Tomorrow afternoon, Security Ledger, with help from our sponsor Veracode, will record its first video conversation. The show’s name: Talking Code (#talkingcode). The topic: application security, and – in particular – securing the supply chain. Joining me for the discussion will by Chris Wysopal, the co-founder and CTO of Veracode and Joshua Corman, the Director of Security Intelligence at Akamai Inc. Two things: you can send us questions or comments on Twitter. Our discussion will be filmed in studio, not live, but we’ll be tweeting comments live and engaging in realtime via Twitter. Just use the hashtag #talkingcode to pose questions. Say the term “supply chain,” and people immediately think of automobile and electronics manufacturers, who must assemble products from components makers scattered around the globe. These days, however, its not just manufacturers who have to worry about supply chains. Almost every company has a “supply chain” in one form or […]
policy
ACLU Complaint Shows Android Insecurity Getting Political
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday calling on the Federal Government to take action to stem an epidemic of unpatched and insecure Android mobile devices – a public scourge that the ACLU blames on recalcitrant wireless carriers. The civil liberties group’s complaint for injunctive relief with the FTC, noting that “major wireless carriers have sold millions of Android smartphones to consumers” but that “the vast majority of these devices rarely receive software security updates.” Calling the unpatched phones “defective and unreasonably dangerous,” the ACLU says that carriers leave their customers vulnerable to malware and spear phishing attacks that can be used to record or transmit information on the device to” third parties. “A significant number of consumers are using smartphones running a version of the Android operating system with known, exploitable security vulnerabilities for which fixes have been published by Google, but have […]
Obama Lays Down The Law On Cyber Espionage
The Obama Administration on Wednesday released a report detailing new Administration measures to protect U.S. trade secrets and intellectual property. The report: “Administration Strategy on Mitigating the Theft of U.S. Trade Secrets” (PDF) establishes a new foundation for cooperation between the U.S. government and the private sector. It comes just days after a bombshell, 60-page report by the security firm Mandiant that described the activities of “APT1” – a hacking group that Mandiant claims is actually a cyber warfare unit of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In a post on the Whitehouse blog, the Administration said the Strategy is a continuation of Obama Administration policy to protect U.S. companies from the theft of trade secrets. Under the new Strategy, the Administration will take a “whole government” approach, using diplomatic pressure via the State Department, coordinated, international legal pressure through the Department of Justice and FBI. The U.S. will tap the […]
UPDATE: Vulnerability In EAS To Blame For Fake Zombie Apocalypse Warning?
Editor’s Note: Updated to include information on the brand of EAS device that was compromised. – PFR 2/14/2013 OK – the good news is that the dead aren’t rising from their graves and the Zombie Apocalypse hasn’t begun (yet…). The bad news: a phony EAS (Emergency Alerting System) warning about just such a cataclysm earlier this week may have been the result of a hack of what one security researcher says are known vulnerabilities in the hardware and software that is used to distribute emergency broadcasts to the public in the U.S. The warning from Mike Davis, a Principal Research Scientist at the firm IOActive, comes just days after unknown hackers compromised EAS systems at television stations in the U.S. and broadcast a bogus emergency alert claiming that the “dead were rising from their graves” and attacking people. Published reports say that at least four television stations were the victims […]
Obama CyberSecurity Order Puts Infrastructure Owners On Notice
President Barack Obama issued a long-anticipated Executive Order for improving the nation’s cyber security late Tuesday. The Order, released on the same evening as President Obama addressed both chambers of Congress with his State of the Union Address called cyber attacks “one of the most serious national security challenges we must confront,” and put public and private owners of critical infrastructure in the U.S. on notice that they would need to work closely with the government to reduce the risk of crippling cyber attacks. President Obama issued the Order after Congress failed, in its last session, to agree on comprehensive cyber security legislation. Negotiations over the bill broke down over Republican amendments to a Democratic sponsored bill and concerns from the business community about the cost of complying with some of the more controversial provisions. Among those: a requirement that the Department of Homeland Security be able to audit […]
