Security of Things Forum

Episode 100: Estonia’s Former CIO talks about engineering a secure electronic vote

In this week’s episode of The Security Ledger Podcast (#100 – woot!): Taavi Kotka spent 4 years as the Chief Information officer for the nation of Estonia – whose government is widely recognized as among the most technologically advanced in the world. He talks about the Estonian model for e-governance and how the U.S. has ruined the term “e-voting” for everyone. Also: what happens when discussions about the security of bits and bytes have consequences measured in flesh and blood? Joshua Corman, the Chief Security Officer at the firm PTC joins us to talk about it, ahead of his featured presentation at next week’s Security of Things Forum in Boston.

Flaws in connected devices go beyond passwords | CSMonitor.com

  In-brief: cybercriminals in recent weeks have amassed a powerful online weapon from compromised internet-linked cameras and video recorders prompting warnings to consumers to change default passwords on their gadgets. But experts warn that changing passwords or making them stronger won’t solve the problem. (Editor’s note: this story is cross posted from Christian Science Monitor Passcode. You can read the full text of the article there.) Cybercriminals in recent weeks have amassed a powerful online weapon from compromised internet-linked cameras and video recorders prompting warnings to consumers to change default passwords on their gadgets. But experts warn that changing passwords or making them stronger won’t solve the problem. Cyber criminals and script kiddies have used weak, easily guessed and default passwords on Internet connected cameras and other devices to assemble botnets of hundreds of thousands of infected devices. Those botnets, in turn, have been the lynch pin in massive and distributed denial […]

Attendees at DEFCON

Podcast: Black Hat, DEF CON and building Secure Devices

In-brief: Paul Roberts talks with Marc Blackmer of Cisco Systems about the recent Black Hat and DEF CON conferences, as well as a proposal Cisco is working on a for a new, open standard for connecting use policies to intelligent devices. 

Report: Fear of lawsuits chills car hack research | TheHill

In-brief: The Department of Transportation is weighing policies governing independent security researchers’ work on connected vehicles. But security industry experts worry that overreach could put a chill on independent research on connected cars. 

Senators’ Letter Demands Answers from Detroit on Security

  In-brief: In a letter to leading automakers, Senators Edward Markey and Richard Blumenthal have requested more information on security protections in late model vehicles, citing recent demonstrations of wireless hacks.