application security Archives

application security

Is A Nest Botnet In Our Future? A Conversation With IoT Researcher Daniel Buentello

October 31, 2013 Paul Roberts

Daniel Buentello is one of the top security researchers out there looking into the security of common, consumer products that are part of the growing “Internet of Things.” Most recently, Buentello has been making the rounds of security cons with a presentation he calls “Weaponizing Your Coffee Pot.” The talk, which Bountello presented at the recent DerbyCon hacker conference in Kentucky and at ToorCon in Seattle in July. That talk was something of a call to arms for security folk to start poking around the growing list of IP-enabled consumer products. Buentello notes that most – including products from large firms like Belkin are insecure by design and in deployment. As we noted when we wrote about Buentello presentation early in October, the interesting stuff here is Daniel’s methodology for reverse engineering the software that runs these commercial developments, which offers something of a blueprint for others to follow. More recently, Buentello turned his gaze to […]

Report: Adobe Data Breach Ten Times Bigger Than First Reported

October 30, 2013 Paul Roberts

The huge security breach at software maker Adobe is even bigger than first reported, with more than 150 million credentials stolen, including records on up to 38 million active customers, according to a report by Brian Krebs at the web site Krebsonsecurity.com. Krebs said in a story posted Tuesday that Adobe’s initial estimates that user names and passwords for around three million customers was well short of the actual number taken by hackers who breached the company’s network. Citing a file posted by the website Anonnews.org, Krebs said the actual number of affected Adobe accounts stolen is much larger: 150 million username and hashed password pairs including credentials for 38 million “active” accounts, according to Adobe spokesperson Heather Edell. Edell told Krebs that Adobe has just completed a campaign to contact active users whose user IDs and encrypted passwords were stolen (including this author). Those customers are being encouraged to change […]

Exclusive: Apple Store Favorite IZON Cameras Riddled With Security Holes

October 24, 2013 Paul Roberts

It’s another day, another face-palm moment for the home surveillance camera industry. Just one month after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled a complaint with the maker of SecurView, a line of poorly secured home surveillance cameras, a researcher at the firm Duo Security has found a slew of even more serious security holes in the IZON Camera – a popular product that is sold in Apple Stores and Best Buy, among others. A review by The Security Ledger found dozens of such systems accessible via the public Internet, in some cases allowing anyone to peer into the interiors of private residences and businesses. Mark Stanislav, the Security Evangelist at the firm Duo Security, presented the details of a security audit of the IZON camera at a security conference in New York on Tuesday. Stanislav documented troubling security lapses including a wide-open configuration with exposed ports for accessing the device […]

Zombies Gone, Problems Persist With Emergency Alert System

October 18, 2013 Paul Roberts

More than six months after hacked Emergency Alert System (EAS) hardware allowed a phony warning about a zombie uprising to air in several U.S. states, a security consulting company is warning that serious issues persist in software from Monroe Electronics, whose equipment was compromised in the earlier attack. Software updates issued by Monroe to fix security problems with earlier versions of its software have introduced serious, new issues that could once again allow EAS devices to be compromised by a remote hacker, according to a post by Mike Davis, a researcher at the security firm IOActive on Thursday. Patches issued by Monroe Electronics, the Lyndonville, New York firm that is a leading supplier of EAS hardware, do not adequately address problems raised by Davis and others earlier this year, including the use of “bad and predictable” login credentials. Further inspection by Davis turned up other problems that were either missed […]

News Roundup: Plundering The Internet Of Things

October 16, 2013 Paul Roberts

There were two interesting pieces on the fast-evolving topic of security and the Internet of Things that are worth reading. The first is a long piece by Bob Violino over at CSO that takes the pulse of the IoT and security question right now. The big picture: its early days, but that there are some troubling trends. The vast expansion of IP-enabled devices is matched by a lack of security know-how at device makers, Violino writes. And, as the environment of “smart devices” grows, the interactions between those devices become more difficult to anticipate – especially as devices start sharing contextual data and taking actions based on that data. “As machines become autonomous they are able to interact with other machines and make decisions which impact upon the physical world,” notes Andrew Rose, a principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. Rose says. “But these are coded by […]