Conferences Archives

Conferences

Valles del Silicio: How IoT is Democratizing Innovation

January 8, 2015 Marc Blackmer

Here we find ourselves at the beginning of a new year, and I can’t resist looking ahead. As I observed in last month’s column, I’m an advocate for cyber security fundamentals. And, like any “fundamentalist,” I would like to assert that these security fundamentals won’t change. As for the Internet of Things as a whole, however, I believe that we are on the cusp of tremendous change. In the next year, I predict that many of the assumptions that have guided us in areas like networking, application development, data analysis and – yes – security will undergo major, and necessary, change. But to what? And from whom? That’s what I’d like to explore. This past December, I attended the inaugural weekend of CyberCamp, a three-day event in Madrid hosted by INCIBE and the Spanish government. In addition to having the honor of being one of the keynote speakers, I had the opportunity to speak with a […]

FBI Director: Sloppy Sony Hackers Exposed North Korea

January 8, 2015 Paul Roberts

The Director of the FBI James Comey offered his most direct retort to date to those who doubt the Bureau’s case against the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), saying that the hackers who pillaged Sony Pictures Entertainment were “sloppy” and revealed the source of the attack – IP addresses linked to the reclusive government, Ars Technica reports. Comey was speaking at ICCS, the International Conference on Cyber Security in New York City on Wednesday. He said that, while the Sony attackers largely concealed their identity by using proxy servers, on several occasions they “got sloppy” and connected directly to Sony’s network, revealing their own IP address in the process. Those slip-ups provided evidence linking North Korea to the attack on Sony’s network, he claimed. The IP address isn’t the only evidence, however. (Thankfully.) Comey also said that “analysts at the FBI found the patterns of writing and other identifying data […]

At Electronics Bash, FTC Chairwoman Calls for Privacy, Security on IoT

January 7, 2015 Paul Roberts

The Wall Street Journal reports on an address that FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez gave to the folks out at CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas. From the report: “Ramirez outlined several concerns including ubiquitous data collection, or the ability of sensors to collect sensitive personal information about consumers all the time and in real time; unexpected uses of consumer data, such using individual energy use patterns to set their homeowners’ insurance rates; and cybersecurity threats. “She also noted opportunities. ‘Whether it’s a remote valet parking assistant, which allows drivers to get out of their cars and remotely guide their empty car to a parking spot; a new fashionable bracelet that allows consumers to check their texts and see reviews of nearby restaurants; or smart glucose meters, which make glucose readings accessible both to those afflicted with diabetes and their doctors, the IoT has the potential to transform […]

Cat and Mouse: Web Attacks Increasingly Sidestep WAF Protections

December 31, 2014 Or Katz

Recently, the Akamai Threat Research Team unveiled a unique distributed brute force attack campaign targeting nearly five hundred WordPress applications. What’s interesting about this campaign? It clearly demonstrates how Web attackers are becoming more sophisticated, attempting to evade security controls – specifically Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) and rate control protections. A Short Primer to Brute-Force Attacks Brute force Web attackers attempt to gain privileged access to a Web application by sending a very large set of login attempts, within a short period of time. Using volumetric single source of attack is easily mitigated by blacklisting. Today’s brute force attacks are typically characterized by volumetric attacks coming from distributed IPs. In this way, if the attacker’s source IP is detected, they can still continue with the attack campaign by switching a source IP. As part of this cat-and-mouse evolution, WAFs are enhanced with several rate control measures that detect and block […]

More Supply Chain Woes: DeathRing Is Factory-Loaded Smartphone Malware

December 5, 2014 Paul Roberts

The folks over at Lookout Security have an interesting blog piece on “DeathRing,” a Chinese Trojan that comes pre-installed on a number of smartphones most popular in Asian and African countries. According to the bulletin, the Trojan masquerades as a ringtone app, but downloads an SMS and WAP (or “wireless access protocol” ) content from a command and control server to the victim’s phone once it is installed. That downloaded content can be used for various malicious, money-making schemes, according to Lookout. For example, DeathRing can use the SMS content to send phishing text messages to the phone to elicit sensitive information from the user. The WAP content to manipulate a mobile user’s web browsing session. For example: the attackers might prompt victims to download additional mobile applications or add-ons, potentially extending their reach over the victim’s device and data. [Read more Security Ledger coverage of supply chain risks.] Lookout […]