The German magazine Der Spiegel made headlines this week with its story detailing the US National Security Agency’s (NSAs) offensive hacking capabilities. The story is based on classified NSA documents absconded with by former contractor Edward Snowden and lays bare a Webster’s Dictionary full of classified hacking tools and programs. Among the highlights of the story: + The NSA developed and deployed a wide range of hacking tools that could compromise hardware from leading IT and networking equipment makers including Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks and the Chinese vendor Huawei and Dell Inc. + The NSA tools were designed to provide persistent access that allowed the NSA to monitor activity on the compromised endpoint, avoid detection by third party security software and survive software and firmware updates. One such tool, DEITYBOUNCE, provided persistent access to Dell’s PowerEdge servers by “exploiting the system BIOS” and using “System Management Mode to […]
Hardware
What Will 2014 Bring For Internet of Things? Some Thoughts.
As we’ve noted before, The Internet of Things is figuring prominently in both year-end round ups and year-end predictions. Many technology pundits saying that the IoT and security issues related to Internet-connected devices will be a major trend to watch this year. Here are some interesting takes on what 2014 holds for The Internet of Things. Better Design (Wired) While superbly designed products like the NEST Thermostat get much of the attention when folks talk about the potential of The Internet of Things, good design isn’t a prerequisite for making a “smart” device – nor is it even that common in the nascent IoT, as a casual reading of some of our coverage will show you. But good design – or at least better design – that includes robust security will be necessary if the IoT market is to mature. That’s the argument Jermoe Nadel makes in this article on […]
Prediction: Rough Road Ahead in 2014 For Security and Internet of Things
With the New Year fast approaching, it’s (unofficially) ‘prediction season,’ when everyone worth their salt stares into the crystal ball and tries to imagine what the world will look like 12 months hence. To sort through our 2014 predictions, we called on Mark Stanislav, the chief Security Evangelist at Duo Security. Mark is a seasoned security researcher who has taken an interest in the security of the Internet of Things. Earlier this year, we wrote about research Mark did on the IZON Camera, an IP-enabled home surveillance camera that is sold by big-box retail stores like Best Buy, as well as by the Apple Store. Beneath the IZON’s polished exterior, the IZON was a mess of sloppy coding and poor security implementation, Stanislav discovered. Like many IoT devices, IZON cameras punted security to those responsible for the wireless network that it was deployed on – essentially trusting any connection from […]
A Christmas Hangover From Smart Devices
Editor’s note: This is reposted from Veracode’s blog. Just in time for the holidays, I received an e-mail by way of Electric Imp. If you’re not familiar with the “Imp,” (my phrase, not theirs), it’s a PaaS that makes it easy to build and connect smart devices. Among the cool gift ideas Electric Imp was promoting: a whole line of products produced by the company Quirky along with GE under the “Wink: Instantly Connected” products banner and available at Best Buy and other stores. There’s Egg Minder, an Internet-connected egg tray that tracks how many eggs you have left in your fridge, and how fresh each of them is. Not your thing? How about Nimbus? It’s a “customizable Internet-connected dashboard that lets you “track the data that affects your life, from commute times and weather to social media and more.” Nimbus looks like someone ripped the gauges out of a […]
Two Faces of the IoT: A Conversation With Xively’s Philip DesAutels
Conversations about the Internet of Things often focus on its most visible outposts: consumer devices. Products like the Nest Thermostat, IP-enabled home security cameras or Samsung’s Smart TV are like ambassadors for the IoT: highlighting cool features and capabilities that just hint at the transformative power of the much larger revolution that small, powerful Internet-connected objects will herald. The truth is that although consumers are still warming to the Internet of Things, businesses and industry have already embraced it. Manufacturers of heavy equipment have outfitted their products with an extensive mesh of small sensors that provide close to real-time data on the functioning of critical components. As a measure of this, Virgin Airlines said in March that it will upgrade its network infrastructure to accommodate an “explosion” of data from a new fleet of Boeing 787 Jetliners, which will produce close to half a Terabyte of data per flight. But what is […]
