, Guillermo Lasso, had said that if elected he would evict Assange within 30 days of assuming power, because it was costing the country too much to keep him at the embassy.The embassy is being constantly monitored by U.K. police ever since Assange slipped into it in 2012 and was granted asylum by the Ecuador government. Police say they will arrest Assange if he comes out of the embassy to meet an extradition request from Sweden in connection with an investigation into a sexual assault. Assange supporters are concerned that he may be moved from Sweden to the U.S. to face charges in connection with several leaks of confidential U.S. government information.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
On Friday March 31 and part of April 1, visitors to kodi.tv saw a US government domain seizure notice as grabbed by the Wayback Machine. It featured logos of the Department of Justice, National Intellectual Property Rights and Homeland Security Investigations above the following message:
This domain name has been seized by ICE - Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a United States District Court under the authority of 18 U.S.C 981 and 2323.Willful copyright infringement is a federal crime that carries penalties for first time offenders of up to five years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine forfeiture and restitution (17 U.S.C 506, 18 U.S.C 2319). Intentionally and knowingly trafficking in counterfeit goods is a federal crime that carries penalties for first time offenders of up to ten years in federal prison, a $2,000,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution (18 U.S.C 2320)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
WikiLeaks may have dealt another blow to the CIA’s hacking operations by releasing files that allegedly show how the agency was masking its malware attacks.On Friday, the site dumped the source code to the Marble Framework, a set of anti-forensic tools that WikiLeaks claims the CIA used last year.The files do appear to show “obfuscation techniques” that can hide CIA-developed malicious coding from detection, said Jake Williams, a security researcher at Rendition InfoSec, who has been examining the files.Every hacker, from the government-sponsored ones to amateurs, will use their own obfuscation techniques when developing malware, he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here