The Security Ledger with Paul F. Roberts

Recent Posts

Report: Home Depot A Common Thread Linking Trove Of Stolen Credit Cards

September 3, 2014 Paul Roberts

Home Depot said it is investigating “some unusual activity” on its networks and working with “banking partners and law enforcement,” after security blogger Brian Krebs named the company as a common thread connecting a trove of stolen credit card accounts that have appeared in underground forums. Krebs reported on Tuesday that “multiple banks” see evidence that Home Depot stores are the source of a “massive new batch” of stolen credit and debit cards that went on sale this morning in underground “carding” forums. The breach is believed to have affected Home Depot stores throughout North America – around 2,500 stores in total. The company has held off from confirming a breach, so far. And as of early Wednesday, Home Depot’s home page made no mention of the incident. In a statement to Reuters, spokesperson Paula Drake said that the company is holding off pending an internal investigation, and is working with law enforcement. […]

Hack Tool Authors Deny Link To Celeb Photo Leaks

September 2, 2014 Paul Roberts

With some of Hollywood’s biggest stars issuing statements on Monday condemning the leak of personal photographs online, attention has turned to identifying the source of the leaks. But more than 24 hours after the photos appeared, there are more questions than answers about its source. Early attention has focused on an automated tool that exploited an apparent vulnerability in Apple’s FindMyiPhone feature. But by Monday, there were denials from the makers of that tool that it played any role in the massive privacy breach that saw photos of A-list celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and others leaked online. Within hours of the photos’ appearance on the image sharing site 4chan, attention shifted to the cause of the leak and the coincidence of the leaked photos with the publication of iBrute, a simple tool available on GitHub in recent days. According to this published report by Owen Williams over at TheNextWeb, the […]

ICREACH: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google -The Intercept

August 26, 2014 Paul Roberts

The online publication The Intercept has a fascinating story on the National Security Agency’s “Google-like” search engine, which was created to chew through almost a trillion records containing “metadata:” the cell phone calls, email messages, geo-location data and other online communications the agency has harvested. The story exposes a tool called ICREACH. Author Ryan Gallagher cites classified documents obtained by The Intercept that provide what he calls hard evidence that the NSA has, through ICREACH “made massive amounts of surveillance data directly accessible to domestic law enforcement agencies” including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Read more via The Intercept with: ICREACH: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google -The Intercept.

Securing Networks in the Internet of Things Era | Help Net

August 22, 2014 Paul Roberts

Cricket Liu, the CIO of Infoblox has an interesting editorial over at Help Net Security today that looks at the challenge of securing the Internet of Things. Among other things, he reveals the results of a commissioned survey of 400 network professionals in the UK and US that revealed that 78 percent already have precursor IoT devices on their networks – including badge readers, networked cash registers, vending machines and so on. Seventy three percent of those surveyed acknowledged using connected surveillance gear like CCTV on their networks. That shouldn’t be surprising. What is surprising is that a strong majority of respondents – 63 percent – also saw those devices and IoT in general as a threat to network security. So: IoT adoption is gaining speed, and worries about IoT security are gaining traction. The survey suggests that few IT organisations have deployed IoT-specific infrastructure, such as dedicated networks for IoT devices or management […]

The Internet of Things: Legal Woes for CIOs | CIO

August 22, 2014 Paul Roberts

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 […]