In-brief: Markets for information on software vulnerabilities are good for security. But they can also raise moral and ethical quandaries, especially in an age of cyber physical risks, argues Cisco’s Marc Blackmer.
Business
Auto Industry Publishes Best Practices for Cybersecurity
In-brief: An Automotive industry information sharing group has published Best Practices” document, giving individual automakers guidance on improving the cybersecurity of their vehicles.
Right to Repair Groundswell as Farmers Battle DMCA
In-brief: Manufacturers are using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to prevent farmers and heavy equipment owners from repairing their own machinery. But efforts in a number of states are pushing a “right to repair” citing the DMCA’s cost to small business owners and the stifling effect on start ups and potentially new industries.
REPORT: 2015 Sees Big Jump in Ransomware Attacks
In-brief: 2015 was a record year for ransomware, according to Symantec’s latest Internet Security Threat Report. There’s evidence that cyber criminals are coupling ransomware with sophisticated, targeted attacks.
Trainwreck: Study Calls for Rethink of Rail Security
The folks over at SCADA Strangelove turned me on to this article from the International Railway Journal that presents the findings of an analysis of the security of industrial control and SCADA systems used to manage railway networks. The conclusion: railways are rife with “faults and vulnerabilities (that will) allow cyber criminals to not only degrade key reliability parameters and bypass safety mechanisms (and) carry out attacks which directly affect rail traffic safety.” The study was conducted by Valentin Gapanovic, the senior vice president of Russian Railways, Efim Rozenberg, the first deputy director general at the Moscow based research firm NIIAS JSC and Kaspersky Lab Deputy Chief Technology Officer Sergey Gordeychik. At issue is not just the systems that are used to manage railway networks, including the movements of trains and critical switching systems that configure tracks. Rather: it is the culture of safety and security in the rail sector which, the study concludes, is still silo’d between physical […]
