Google will soon release a software development kit (SDK) for adapting its Android mobile operating system to wearable technology such as smart watches, according to statements by Sundar Pichai, Google’s Senior Vice President of Android, Chrome and Apps. Pichai was speaking over the weekend at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas. He said that the SDK for wearables will be available sometime in the next two weeks and is intended to help flesh out the company’s vision for how wearable technology should work. The news was first reported here by The Guardian. Wearables are just another “platform” on which small, powerful sensors will be deployed, he said. “Sensors can be small and powerful, and gather a lot of information that can be useful for users. We want to build the right APIs for this world of sensors,” he is quoted saying. [Read more Security Ledger coverage […]
Internet of Things
Repo Scan: License Plate Readers Fuel Private Surveillance Industry
The privacy issues surrounding the use of license plate scanners isn’t exactly a new story. After all, none other than the ACLU published a report on the topic last year. The title of that report: “You Are Being Tracked” left little to the imagination. But The Boston Globe presents a troubling picture of how far and fast license plate scanning has come, and how the combination of super-efficient scanning with cloud based applications and Big Data analytics are empowering private companies to surveil law abiding citizens across much of the country. OnTuesday, reporter Shawn Musgrave reported on the phenomenon of automobile repossession firms in Massachusetts using powerful, car-mounted license plate readers to troll mall parking lots and commuter stations for cars whose owners are behind in their payments. The cameras scan the plates of all vehicles that they pass – delinquent or not – and send the images to […]
SOHOwned: 300K Home Routers Hacked
A string of reports in recent weeks has focused a spotlight on rising attacks against an often-overlooked piece of equipment that can be found in almost every home and business: the wireless router. Just this week, the security firm Team Cymru published a report (PDF) describing what it claims is a widespread compromise of small office and home office (SOHO) wireless routers that was linked to cyber criminal campaigns targeting online banking customers. Cymru claims to have identified over 300,000 SOHO devices (mostly in Asia and Europe) that were compromised. According to the report, the compromises first came to light in January, after Team Cymru analysts noticed a pattern of SOHO routers with overwritten DNS settings in central Europe. The affected devices are from a range of manufacturers, including well-known brands like D-Link, Micronet, Tenda and TP-Link. The devices were vulnerable to a number of attacks, including authentication bypass and cross-site […]
Cisco Pledges $300k For Next Big Thing In Internet of Things Security
Most folks are still trying to figure out what “security” in the context of “The Internet of Things” actually means. But that didn’t stop Cisco Systems from throwing down a challenge to the tech sector: develop security solutions that address problems specific to The Internet of Things and win a cash prize. In a blog post, Chris Young, a Senior Vice President in Cisco’s Security Group, announced The Internet of Things Security Grand Challenge, saying the contest would offer “visionaries, innovators, and implementers…the opportunity to define a future of a secure IoT,” and pledging up to $300,000 in prizes and awards up to $75,000 for six winners. Cisco has set its sights on the emerging “Internet of Things” in a big way – leveraging its deep roots as a networking infrastructure provider to carriers and enterprises, and ancillary businesses such as set top boxes and low-cost networking equipment for […]
Security and The Internet of Things: An RSA Roadmap
The RSA Security Conference starts next week in San Francisco: the central event of a week-long orgy of IT security wheeling and dealing in the Bay Area. Though its roots are as a small and clubby gathering of cryptographers, RSA long ago stopped being that, and started resembling a kind of speed dating event for technology and IT security firms. Sure – there are plenty of interesting talks at RSA, but the important work takes place in private suites of adjoining hotels and chance encounters in the halls of the Moscone. If there’s a big IT security deal in the offing – like IBM’s $1 billion acquisition of Trusteer, or FireEye’s purchase of the firm Mandiant – chances are good that the conversation started at RSA. Long and short: RSA is a snapshot of the security industry at a particular place and time. As such, it tends to be a […]
