application security Archives

application security

Heart Attack? Fixes For More Critical Holes In OpenSSL

June 5, 2014 Paul Roberts

Just a month after a critical security hole in OpenSSL dubbed “Heartbleed” captured headlines around the globe, The OpenSSL Foundation has issued an other critical software update fixing six more security holes, two of them critical. The Foundation issued its update on Thursday, saying that current versions of OpenSSL contain vulnerabilities that could be used to carry out “man in the middle” (or MITM) attacks against OpenSSL clients and servers. SSL VPN (virtual private network) products are believed to be especially vulnerable. Users of OpenSSL versions 0.9.8, 1.0.0 and 1.0.1 are all advised to update immediately. According to information released by the OpenSSL Foundation, an attacker using a carefully crafted handshake can force the use of “weak keying material in OpenSSL SSL/TLS clients and servers.” That could lay the groundwork for man-in-the-middle attacks in which an attacker positions herself between a vulnerable client and server, decrypting and modifying traffic as it passes through the attacker’s […]

Big GOV Shift To Secure Cloud?

June 2, 2014 Paul Roberts

For those of us covering the cyber security beat, there haven’t been many feel-good stories coming out of the federal government in – well – forever. Even before the advent of nation state sponsored hacking, the news was mostly of the federal government’s bloated and unwieldy IT infrastructure, byzantine procurement systems and the difficulty of attracting top talent away from private sector employers who could offer more pay, more autonomy and a better working environment. Then came the gut wrenching display of offensive prowess by the U.S.’s main enemies – nations like China, Russia and Iran. Those stories started, in earnest, with news about operations like Titan Rain (in 2003) and continue to the present day. The problem has gotten so bad that the military’s preferred euphemism for Chinese hackers – “advanced persistent threat,” or “APT” has become part of the nomenclature of the IT security world far beyond […]

Report: Hell is Unpatched Systems

June 2, 2014 Paul Roberts

One of the ‘subplots’ of the Internet of Things revolution concerns embedded devices. Specifically: the tendency of embedded devices to be either loosely managed or – in some cases – unmanageable. The future holds the promise of more, not fewer of these. That’s the gist of a piece I wrote for InfoWorld, and that you can read here. In short: we’re already seeing the beginning of a shift on the threat landscape. While attacks against traditional endpoints (like Windows desktops, laptops and servers) are still the norm, there are more stories each day about cyber criminal groups and malicious actors who are compromising non-standard endpoints like home wifi routers. In March, for example, the security consultancy Team Cymru identified a botnet consisting of some 300,000 compromised home routers and other in-home devices. The virus called “TheMoon” was also identified spreading between vulnerable home routers and other embedded devices. The […]

Car Makers, Suppliers Going Their Own Way On Security

June 1, 2014 Paul Roberts

I was surprised to see a big feature story over at CNN.com this morning – given that the security of connected vehicles has no obvious link to LA Clippers owner Don Sterling, the on-going shakeup at the Veterans Administration or a tornado or other natural disaster. Still – there it is: “Your car is a giant computer – and it can be hacked.” The feature, by Jose Pagliery is solid enough – though it doesn’t break much new ground. He mentions the research by Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller at The Black Hat Briefings last year. He also talks to the folks over at Security Innovation. [Want more on security and connected vehicles? Check out our video: Insecure At Any Speed: Are Automakers Failing The Software Crash Test? ] The big take-away: automobiles are rife with old and outdated software and hardware, much of it lacking even basic security features like secure communications […]

Podcast: Is Defense-In-Depth The Only Real Heartbleed Fix?

May 30, 2014 Paul Roberts

Like everyone else, we wrote extensively in the last month about the serious security vulnerability in OpenSSL dubbed “Heartbleed,” which affected many of the world’s leading web sites and services, including Facebook and Google. The large-type headlines about Heartbleed have passed. But that doesn’t mean that the danger has. As we have noted, we are entering a phase that might be considered Heartbleed’s ‘long tail.’ Most of the well-trafficked websites that were vulnerable to Heartbleed have gotten around to fixing the vulnerability. But public-facing web servers are only the beginning of the story for OpenSSL. Chasing down the vulnerability’s long tail in third-party applications and on internal web sites and applications is a much larger task. As I’ve noted: open source components make their way into all manner of applications and bespoke products these days, often without any effort to assess the security of the borrowed code. For companies that need to protect critical IT […]