Software Archives

Software

You’re Invited: A Conversation on Password Security and Targeted Attacks

September 23, 2014 Paul Roberts

A note to Security Ledger readers that I’ll be facilitating a really interesting conversation this afternoon on password (in)security and how weak user authentication can undermine even the best laid security plans. The SANS Webinar, Security for the People: End User Authentication Security on the Internet” kicks off at 3:00 PM Eastern today (12:00 PM Pacific). You can register to join us using this link. My guest is DUO Security researcher Mark Stanislav, a frequent Security Ledger contributor and one of the smartest guys out there when it comes to passwords, authentication and securing the Internet of Things. There’s plenty to talk about: weak authentication schemes are the root cause of any number of prominent breaches – from the recent attacks the Apple iCloud accounts of A-list celebrities, to the breach at retailer Target (reportedly the result of a phishing attack on an HVAC contractor that Target used.) Mark and I […]

Report: Home Depot Fallout Reveals History of Lax Security, Hiring

September 23, 2014 Paul Roberts

Its a truism in cyber security that behind every great hack often lies a string of bad decisions and missed opportunities. Its also true that when you dig into the details of damaging cyber incidents, the root causes are personal and psychological as often as they are technical in nature. Organizations -even sophisticated and wealthy organizations – end up making bad decisions for all the wrong reason: failing to properly assess their risk, or pursuing short term savings when long term investment is needed. Home Depot learned via law enforcement that a breach of transaction data exposed as many as 52 million credit card transactions, the largest retail credit card breach to date. But as more comes out about the breach at home improvement giant Home Depot, it starts to look a lot more like the root causes there may have started in the HR department rather than the data center. The […]

The Key to Security in the Internet of Things – IEEE Spectrum

September 19, 2014 Paul Roberts

IEEE Spectrum has an article that provides a nice overview of security and privacy issues on the Internet of Things. The article by Mark Anderson highlights a number of the issues that have cropped up on these pages as well, namely: the rush to market in the consumer IoT space (much of it driven by crowd funding sites like IndieGoGo and Kickstarter) the lack of a strong business case for (consumer) manufacturers to build security into IoT products the tendency of large manufacturers to pursue siloed security standards that thwart efforts to build devices interconnect with other IoT infrastructure (other devices, routers, etc.) So far efforts to coordinate IoT development around a single platform or set of standards have been reduced to predictable turf battles: Google’s Thread versus multi-vendor efforts like TheAllSeen Alliance, The Open Interconnect Consortium, The Industrial Internet Consortium versus Apple HomeKit and HealthKit and others. In the […]

Cisco Updates ASA Security Appliance To Tackle Zero Day Malware

September 17, 2014 Paul Roberts

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 […]

IoT Set To Transform Manufacturing, Security is Obstacle| IDG Connect

September 15, 2014 Paul Roberts

The folks over at IDG Connect have a good overview of what the German Government calls “Industry 4.0” but many of us just think of as a branch of the Internet of Things. The blog post by Andy Roxburgh, the Vice-President of Systems and Service in Schneider Electric’s Industry Business, predicts that automation and intelligent machinery will lead to a transition from human-intensive low wage manufacturing to machine centric “smart” manufacturing that lowers costs by taking humans out of the equation and using automation to create faster, more effective and nimble manufacturing processes. “Manufacturers need to prepare for a world where value is re-defined,” Roxburgh says. “Winning companies will be those who automate their operations and use data to create the smartest processes.” No surprise: security is one major obstacle on the road to Industry 4.0 (as we’ve written before). “Universally connected devices, more data, and a boom of cloud-based technology means manufacturers and users have more […]