The Internet of Things leverages the same, basic infrastructure as the original Internet – making use of protocols like TCP/IP, HTTP, Telnet and FTP. But the devices look and act very differently from traditional PCs, desktops and servers. Many IoT devices run embedded operating systems or variants of the open source Linux OS. And many are low-power and many are single function: designed to simply listen and observe their environment, then report that data to a central (cloud based repository). But IoT devices are still susceptible to hacking and other malicious attacks, including brute force attacks to crack user names and passwords, injection attacks, man in the middle attacks and other types of spoofing. Despite almost 20 years experience dealing with such threats in the context of PCs and traditional enterprise networks, however, too many connected devices that are sold to consumers lack even basic protections against such threats. […]
FTC
Amphion Forum: Spotlight on Security and Internet of Things
A little more than a month from now, the world’s attention will shift to San Francisco for the annual RSA Security Conference – perhaps the biggest single IT security industry event of the year. But this week, at a much smaller venue, the focus will be about what’s amounting to the ‘next big thing’ in the security world: the Internet of Things. The Amphion Forum focuses on a growing part of the computer security landscape that still struggles for attention in a security market still focused on the needs of large companies. Namely: the security challenges posed by mobile devices – phones and tablets and a menagerie of newly-connected endpoints, from wearable computers to implantable medical devices to household appliances. The privacy and security challenges facing organizations that wish to embrace the IoT are legion. Intelligent devices have been shown to lack basic protections against unauthorized access, such as strong […]
FTC Settles With Flashlight App Maker Over Geotracking
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Thursday that it settled with the maker of a popular Android mobile flashlight application over charges that the company used deceptive advertising to collect location and device information from Android owners. The FTC announced the settlement with Goldenshores Technologies, LLC of Moscow, Indiana, makers of the “Brightest Flashlight Free” Android application, saying that the company failed to disclose wanton harvesting and sharing of customers’ location and mobile device identity with third parties. Brightest Flashlight Free is a top download from Google Play, the main Android marketplace. Statistics from the site indicate that it has been downloaded more than one million times with an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars. The application, which is available for free, displays mobile advertisements on the devices that it is installed on. However, the device also harvested a wide range of data from Android phones which […]
The Security Week In Review: Same Breach, Different Day
It’s the end of another week and, as has become a pattern, we’re weighing the impact of another massive data breach: this one at Cupid Media, the owner of a network of dating web sites. According to a report on Krebsonsecurity.com, data on some 40 million Cupid Media customers turned up on the same servers that were found holding data stolen from Adobe Inc., PR Newswire and other victims. To get a handle on the impact of this breach and others like it, I invited Ted Julian, the Chief Marketing Officer of CO3 Systems, to talk about the recent string of embarrassing breaches and how companies go wrong (and sometimes right) in responding to them. Co3 sells a service that helps companies structure their response to data breaches and other adverse incidents. We also took the time to talk about the recent FTC Workshop on security and privacy on The […]
At FTC Forum, Experts Wonder: Is Privacy Passé?
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) used a one-day workshop to highlight security and privacy issues prompted by so-called “Internet of Things.” But attendees at the event may have walked away with a more ambiguous message, as prominent technologists and industry representatives questioned whether conventional notions of privacy had much relevance in a world populated by billions of Internet-connected devices. “I don’t feel like privacy is dead,” keynote speaker Vint Cerf, a Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, told an audience at the FTC workshop. “I do feel like privacy will be increasingly difficult for us to achieve,” Cerf warned. And Cerf wasn’t alone in wondering whether that might not be such a bad thing – or even that unusual. “Is privacy an anomaly?” Cerf wondered aloud, recalling his experience living in a small, German town where the “postmaster knew what everyone was doing.” Our modern concept of being ‘alone […]
