We’re used to writing about all the things that are changing in the security field: the onslaught of mobile devices and connected ‘stuff,’ the advent of ‘advanced’ and ‘persistent’ adversaries, the destruction of the network perimeter. But all this talk about change can obscure the fact that so much has not changed. Companies still maintain perimeters, after all, and they rely on nuts-and-bolts technologies to defend them. But these days, those products need to do more – especially in the area of ‘advanced threats’ that are likely to slip past traditional antivirus and IDS products. Enter Cisco Systems, which on Tuesday announced a new version of its ‘next generation firewall‘: the Cisco ASA (Adaptive Security Appliance) with FirePOWER Services. The appliance is the first to make full use of technology from Cisco’s acquisition of Sourcefire last year. Specifically, the latest ASA integrates Sourcefire’s Advanced Malware Protection (or AMP) technology, which gives the […]
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The Internet of Things: Legal Woes for CIOs | CIO
Stephanie Overby over at CIOs has an interesting piece today on the legal pitfalls that Internet of Things adoption may hold for chief information officers (CIOs). While the prospect of more, intelligent devices holds great promise for organizations across the economy, Overby notes that there are also risks – especially when it comes to the wholesale harvesting of customer data. “Many of the legal issues are not well understood even by sophisticated privacy practitioners,” the article quotes Christopher Wolf, a partner at the law firm Hogan Lovells saying. “In the world of sensors rather than computer screens, the legal issues are challenging.” CIOs are advised to consider “self-regulating” around issues like privacy, security and consent, to stay on the right side of the evolving law. CIOs should scrutinize every decision to collect user information and ask whether the benefits to collecting the data outweigh the potential costs, especially in the event of […]
Intel Promotes ‘Trustlets’ To Secure Embedded Devices
The integrity of data stored on- and transmitted between Internet-connected embedded devices is one of the biggest technical hurdles standing in the way of widespread adoption of Internet of Things technology. For one thing: embedded devices like wearable technology and “smart” infrastructure are often deployed on simple, inexpensive and resource constrained hardware. Unlike laptops or even smart phones, these are purpose-built devices that, by design, run for long periods in remote deployments, with extremely constrained features and low power consumption that is the result of limited processing power and memory. [Read Security Ledger’s coverage of connected vehicles.] Now Intel is promoting a platform that it says can bridge the gap and provide robust security features even for resource-constrained Internet of Things devices like wearables and connected vehicles. Back in April, the Intel Labs unveiled the results of joint research with Technische Universität Darmstadt in Germany. The researchers have developed a platform, dubbed TrustLite […]
Cisco: MS Word Macro Attacks Still Work Just Fine
We like to throw around the term ‘Advanced Persistent Threat’ casually these days to refer to a whole range of sophisticated and persistent attacks – usually on high value targets. But a blog post today by Cisco Systems makes clear that many otherwise sophisticated attackers do just fine with some pretty low tech and old school methods. Case in point: an attack Cisco is dubbing “String of Paerls-” a series of attacks on companies involved in research and what Cisco calls the ‘industrial manufacturing vertical.’ According to the report, the attacks start with a decidedly old school attack: a Microsoft Word document that includes a malicious Office Macro.”When the victim opens the Word document, an On-Open macro fires, which results in downloadin and executable and launching it on the victim’s machine.” Now, macro-based attacks are truly vintage. They first came to light in the late 1990s, with the Melissa virus – an early and successful […]
Is HyperCat An IoT Silo Buster? | ZDNet
Steve Ranger over at ZDNet has an interesting write-up on HyperCat, a UK-funded data sharing open specification for Internet of Things devices. The new specifications has the backing (or at least interest) of major players and could become an alternative to proprietary standards such as Apple’s HomeKit or Google Nest. HyperCat is described as an “open, lightweight, JSON-based hypermedia catalogue” that is designed to “expose information about IoT assets over the web.” The goal is to provide a set of open APIs and data formats that startups and other smaller firms can use to built ecosystems of connected objects. Smart devices are typically developed using common technologies and platforms: RESTful APIs, JSON (Javascript Object Notation) for data formatting and HTTP (or secure HTTP) as the main communications protocol. However, the Internet of Things is badly “silo’d” – meaning that interoperability between IoT devices happens only when those smart devices happen to use the […]
