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Government

U.S. looks to create an ‘Internet of Postal Things’ – Computerworld

June 19, 2014 Paul Roberts

There’s an interesting article by Patrick Thibodeau over at Computerworld about how the U.S. Postal Service is soliciting ideas about leveraging Internet of Things technologies throughout its (massive) system. The Postal Service published a solicitation for a “supplier who has the expertise and critical knowledge of the Internet of Things,” as well as (big) data analytics. The goal is to harness data from throughout the Postal Service’s massive infrastructure in order to increase efficiency and lower costs. The U.S. Postal Service is one of world’s most extensive and efficient. But it has also been bleeding red ink in recent years. The Services reported a $15.9 billion net loss in fiscal year 2012 – much of it tied to mandated payments to meet future retiree health benefits. Those losses have narrowed in recent years. In May, the USPO reported a net loss of $1.9 billion in the second quarter and increased […]

Internet of Things to Increase Shortage of Security Professionals

June 17, 2014 Paul Roberts

The tech publication eWeek has an interesting interview with Sujata Ramamoorthy, the director for global information security for Cisco’s Threat Response, Intelligence, and Development (TRIAD) group about the impact of Internet of Things technology on the (already painful) shortage of IT security workers. According to Ramamoorthy, adoption of Internet of Things technologies and platforms will exacerbate the IT security worker shortage. “These trends are what are fueling the need for additional security skills in the industry, and because the networks themselves are getting more complex, the applications communicating over them are getting more complex,” she told eWeek reporter Rob Lemos. The increasing complexity of information infrastructure in IoT deployments, an explosion in the number of connected endpoints and a corresponding lack of visibility into cloud services all make the shortage of corporate security experts more critical, Ramamoorthy said. Already there is an estimated 1 million information-security staff and manager shortage globally, according […]

UEFI: Security, BIOS and the Internet of Things

June 14, 2014 Paul Roberts

One of the notable trends in recent years has been the drive, among malicious actors, to compromise devices in new- and hard-to-detect ways. An area of interest and exploration is malicious software that can attack a computer’s BIOS – the small bit of code that runs when a computing device is first powered on. BIOS malware is so powerful because it offers adversaries the possibility of getting a foothold on systems prior to an operating system and the security features- and applications that run there. Successful BIOS attacks give attackers almost total control over the system they are installed on. BIOS malware isn’t a new idea. In fact, it has been around since the late 1990s, when the Chernobyl Virus was identified. That virus could wipe a machine’s BIOS, a well as the contents of its hard drive. But BIOS threats have been getting more attention lately. Proof of concept malware appeared as recently […]

FTC Wants To Be Top Cop On Geolocation

June 5, 2014 Paul Roberts

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is asking Congress to make it the chief rule maker and enforcer of policies for the collection and sharing of geolocation information, according to testimony this week. Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection, told the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee for Privacy, Technology that the Commission would like to see changes to the wording of the Location Privacy Protection Act of 2014 (LPPA), draft legislation designed to spell out consumer protections pertaining to the location data. Rich said that the FTC, as the U.S. Government’s leading privacy enforcement agency, should be given rule making and enforcement authority for the civil provisions of the LPPA. The current draft of the law instead gives that authority to the Department of Justice (DOJ). The LPPA legislation (PDF) was proposed in March by Sen. Al Franken, and co-sponsored by Senators Coons (D-DE) and Warren (D-MA). It proposes updating the Electronic Communications […]

DARPA Competition Seeks Autonomous Systems for Cyber Defense

June 4, 2014 Paul Roberts

We all know that ‘layer 8’ – humans – are the biggest attack surface in any IT environment. Companies can invest millions to harden their networks and endpoints. But all attackers have to do is convince one user to open a fake credit card bill for $20,000 or click a “You won’t believe this video!” link on Facebook and its game over. Our human failings came into the spotlight, most recently, with the breach at Target. According to news reports, the retailer had advanced threat detection software by FireEye deployed that actually alerted staff to some of the malicious activity that signaled the start of that (epic) hack. Alas, Target’s IT staff in the U.S. dismissed the alerts, which were reported by a team working out of Bangalore, India. The result: 40 million credit card numbers were pilfered from Target’s network. That may be why the U.S. Department of Defense’s advanced […]