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With Cars Connected to the Internet, What about Privacy? | Computerworld

September 19, 2014 Paul Roberts

Lucas Mearian has a long and quite thorough article over at Computerworld weighing the possible security and privacy risks posed by connected vehicles. Among other things, Mearian weighs the recent past and likely future of connected vehicles, noting that, “once mobile devices are connected to car infotainment systems and cars are connected to the Internet, vehicles will become a rich source of data for manufacturers, marketers, insurance providers and the government.” They’ll also be a target for hackers. The problem is that, unlike mobile phones, cars have useful lives that are measured in decades, not years – or even months. That makes it difficult for manufacturers, who want to make their vehicles state of the art, but also must deal with the reality of much longer development cycles and complex interactions between non-critical and critical on board systems. [Read more Security Ledger coverage of connected vehicles here.] A couple issues worth noting: […]

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 […]

Senate Report Warns of Attacks on Military Transport Contractors

September 18, 2014 Paul Roberts

A Senate Armed Services Committee investigation has found evidence that hackers associated with the Chinese government compromised the computer systems of U.S. Transportation Command contractors at least 20 times in a single year. The attacks pose a serious risk to the system that moves military troops and equipment. The Committee released the report on Wednesday. (PDF copy here.) It presented the results of a year-long investigation of U.S. Transportation Command, or “TRANSCOM,” found a serious gap in awareness and reporting requirements. TRANSCOM was only aware of two of the 20 intrusions, while U.S. Transportation Command remained mostly unaware of the computer compromises of contractors during and after the attacks. “These peacetime intrusions into the networks of key defense contractors are more evidence of China’s aggressive actions in cyberspace,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee’s chairman in a published statement. “Our findings are a warning that we must do much more to protect strategically significant […]

Infographic: The State of Digital America in 2025

September 16, 2014 Paul Roberts

Consumers Embrace IoT And Wearables, Worry About Security Consequences

September 16, 2014 Paul Roberts

A new survey of consumer attitudes and expectations about technology finds that a strong majority of Americans expect wearable technology and biometric security to be common within the next decade. The survey, sponsored by the security company McAfee, asked 1,500 U.S. consumers about lifestyle and technology trends in the home and workplace. The results suggest that consumers are already adjusting their expectations about the future to include pervasive connectivity, a wealth of intelligent devices – and some of the problems that come with both. More than 60% of those surveyed by McAfee said they anticipate having connected appliances like refrigerators that will “automatically add food to a running grocery list if the product is running low.” A strong majority of those polled – 84% – said they were convinced their home security systems will be connected to their mobile device. “As technology, especially the Internet of Things, continues to rapidly advance and […]