8 ways to fend off spyware, malware and ransomware

Spyware, malware, phishing and, more recently, ransomware -- the list of online threats can be confusing and daunting. Knowing what you’re up against is half the battle. Each of these types of attacks have specific characteristics:Spyware – software that collects information about you or your computer without your knowledge.Malware – a broad category of software (including viruses, worms, Trojan horses, etc.) that damages your computer, in either a minor or major way.Phishing – an attempt to get your personal information (usernames, passwords, credit card numbers and), usually for nefarious reasons. Usually accomplished by electronic communication (e.g., email), but also by "social engineering" (tricking people into abandoning standard security protocol).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why startup leaders need to set the tone for security

Federal consumer-protection authorities have called on the entrepreneurs building tech startups to prioritize cybersecurity from the earliest stages of the development process.[ Related: Tech startups need to get serious about security ]But a variety of factors -- cost, lack of technical expertise, rush to market, etc. -- can make security seem like more of a burden or an impediment to the startup's growth than anything else.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Corebot cleverly written botnet malware with growth potential

There's a new botnet malware on the loose, called Corebot, that researchers believe has the potential to develop into a significant threat.The malware was first spotted by IBM Security X-Force, and Damballa followed up with a deep dive into how the malware works, and what else the malware's author is working on.The malware itself is particularly clever, said Loucif Kharouni, senior threat researcher at Damballa, in that it is written from scratch to be modular, making it easy for the author to add plugins to do specific tasks.MORE ON CSO: How to spot a phishing email "Most malware is based on older malware, on Zeus code for example," he said. "This one looks like it was built new, from scratch."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SYNful Knock router exploit isn’t going away soon

The SYNful Knock compromise of routers can implant software that creates backdoors to let attackers return over and over, a sophisticated endeavor that demonstrates the ingenuity of its creators, according to a member of the team that discovered the attack in the wild.The software has features that enable it to stay hidden within networks so it can be updated and new attack modules can be downloaded for long periods of time, according to FireEye researchers.“The impressive portion of the attack is the implant and not the delivery,” says Tony Lee, technical director at FireEye. “This sort of implant would take significant skills to produce and go undetected for so long.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A guide to Docker container networking

Despite all the hype about containers, the application packaging technology is still evolving, especially as relates to networking. In the past year though there have been significant advancements to Docker container networking functionality. At the same time Docker has built a plug-in architecture that allows more advanced network management tools to control containers. +MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Cisco’s “open” data center OS embraces containers + Meanwhile, startups have developed custom platforms for managing containers, while traditional vendors such as Cisco and VMware have enabled their network management tools to control containers. So, the earliest container networking challenges are beginning to be solved, but there’s still more work to be done.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: How pumped up is your pumped-up cloud data center?

"Ve are here to Pump You Up." I can't help but think about the old Saturday Night Live routines with bodybuilders Hans and Franz when looking at today's cloud data centers. They are big. They are bulked up. They are, indeed, pumped up. But how strong are they, really? As we would ask in IT terms: Do they scale? Can they perform? Or are they girly-man clouds?Those are hard questions.Knowing the capacity of a data center is next to impossible. The tech specs are easy – so many servers, so many CPUs, so many gigahertz, such-and-such network connectivity, so much storage I/O bandwidth. Those specs are easy, and also meaningless, without actually measuring the complete stack's end-to-end performance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Find out if the NSA spied on you and shared it with GCHQ

Curious if the NSA has ever spied on you? Privacy International launched a site so you can find out if Britain’s GCHQ spied on you; put another way, GCHQ can access NSA data so if the NSA gobbled up your communications, then this is how you can find out and get that digital dirt destroyed.Privacy International wrote: Have you ever made a phone call, sent an email, or, you know, used the internet? Of course you have!Chances are, at some point over the past decade, your communications were swept up by the U.S. National Security Agency's mass surveillance program and passed onto Britain's intelligence agency GCHQ. A recent court ruling found that this sharing was unlawful but no one could find out if their records were collected and then illegally shared between these two agencies… until now!To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Adding Spirent Virtual Test Center traffic generator to Unetlab

Having a traffic generator in a lab is a huge advantage, hands down. As to this moment Unified Networking Lab supports software-based traffic generator called Ostinato. But I had an opportunity to use another traffic generator – Spirent Test Center, virtual edition. Spirent’s images are not officially integrated/supported by UNL, so you will see how to

Why It’s Hard to Deploy SDN-Like Functionality Today

Whenever I talk about the various definitions of SDN (ending with the “SDN provides an abstraction layer”), old-timers sitting quickly realize that the SDN products that you can deploy in real life aren’t that different from what we did in the past – an SDN controller is often just an overhyped glorified network services orchestration system.

OK, so why didn’t we have that same functionality for the last 20 years?

Read more ...

How to hack my Tesla

This post is just for my own notes. I'm buying a new car (arrives in October) and I need to gather up notes on how to hack it.

To start with is the generic car hacking information. One good source I found is the Car Hacker's Handbook, which has a good explanation of the basics.

Another good start is the various papers produced by Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, such as their early work and their latest Jeep hack. [1] [2]

Specifically to my car, a Tesla, there is this site that documents all the undocumented bits about the car, such as listing the 56 CPUs found in the car.

Specifically, there is the work by Kevin Mahaffey and Marc Rogers covering their Tesla hacking. I hate them, because they've already done some of the obvious things I would've tried first, such as popping up an X Window on the display.

Anyway, this post is for my own benefit, so when I lose my notes, I can find them again by googling. Maybe other people in similar situation might find it a bit useful, too.

How to use big data to transform IT operations

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.

Over the past half decade, the big data flame has spread like wildfire throughout the enterprise, and the IT department has not been immune. The promise of data-driven initiatives capable of transforming IT from a support function to a profit center has sparked enormous interest.

After all, datacenter scale, complexity, and dynamism has rapidly outstripped the ability of siloed, infrastructure-focused IT operations management to keep pace. IT big-data analytics has emerged as the new IT operations-management approach of choice, promising to make IT smarter and leaner. Nearly all next-generation operational intelligence products incorporate data analytics to some degree. However, as many enterprises are learning the hard way, big data doesn’t always result in success.

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Encryption project issues first free SSL/TLS certificate

A project that aims to increase the use of encryption by giving away free SSL/TLS certificates has issued its first one, marking the start of its beta program. The project, called Let's Encrypt, is run by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) and backed by Mozilla, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Cisco and Akamai, among others. Let's Encrypt plans to distribute free SSL/TLS (Secure Socket Layer/Transport Layer Security) certificates, which encrypt data passed between a website and users. The use of SSL/TLS is signified in most browsers by "https" and a padlock appearing in the URL bar.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Secunia acquired by Flexera Software

Secunia, the company specializing in software vulnerability management, has been acquired by software asset management company Flexera Software.The pairing of Flexera's asset discovery and management tools with Secunia's software vulnerability platform will give organizations the ability to thoroughly assess the security of applications discovered on the network, said Mark Bishof, Flexera Software's CEO.[ Deep Dive: How to rethink security for the new world of IT. | Discover how to secure your systems with InfoWorld's Security newsletter. ] Flexera's tools, which includes FlexNet Manager Suite and AdminStudio Suite, currently help discover all the hardware and software assets within the organization, how the licenses are used, and how to optimize software use. With the Secunia addition, organizations will be able to scrutinize the discovered applications to uncover unpatched vulnerabilities. This will give IT teams the information they need to update to the latest patch or to create a workaround to temporarily mitigate the issue until a patch is available.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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