In-brief: the apparent leak of data on owners of CloudPets connected stuffed animals underscores lax security and privacy practices that are common among connected products firms. (Updated with comment from Troy Hunt. PFR 2/28/2017.)
Threats
AT&T: Mirai’s Rise Seen in IoT Vulnerability Scans
In brief: In a new report, Internet provider AT&T said that scans for vulnerable IoT devices spiked in the first half of 2016, months before the Mirai botnet, made up largely of IoT devices, launched denial of service attacks on DYN and other targets.
Silent Epidemic: Data Theft has become a Public Health Crisis | Digital Guardian
In-brief: One in four Americans was the victim of data theft, but policy makers can’t find the spirit to act. What if I said that there was a disease that affected one in four adults in the U.S.? This disease caused pain and hardship and the costs of curing it were considerable – ranging to thousands of dollars per patient? And, again: one in four people contacted this disease – 25% of the adult population?Most epidemiologists would consider a disease that widely spread to be an “epidemic.” After all, the CDC considers an influenza outbreak to be an “epidemic” when around 7% of morbidity (deaths) in a given observation period are due to the flu. Here in the U.S., however, there’s a long-standing affliction bearing down on a quarter of the population, but nary a mention of the words “epidemic.” In fact, officials who monitor this disease are loath to […]
Locked and Loaded: Huge Botnet Updated for DDoS
In-brief: Researchers at Anubis Networks claim that Necurs, one of the world’s largest botnets, has added a feature for launching denial of service attacks.
Will Machine Learning and AI create Infosec Super Humans?
In-brief:will computers and artificial intelligence “kill the infosec star” (to paraphrase The Buggles) with algorithms taking the place of workers who buy food, houses, cars and clothing? Maybe not, says Dario Forte of DF Labs in this Security Ledger podcast.
