vulnerabilities Archives

Tag: vulnerabilities

Traffic Safety Agency Calls Vehicle Cyber Security Standards

May 17, 2013 Paul Roberts

The U.S. Government’s lead agency for vehicle safety has told Congress that more research into “vehicle cyber security” to address the threats to a coming generation of networked automobiles that connect to the public Internet and to each other. In testimony before Congress on Thursday, David Strickland, the chief Administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) told a Senate Committee that the electronics systems are “critical to the functioning” of modern autos, and are becoming increasingly interconnected, leading to “different safety and cyber security risks.” The agency is requesting $2 million in the 2014 budget to research “vehicle electronics and emerging technologies” with an eye to developing requirements for the safety and reliability of vehicle controls. “With electronic systems assuming safety critical roles in nearly all vehicle controls, we are facing the need to develop general requirements for electronic control systems to ensure their reliability and security,” Strickland […]

AppSec And The Ghost In The Supply Chain

May 16, 2013 Paul Roberts

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

May 15, 2013 Paul Roberts

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 […]

Homeland Security Warns Of Expanding Medical Device Attacks

May 7, 2013 Paul Roberts

A bulletin published by the Department of Homeland Security has warned that the increasing use of wireless networking technology to enable medical devices expands the ways that those devices could be hacked. The bulletin, published May 4 by DHS’ National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, warns that advances in medical devices, including Internet connectivity and the use of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices in patient care “expands the attack surface” of medical devices. “Smartphones and tablets are mini computers with instant access to the internet or linked directly to a hospital’s network. The device or the network could be infected with malware designed to steal medical information if not upgraded with the latest anti-virus and spy-ware software,” DHS said. Advances in medical device technology have already greatly improved medical care, especially in areas like medical health records and remote monitoring of patients with implantable medical devices. However, too little […]

Update: Hack Investigation At Dept. of Labor Turns Up Internet Explorer 8 Zero Day Hole

May 5, 2013 Paul Roberts

A hack of the U.S. Department of Labor web site that was revealed late last week is being described as a “watering hole” style attack aimed at compromising the systems of other government workers, in part using an exploit for a previously unknown (or “zero day”) security vulnerability in some versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser.(*) Multiple reports last week indicated that a security breach of the Department of Labor web site had occurred. Accounts indicated that visitors to the site using versions of Internet Explorer were being attacked using exploits for a known vulnerability. Over the weekend, however, researchers analyzing the attacks say that it used an exploit for a zero day hole in IE8, and that details of the attack tie it to a China-based hacking group known as “DeepPanda.” In a blog post on Friday, researchers at the security firm Invincea said that they believed that the […]