Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs (aka “drones”) are evolving – and fast. Just within the last five years, drones have morphed from stealthy and secretive military gear used for hunting down terrorists in the hills of Afghanistan and Yemen, to widely available consumer technology. The “consumerization” of UAV technology has created a lot of opportunities for Cool! – like this video of a UAV flying over (and almost in to) Niagra Falls. But it has also led to some problems. In March, a UAV “quadrcopter” came within a couple hundred feet of striking an Alitalia flight trying to land at JFK Airport in New York. More concerning: the FAA is set to license tens of thousands of drones for use over the U.S., many by law enforcement or private security firms. That has prompted warnings about a huge breach of privacy for U.S. citizens. But one security researcher warns that […]
Tag: software
AppSec And The Ghost In The Supply Chain
Tomorrow afternoon, Security Ledger, with help from our sponsor Veracode, will record its first video conversation. The show’s name: Talking Code (#talkingcode). The topic: application security, and – in particular – securing the supply chain. Joining me for the discussion will by Chris Wysopal, the co-founder and CTO of Veracode and Joshua Corman, the Director of Security Intelligence at Akamai Inc. Two things: you can send us questions or comments on Twitter. Our discussion will be filmed in studio, not live, but we’ll be tweeting comments live and engaging in realtime via Twitter. Just use the hashtag #talkingcode to pose questions. Say the term “supply chain,” and people immediately think of automobile and electronics manufacturers, who must assemble products from components makers scattered around the globe. These days, however, its not just manufacturers who have to worry about supply chains. Almost every company has a “supply chain” in one form or […]
New Search Engine Wants To Be A Google For Code
Researchers at The University of Cambridge in the UK have created a Google-like search engine that can peer inside applications, analyzing their underlying code. The search tool, named “Rendezvous,” has applications for a number of problems. It could be used to help reverse engineer potentially malicious files, copyright enforcement or to find evidence of plagiarism within applications, according to a blog post by Ross Anderson, a Professor of Security Engineering at the Laboratory. Rendezvous was unveiled in a seminar on Tuesday by Wei Ming Khoo, a doctoral student in the Security Group working at the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory. The engine, which can be accessed here, allows users to submit an unknown binary, which is decompiled, parsed and compared against a library of code harvested from open source projects across the Internet. Code reuse has become a pressing security issue. The application security firm Veracode has named reused […]
Fitbitten: Researchers Exploit Health Monitor To Earn Workout Rewards
Call it “the quantified self” – that intersection of powerful, IP-enabled personal health monitoring tools and (usually) Web based tools for aggregating, analyzing and reporting. The last five years has brought an explosion in these products. In addition to the long-popular gear like Garmin GPS watches – must have items for the exercise addicted – there’s a whole range of new tools for the merely “exercise curious” or folks interested in losing weight or just figure out what, exactly, they do all day. Count Nike’s FuelBand, Jawbone’s UP, and Fitbit in that category. Alas, a growing number of reports suggest that, when it comes to medical devices and health monitoring tools, the security of sensitive personal data isn’t a top priority. The latest news comes by way of researchers at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. A team of three researchers, composed of students and faculty, analyzed the Fitbit health monitoring device […]
The History Of Programming Languages – And Their Popularity
Our friends over at Veracode posted a great little infograph this week that explains the history of computer programming languages, starting with software development’s forefather foremother, the lovely Ada Lovelace, who is credited with developing the first programming language, an algorithm for a mechanical computer dubbed the Analytic Engine in 1883! The graphic describes the history of modern programming languages, including COBOL, FORTRAN and LISP in the 1950s and 60s, up to today’s dominant languages: Java, C and Objective-C. Check it out! Infographic by Veracode Application Security