IT managers disagree with chief executives over who is responsible for a cyber security breach, according to a survey released Thursday.The survey -- of a group of 221 chief executive officers and other C-level executives and another group of 984 IT decision makers -- found that each group largely believes the other group is responsible in the event of a breach.In the survey, 35% of C-level respondents said IT teams would be responsible in a breach, while 50% of IT leaders think that responsibility rests with their senior managers.Also, IT managers estimate a single cyber attack will cost their business nearly twice what top-level executives estimate. The IT managers put the cost of a single attack at $19 million, compared to the C-suite estimate of about $11 million.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Attackers have started to use Windows and Android malware to hack into embedded devices, dispelling the widely held belief that if such devices are not directly exposed to the Internet they're less vulnerable.Researchers from Russian antivirus vendor Doctor Web have recently come across a Windows Trojan program that was designed to gain access to embedded devices using brute-force methods and to install the Mirai malware on them.Mirai is a malware program for Linux-based internet-of-things devices, such as routers, IP cameras, digital video recorders and others. It's used primarily to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and spreads over Telnet by using factory device credentials.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In March 2015, RSA Conference organizers made news by contractually insisting that vendors pitch their security wares without the help of “booth babes,” a first such ban for the technology industry.Next week’s RSAC in San Francisco will be the third without the babes, so I checked in with event staff to see if the policy had evolved at all and how it has been accepted by various stake-holders. Here’s how the contract language read in 2015:
All Expo staff are expected to dress in business and/or business casual attire. Exhibitors should ensure that the attire of al staff they deploy at their booth (whether the exhibitor’s direct employees or their contractors) be considered appropriate in a professional environment. Attire of an overly revealing or suggestive nature is not permitted. Examples of such attire may include but are not restricted to:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In these days of always-on, but zero trust enterprise applications, concerns over how to keep the bad guys out 24-7 is a huge IT challenge.
In an attempt to address such anxieties Cisco today announced Umbrella, a secure, cloud-based gateway, based on technology from OpenDNS and other technologies it acquired such as CloudLock as well as existing Cisco security services that together ultimately promises to offer secure business access to resources even when users are not using the safety of a VPN.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Netgear’s Arlo brand of home security, network-connected cameras continues to improve, defeating every real or perceived criticism about the devices with an upgrade or improvement. Want to place in an area where there’s no network cable? Bam! Wi-Fi connection. Need to place in an area where there’s no power outlet? Bam! Battery powered! Don’t like replacing batteries? Bam! Rechargeable batteries and a quick-charge battery adapter.The latest version of this system is the Arlo Pro – it’s the most flexible camera system I’ve come across so far. After a few weeks of testing, I’ve determined that anyone who has a problem with this system (or think that it can’t do something) is just a cynical old crank.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Insurance challengesImage by ThinkstockBusinesses shelled out $2 billion in cyber insurance premiums in 2015 but current projections show that astronomical growth rates will result in a market of over $20 billion by 2025. The single biggest challenge faced by insurance companies today is the lack of actuarial data on cyber attacks which makes pricing these cyber insurance policies very difficult. As a result, insurance companies are increasingly resorting to other methods to assist them in more accurately pricing these policies which is good news for them but which will result in a number of challenges for businesses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Nobody in the IT industry would argue that the Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming more secure. Pretty much the opposite.But not for lack of effort. There have been multiple, ongoing initiatives over the past decade, both public and private. There have been dire warnings, publication of various standards and best practices, technology improvements, legislation to encourage threat information sharing and exhortations from government agencies, congressional committees, security firms and conference speakers.Unfortunately, none of them has worked very well so far.In spite of some of the best minds and technology improvements in the world focused on it, most of the IoT’s billions and billions of connected devices remain catastrophically insecure, lacking what experts call the most basic “security hygiene.” The flaws include hard-coded credentials, simple and default user names and passwords and the lack of any way to patch or update exploitable vulnerabilities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Zingbox, a cloud-based, internet-of-things security startup, is coming out with its first product that it says can tell good IoT behavior from bad and sends alerts when it finds activity outside the norm.Called Guardian, the solution consists of a virtual appliance that gathers and processes network traffic data and sends it to the Zingbox cloud, where it is analyzed for anomalies. When they are found, it can send alerts to security staff or intervene automatically via integration with firewalls, says May Wang, a founder of the company and its CTO.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Zingbox, a cloud-based, internet-of-things security startup, is coming out with its first product that it says can tell good IoT behavior from bad and sends alerts when it finds activity outside the norm.
Called Guardian, the solution consists of a virtual appliance that gathers and processes network traffic data and sends it to the Zingbox cloud, where it is analyzed for anomalies. When they are found, it can send alerts to security staff or intervene automatically via integration with firewalls, says May Wang, a founder of the company and its CTO.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
To better vet foreign travelers, the U.S. might demand that some visa applicants hand over the passwords to their social media accounts, a proposal that’s alarming privacy experts.“If they don’t want to give us the information, then they don’t come,” said John Kelly, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, on Tuesday.Kelly mentioned the proposal in a congressional hearing when he was asked what his department was doing to look at visa applicants’ social media activity.He said it was “very hard to truly vet” the visa applicants from the seven Muslim-majority countries covered by the Trump administration's travel ban, which is now in legal limbo. Many of the countries are failed states with little internal infrastructure, he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Some big players in security and the internet of things, including AT&T and Nokia, are joining forces to solve problems that they say make IoT vulnerable in many areas.The IoT Cybersecurity Alliance, formed Wednesday, also includes IBM, Symantec, Palo Alto Networks, and mobile security company Trustonic. The group said it won’t set standards but will conduct research, educate consumers and businesses, and influence standards and policies.As IoT technologies take shape, there’s a danger of new vulnerabilities being created in several areas. Consumer devices have been in the security spotlight thanks to incidents like the DDoS attacks last year that turned poorly secured set-top boxes and DVRs into botnets. But the potential weaknesses are much broader, spanning the network, cloud, and application layers, the new group said in a press release.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Algorithms are hot – so hot that Gartner is saying that by 2019, 250,000 patent applications will be filed that include claims for algorithms, a tenfold increase from five years ago.Gartner wrote that according to a worldwide search on analytics vendor Aulive, nearly 17,000 patents applied for in 2015 mentioned "algorithm" in the title or description, versus 570 in 2000. Including those mentioning "algorithm" anywhere in the document, there were more than 100,000 applications last year versus 28,000 five years ago.At this pace, and considering the rising interest in protecting algorithmic intellectual property, by 2020 there could be nearly half a million patent applications mentioning "algorithm," and more than 25,000 patent applications for algorithms themselves, Gartner stated. Of the top 40 organizations patenting the most algorithms the past five years, 33 are Chinese businesses and universities – IBM is the only western tech company on the list at No. 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans was impacted by a tornado on Tuesday.
3,500 employees were at the facility when a large tornado stuck yesterday, Feb. 7, at 11:25 a.m.; fortunately, only five employees suffered minor injuries. After the tornado, local law enforcement helped employees reach their homes as NASA reported that about 200 parked cars had been damaged.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Accenture wants to help businesses use blockchain technologies more securely by locking away the encryption keys they use to sign transactions.It's built a system that blockchain developers can use to store credentials in specialized cryptoprocessors called hardware security modules (HSMs).HSMs are typically used by banks to store the PINs associated with payment cards or the credentials used to make interbank payments over the SWIFT network, and are much more secure than storing the credentials, even in encrypted form, on network-connected servers from where attackers could steal them.The PINs or credentials never leave the HSMs, and their use within them is strictly controlled.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s not often enterprises get direct evidence of a shadow IT operation but a recent audit of NASA’s IT realm came up with 28 unsanctioned cloud services operating in its environment.NASA’s own CIO office found eight such services while the NASA Office of Inspector General discovered another 20, as part of an overall cloud security audit done by the NASA OIG.+More on Network World: NASA’s “Human Computers” and the Hidden Figures movie story+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A wave of attacks that have recently affected banks and other enterprises used open-source penetration testing tools loaded directly into memory instead of traditional malware, making their detection much harder.Researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab started investigating these attacks after the security team from an unnamed bank found Meterpreter in the random access memory (RAM) of a server that acted as the organization's Windows domain controller.Meterpreter is an in-memory attack payload that can inject itself into other running processes and is used to establish persistency on a compromised system. It is part of the Metasploit penetration testing framework, a popular tool used both by internal security teams and by malicious hackers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Open source software is the norm these days rather than the exception. The code is being written in high volumes and turning up in critical applications. While having this code available can offer big benefits, users also must be wary of issues the code can present and implement proper vetting.
Josh Bressers, cybersecurity strategist at Red Hat, emphasized this point during a recent talk with InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill.[ Expand your security career horizons with these essential certifications for smart security pros. | Discover how to secure your systems with InfoWorld's Security Report newsletter. ]
InfoWorld: Why is Red Hat getting on the soapbox about open source security?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Like him or hate him, there's no debating that President Trump loves to tweet. What is up for debate, though, is whether his tweet storms will complicate what is already stressful work for the Secret Service.
Enormous effort goes into protecting the President and his staff from hackers, and any tweets that could be deemed argumentative, hostile, or reactionary could elevate the risk of a targeted cyber attack on the White House.
In the same way, executives at major enterprises also need to be cautious in how they choose to represent the company through social media.
This type of security, said Larry Johnson, ex Secret Service agent and CSO of CyberSponse, is not just protecting the individual. Whether it's the Secret Service or the security team, "They’re protecting the company, the country, the assets."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Just because you’re using a Mac doesn’t mean you’re safe from hackers. That’s what two security researchers are warning, after finding a Mac-based malware that may be an attempt by Iranian hackers to target the U.S. defense industry.The malware, called MacDownloader, was found on a website impersonating the U.S. aerospace firm United Technologies, according to a report from Claudio Guarnieri and Collin Anderson, who are researching Iranian cyberespionage threats.The fake site was previously used in a spear phishing email attack to spread Windows malware and is believed to be maintained by Iranian hackers, the researchers claimed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For the 5th straight year, impersonator bots were the most active bad bots, making up 24.3 percent of all bot activity. Both cheap and effective, impersonator bots are most commonly used to launch DDoS attacks, including October’s attack against DNS provider Dyn.That’s among the key findings of Imperva’s Bot Traffic Report 2016, which is based on analysis of over 16.7 billion visits to 100,000 randomly-selected domains on the Imperva content delivery network from August 9, 2016 to November 6, 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)