Year 2013 will be year of cyber security. CNN expects more cyber wars this year. Cybercrime is on the rise, and last year we saw more and more computer virus attacks. Security company Kaspersky Lab warns of more new cyber-threats against enterprises and mobile devices. Cyber security also relates to mobile.
Security becomes an increasingly important issue. Year 2013 is the year of cyber security. Security company Stonesoft predicts we will face a more targeted launch cyber-attacks, cyber espionage and hactivism. Cyber security is the fastest growing trend in information security and its importance will increase in the future. According to Stonesoft the current security systems are unable to provide adequate protection against targeted attacks: we require proactive cyber protection and willingness to face the unknown threats.
Hacktivism will continue. According to article Anonymous: ‘Expect us 2013′ the hacking group boasted its cyberattacks against the U.S., Syrian, and Israeli governments in 2012. They are also warning people to continue to expect this type of activity.
SCADA security was hit hard in 2012. Some of the big manufacturers hit hard have learned their lessons and test their devices more now. But how are some smaller manufacturers security testing? Metasploit has special category for SCADA
devices. Good idea to test your devices against it.
There is still work to do on Cyber security standards and SCADA standards. For example in very widely used automation security standard IEC 61508 security is addresses only in informative way (NOT MANDATORY. IEC 62443-2-4: A Baseline Security Standard for Industrial Automation Control Systems is a good starting point when thinking on SCADA systems security.
Nowadays you need to think about SCADA system security more then some years ago. Previously, it was thought that it is sufficient to isolate factory process automation system from the office networks and the Internet. This is no longer enough. Nowadays you need to think about information security of production of automation systems. You can’t keep the automation systems isolated from Internet. Accidental connections to Internet from isolated networks happen. Malware can spread through USB memory sticks (Stuxnet did that). And nowadays there are more and more business reasons to connect process automation systems to other networks. So automations system do not anymore live in complete isolation from rest of the world.
Systems with SCADA vulnerabilities have become easier to find. Hackers tap SCADA vuln search engine article tells a search engine that indexes servers and other internet devices is helping hackers to find industrial control systems that are vulnerable to tampering. Search engine Shodan easily pinpoints shoddy industrial controls. Shodan makes it easy to locate internet-facing SCADA, or supervisory control and data acquisition, systems used to control equipment at gasoline refineries, power plants and other industrial facilities. The search engine can also be used to identify systems with known vulnerabilities. Shodan makes networks more vulnerable to brute-force attacks on passwords, many of which may still use factory defaults.
Thousands of SCADA Devices Discovered On the Open Internet article tells that there are all the time news of the continuing poor state of security for industrial control systems. The pair of researchers with found found not only devices used for critical infrastructure such as energy, water and other utilities, but also SCADA devices for HVAC systems, building automation control systems, large mining trucks, traffic control systems, red-light cameras and even crematoriums. Never underestimate what you can do with a healthy list of advanced operator search terms and a beer budget.
Researchers have also found crippling flaws in GPS receivers. Global Positioning System infrastructure critical to the navigation of a host of military and civilian technologies including planes, ships and unmanned drones. GPS system is also used to generate accurate clocks in SCADA system and smart grid devices. Researchers showed that they could permanently de-synchronise the date of Phasor Measurement Units used in smart grid and cause UNIX epoch rollover in a few minutes. The overall landscape of GPS vulnerabilities is startling.
Happy now? Mobiles, cloud, big data now ‘a growing security risk’ article tells that innovations in mobile and cloud computing, social technology and the use of “big data” present an emerging risk to organisations’ IT security, experts have warned. The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), which is an EU advisory body, said that those technologies would increasingly provide the platform for “most of the innovation expected in the area of IT” and warned that with their emergence would come an associated increased cyber threat. ENISA warned that the threat stemming from mobile computing comes from the fact that mobile communications take place over “poorly secured … or unsecured channels”. The most significant threat stems from hackers inserting malicious software in website browser and other software available on mobile devices. Cyber criminals could also use the capabilities of cloud computing for their own gains, such as by storing malware in those systems and using the technology as a platform to launch attacks.
Drive-by downloads attacks against web browsers have become the top web threat. More specifically, attackers are moving into targeting browser plugins such as Java (Java exploits are the major cross-platform threat), Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash. The drive-by download attacks are almost exclusively launched through compromised legitimate websites which are used by attackers to host malicious links and actual malicious code. Exploits are sold for considerable amount of money and quickly included into exploit kits.
Africa’s Coming Cyber-Crime Epidemic article tells that last decade may have just been the first step in a looming African cyber-crime wave. Africa has the world’s fastest-growing middle class, whose members are increasingly tech-savvy and Internet connected and lax law enforcement is a perfect petri dish for increased cybercrime.
European wide cyber police started. EU’s new European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) was just opened few days ago. The facility will act as the “focal point” in the EU’s fight against cybercrime, against both businesses and private citizens. EC3 will act as a hub where crime-fighters can pool expertise and information, support criminal investigations and help develop and spread best practice. It will work with industry to develop threat assessments. It will work closely with the FBI and the US Secret service, in addition to other foreign agencies.
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Tomi says:
India sets up nationwide snooping programme to tap your emails, phones
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/enterprise-it/security/India-sets-up-nationwide-snooping-programme-to-tap-your-emails-phones/articleshow/20678562.cms
NEW DELHI: India has launched a wide-ranging surveillance program that will give its security agencies and even income tax officials the ability to tap directly into e-mails and phone calls without oversight by courts or parliament, several sources said.
The expanded surveillance in the world’s most populous democracy, which the government says will help safeguard national security, has alarmed privacy advocates at a time when allegations of massive US digital snooping beyond American shores has set off a global furor.
The Central Monitoring System (CMS) was announced in 2011 but there has been no public debate and the government has said little about how it will work or how it will ensure that the system is not abused.
“Security of the country is very important. All countries have these surveillance programs,” said a senior telecommunications ministry official, defending the need for a large-scale eavesdropping system like CMS.
movies documentary says:
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Tomi Engdahl says:
EXCLUSIVE: US spies on Chinese mobile phone companies, steals SMS data: Edward Snowden
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1266821/us-hacks-chinese-mobile-phone-companies-steals-sms-data-edward-snowden
The US government is stealing millions of text messages in their hacking attacks on major Chinese mobile phone companies, Edward Snowden has told the Post
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Web mail providers leave door open for NSA surveillance
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57590389-38/how-web-mail-providers-leave-door-open-for-nsa-surveillance/
Protecting users’ e-mail privacy from the National Security Agency and other intelligence services means using encryption. But with the exception of Google, few companies do everything they can.
Over the last decade or so, Web mail providers began to turn on encryption to armor the connections between users’ computers and Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail and other services.
But during the next step, when those e-mail messages are transferred from one company’s servers to another’s, they’re rarely encrypted.
“The incentives aren’t really there for companies to try to implement it,”
A survey of top mail providers shows that Google is alone in using strong encryption, known as SMTP-TLS, to fully armor e-mail connections for its users, as long as the other company’s server is willing to encrypt as well. SMTP-TLS also protects employee e-mail at security-conscious companies, large law firms, and sensitive government agencies including the NSA, the White House, and the Department of Homeland Security. (You can check on your own provider by typing in your e-mail address at CheckTLS.com.)
Unfortunately, those are the exceptions. Facebook, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and AOL Mail do not accept incoming e-mail in SMTP-TLS encrypted form, meaning hundreds of millions of users’ private communications are vulnerable to monitoring. Both the sending and receiving servers must have encryption turned on for a secure connection to happen.
One reason why so many mail providers don’t encrypt server-to-server mail links using SMTP-TLS is that, unlike browser encryption, this security precaution would be invisible to users. And the fat pipes that backbone providers provide have historically been viewed as safe. (SMTP-TLS stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Transport Layer Security. TLS was published as an Internet protocol in 1999.)
Tomi Engdahl says:
In Depth Review: New NSA Documents Expose How Americans Can Be Spied on Without A Warrant
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/depth-review-new-nsa-documents-expose-how-americans-can-be-spied-without-warrant
The Guardian published a new batch of secret leaked FISA court and NSA documents yesterday, which detail the particulars of how government has been accessing Americans’ emails without a warrant, in violation of the Constitution. The documents lay bare fundamental problems with the ineffectual attempts to place meaningful limitations on the NSA’s massive surveillance program.
Essentially, the new documents, dated July 2009 and approved in August 2010, detail how the NSA deals with the huge streams of information it receives during the collection program that gathers the content of email and telephone calls, allowing it to keep vast quantities of content it could never get with a warrant. They may not be the current procedures
Tomi Engdahl says:
Finnish computer security experts do not like the British spy stir in surprise. United Kingdom has been for decades one of the most significant intelligence giants and signals intelligence pioneers.
Information British signals intelligence espionage fiber-optic network is a Finnish security authorities, rather than the confirmation of a surprise. Information security to new revelations have been long awaited evidence.
However, the scope of the inquiry may be security experts toes. Less than fifty fiber optic network means a great slices of the world’s fiber optic lines, and the United Kingdom is one of the world’s telecommunications hubs. European data streams United Kingdom is haarautumispaikka and network traffic congestion.
Europe, the United States runs the data is scrolled almost inevitably controlled by the British signals intelligence fiber optic cables. Information Society Development Centre of Research and Development, Jyrki Plant points out that the cooperation has a long history in the intelligence world.
- In fact, I would be surprised if the NSA had stopped cooperation with the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They have a long history of signals intelligence. Cooperation extends back decades.
- Perhaps the most embarrassing was that the United Kingdom was caught. This has been speculation for years, but co-operation (the UK and the U.S.) has not been a continuation of the screen. In particular, it is strange that the British authorities to hand over authority in the United States saw a lot of information.
British and U.S. intelligence cooperation is Jyrki Plant incompatible with the EU’s security objectives. European security authorities will marvel at the NSA’s activities in UK works in partnership with the United States.
eputy Director of Communications Office Erka Koivunen says that the optical fibers have replaced the satellites.
- Optical fiber passes all traffic. There, go to the internet traffic, phone calls, video streams and social media communications. Even twenty years ago, satellite was the most important source of information. Now the optical fiber passes all of data traffic.
Source: http://yle.fi/uutiset/suomalainen_nettivirta_kulkee_ison-britannian_kautta/6700656
Tomi Engdahl says:
GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world’s communications
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa
Exclusive: British spy agency collects and stores vast quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories and calls, and shares them with NSA, latest documents from Edward Snowden reveal
Britain’s spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world’s phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA).
The sheer scale of the agency’s ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate.
One key innovation has been GCHQ’s ability to tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fibre-optic cables for up to 30 days so that it can be sifted and analysed. That operation, codenamed Tempora, has been running for some 18 months.
GCHQ and the NSA are consequently able to access and process vast quantities of communications between entirely innocent people, as well as targeted suspects.
This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user’s access to websites – all of which is deemed legal, even though the warrant system was supposed to limit interception to a specified range of targets.
The existence of the programme has been disclosed in documents shown to the Guardian by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as part of his attempt to expose what he has called “the largest programme of suspicionless surveillance in human history”.
“It’s not just a US problem. The UK has a huge dog in this fight,” Snowden told the Guardian. “They [GCHQ] are worse than the US.”
The Guardian understands that a total of 850,000 NSA employees and US private contractors with top secret clearance had access to GCHQ databases.
The documents reveal that by last year GCHQ was handling 600m “telephone events” each day, had tapped more than 200 fibre-optic cables and was able to process data from at least 46 of them at a time.
Each of the cables carries data at a rate of 10 gigabits per second, so the tapped cables had the capacity, in theory, to deliver more than 21 petabytes a day – equivalent to sending all the information in all the books in the British Library 192 times every 24 hours.
UK officials could also claim GCHQ “produces larger amounts of metadata than NSA”. (Metadata describes basic information on who has been contacting whom, without detailing the content.)
By May last year 300 analysts from GCHQ, and 250 from the NSA, had been assigned to sift through the flood of data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
US DoJ: Happy b-day, Ed Snowden! You’re (not?) charged with capital crimes
Complaint accuses NSA leaker of espionage, theft, and more
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/21/edward_snowden_charged_with_espionage/
Edward Snowden, the former security contractor who leaked secret NSA documents to The Washington Post and The Guardian newspapers, received an unwelcome birthday present on June 21; namely, he has been formally accused of spying by the US government.
In a sealed criminal complaint, federal prosecutors charged Snowden with espionage, theft, and “conversion of government property,” The Washington Post reported on Friday – the latter charge being a fancy way of saying he accessed the government’s stuff without proper authority.
Snowden, who turned 30 on Friday, was working for Booz Allen Hamilton at a facility in Hawaii when he approached US and British newspapers with secret documents regarding top-secret NSA surveillance programs, including mass telephone surveillance and the now-infamous PRISM project.
“I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under,” Snowden told The Guardian. “My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
NSA hacked China’s top carriers in hunt for SMS data – report
Snow joke for NSA as latest revelations point to extensive campaign
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/24/snowden_china_carriers_hacked_nsa/
PRISM snitch Edward Snowden responded to the US government formally charging him with spying on Friday with fresh revelations that the NSA hacked China’s three state-run telcos in a bid to nab SMS data.
In another carefully-timed disclosure, this time to Hong Kong’s Sunday Morning Post, Snowden handed over confidential documents apparently revealing the extensive attacks against China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom.
The three have a combined subscriber base of over one billion
US government attackers are also said to have targeted the Hong Kong HQ of submarine cable network giant Pacnet, which counts China’s carriers among its customers and runs an extensive network across the Asia Pacific.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Snowden: ‘Hey, Assange, any more room on Ecuador’s sofa?’
NSA whistleblower trumps WikiLeaker by actually travelling to US-proof nation
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/24/snowden_seeks_asylum_ecuador/
NSA PRISM whistleblower Edward Snowden has requested asylum in none other than Ecuador, the country that’s also technically safeguarding WikiLeaker Julian Assange.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Snowden spy row grows as US is accused of hacking China
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/22/edward-snowden-us-china
Whistleblower charged with espionage reportedly claims US authorities accessed millions of private text messages in China
Tomi Engdahl says:
EXCLUSIVE: NSA targeted China’s Tsinghua University in extensive hacking attacks, says Snowden
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1266892/exclusive-nsa-targeted-chinas-tsinghua-university-extensive-hacking
Tsinghua University, widely regarded as the mainland’s top education and research institute, was the target of extensive hacking by US spies this year
It is not known how many times the prestigious university has been attacked by the NSA but details shown to the Post by Snowden reveal that one of the most recent breaches was this January.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 Ways to Avoid BYOD Nightmares
http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/06/byod-trend-productivity-security.html
Ten or 15 years ago, managing your information technology was simpler in one sense. A company decided on its computing environment -– its designated operating system, devices and software –- and that’s what employees used. Period.
But then along came the BYOD trend.
BYOD Trend Challenges for Small Businesses
Tomi Engdahl says:
Anger mounts after Facebook’s ‘shadow profiles’ leak in bug
http://www.zdnet.com/anger-mounts-after-facebooks-shadow-profiles-leak-in-bug-7000017167/
Summary: Facebook said Friday it fixed a bug that exposed contact info for over six million accounts. The admission revealed its ‘shadow profile’ data collection activities, and users are furious.
Friday Facebook announced the fix of a bug it said inadvertently exposed the private information of over six million users when Facebook’s previously unknown shadow profiles accidentally merged with user accounts in data history record requests.
According to Reuters, the data leak spanned a year beginning in 2012.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Important Message from Facebook’s White Hat Program
https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-security/important-message-from-facebooks-white-hat-program/10151437074840766
When people upload their contact lists or address books to Facebook, we try to match that data with the contact information of other people on Facebook in order to generate friend recommendations.
Because of the bug, some of the information used to make friend recommendations and reduce the number of invitations we send was inadvertently stored in association with people’s contact information as part of their account on Facebook. As a result, if a person went to download an archive of their Facebook account through our Download Your Information (DYI) tool, they may have been provided with additional email addresses or telephone numbers for their contacts or people with whom they have some connection. This contact information was provided by other people on Facebook and was not necessarily accurate, but was inadvertently included with the contacts of the person using the DYI tool.
We’ve concluded that approximately 6 million Facebook users had email addresses or telephone numbers shared.
We currently have no evidence that this bug has been exploited maliciously
tomi says:
You Don’t Have To Like Edward Snowden
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/you-dont-have-to-like-edward-snowden
Reporters have always been comfortable ignoring their sources’ motives. Now everybody else needs to get used to that.
One of the most difficult features of the new news environment is that everybody gets to see the utter mess of the early hours of a breaking news story — the chaos, the bad information off the scanner, the misidentifications. Those are things that used to take place inside the newsroom
Snowden is what used to be known as a source. And reporters don’t, and shouldn’t, spend too much time thinking about the moral status of their sources. Sources sometimes act from the best of motives — a belief that readers should know something is amiss, or a simple desire to see a good story told.
They also often act from motives far more straightforwardly venal than anything than has been suggested of Snowden: They want to screw someone who is in their way professionally; they want to score an ideological point by revealing a personal misdeed; they are acting on an old grudge, and serving revenge cold; they are collecting chits with the press to be cashed in later.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home Office launches £4m cyber security awareness scheme
Be afraid. Be judiciously afraid
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/24/home_office_cyber_education_scheme/
The UK Home Office has launched a new £4m information security awareness campaign, designed to educate businesses and consumers about rising hacker threats. The first stage of the campaign is due to get underway in the autumn.
Tomi says:
Many Internet users do not take into account what the photo contains hidden information. Was loaded in the photo metadata can reveal, for example your home address and the location of the treasure.
The majority of camera phones and digital cameras have a GPS feature that will allow the image data saved on the scene coordinates.
Image metadata can visualize the importance of the popular Flickr photo sharing service, map search, which searches for images in a region.
- The service displays the metadata often on the basis of the images, which is certainly not the thought that tells the user a wide range of location, says security company F-Secure’s Chief Research Officer Mikko Hypponen.
Metadata editing afterwards can be a daunting task, but entirely possible.
- The metadata is able to edit and delete the various programs that the most graphics programs
Source: http://www.iltalehti.fi/digi/2013062417185962_du.shtml
Tomi says:
Media phone-hacking? Tip of the iceberg, says leaked police report
Thought the NotW was bad… check out the lawyers, insurers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/24/private_eye_malfeasance/
A suppressed report from “Britain’s FBI” has revealed that the rich, insurance companies, law firms and telecoms companies hired private investigators to run unlawful hacking and blagging campaigns of the type that brought down Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, according to The Independent.
The newspaper reports that the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) was aware about this illegal activity for six years, but did little to disrupt its activity.
The Independent says the “bombshell report” – codenamed Project Riverside – found that rich individuals and private companies had been hiring unscrupulous private detectives to obtain sensitive information on targets for years.
Tomi says:
Security Needs More Designers, Not Architects
http://www.darkreading.com/management/security-needs-more-designers-not-archit/240156950
The overall experience of using any manmade object (physical or digital) is a direct outcome of its design. This is as true for security as it is for a chair, an automobile, or anything else.
The additional challenge for security is that, unlike many other things we interact with, ideally it makes a problem disappear, and does so invisibly. Security is fundamentally about preventing unwanted outcomes, and it is one of the most difficult design problems out there.
Gunnar Peterson once said in a Securosis research meeting, “Every security control is a denial-of-service attack against your users.” No one wants to enter a password, set an access control, update his anti-malware, or classify a document.
In the context of Mogull’s Law, this means the best security is often that which offers users the easiest path. For end users this increases compliance with security needs, and for security administrators it means they can solve security issues more quickly.
This is easy to say, but translating it to design is incredibly difficult, especially since usability and security can’t always be completely reconciled.
Consumer-focused organizations like Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe have been focusing more on the user experience side of security design for a few years, with growing success. For example, Microsoft defaults software update options for the operating system so it is more difficult for users to avoid patching than updating their systems.
The goal when implementing security for end users should be to make a problem disappear, implement the security control as invisibly as possible, and steer users toward the most secure option with positive, not negative, reinforcement. Security should seamlessly integrate with their workflows, not add an obstacle that impedes their ability to get their work done.
Tomi says:
Beware Of HTML5 Development Risks
http://www.darkreading.com/applications/beware-of-html5-development-risks/240156891
HTML5 includes a number of useful features that pose as double-edged swords from a security perspective.
“It provides a slew of new programming methods to websites that could present new security challenges and privacy risks to end users and site operators alike,” says Aaron Rhodes, senior security consultant for Neohapsis, a mobile and cloud security services firm.
“At the end of the day, one of the biggest changes is the change of functionality that HTML5 brings, which is its all pushed to the client. That’s one of the beauties and also one of the dangers of HTML5,”
Local storage is a big change from HTML of the past
it also opens up a new field of opportunity to attackers. “An attacker could retrieve this data or manipulate the data, which would then get used again later by the application and may be uploaded back to the server to attack others, as well.”
In fact, he recently ran into a bank that used example HTML5 code for training developers that put data in permanent storage on the client system as opposed to temporary storage.
“Another area of concern is rights-based access to system services, such as camera, microphone, and GPS,” says Dan Shappir, CTO of Ericom Software, a remote access software developer that has embraced HTML5. “It is highly likely that many users will grant access to such services without considering the security and privacy implications.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
New EU Rules Require ISPs, Telcos To Come Clean Within 24 Hours of Data Breaches
http://it.slashdot.org/story/13/06/25/0135206/new-eu-rules-require-isps-telcos-to-come-clean-within-24-hours-of-data-breaches
“Under new EU regulations ISPs and Telcos serving European customers will have to come clean within 24 hours in case of a security or data breach that leads to theft, loss, or compromise of data. Companies will have to disclose the nature and size of the breach within the first 24 hours.”
“If the breach ‘is likely to adversely affect’ personal information or privacy, affected businesses and consumers will be notified of the breach.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
New EU rules require ISPs, Telcos to come clean within 24 hours of data breach
http://paritynews.com/government/item/1160-new-eu-rules-require-isps-telcos-to-come-clean-within-24-hours-of-data-breach
Under new EU regulations ISPs and Telcos serving European customers will have to come clean in case of a security or data breach within 24 hours.
Telecom operators or Internet service providers (ISPs) operating in Europe who suffer from data breach that leads to loss of personal data or theft of such data or data is compromised in any way will have to notify national data protection authorities within 24 hours. Companies will have to disclose the nature and size of the breach within the first 24 hours and wherever it’s not possible to submit such data, they must “initial information” within the stipulated time with full details within three days.
Under the new terms the affected organizations will be required to reveal information such as information that has been compromised and the steps that have been taken or will be taken to resolve the situation. If the breach “is likely to adversely affect” personal information or privacy, affected businesses and consumers will be notified of the breach.
tomi says:
Steelie Neelie eyeballs ENCRYPTION PLAN for telco data breaches
That way you won’t need to tell subscribers you’ve lost their stuff – EU veep
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2013/06/25/neelie_kroes_eu_new_rules_on_isp_data_losses/
Telcos in Europe are being asked to consider encrypting their subscribers’ personal information as Brussels confirmed new rules on Monday about the industry’s obligation to notify customers about data breaches.
The European Union’s unelected digital czar, “Steelie” Neelie Kroes, said that if ISPs agreed to shield the data with difficult-to-crack code then companies would not be required to tell the subscriber when a breach of their data has occurred.
The EC said it would be publishing “an indicative list of technological protection measures, such as encryption techniques, which would render the data unintelligible to any person not authorised to see it.”
By encrypting the data, the Commission said the “burden” of companies having to inform national authorities about a breach would be lifted, because the subscriber’s personal data would apparently be safeguarded.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Critics: collection of data does not prevent terrorism – “too Sci-Fi’
Recently discovered U.S. and British authorities in respect of calls and network traffic spy is not an effective way to prevent terrorism, argue critics.
The collection of data makes it easy to know many people a lot, but a danger to persons is difficult to recognize, claims the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent and former civil rights puolustuvan ACLU The representative Mike German.
A massive collection innocent people will not tell you how to threaten people behave, German believes.
According to him, terrorists do not have to chase it has been a problem that data should be too low, but primarily in that the data has failed to analyze the necessary information.
Urkinnalla collected masses of data collection is the “needle in a haystack bigger houses,” says the author of it, Wendy Grossman.
White House’s former civil rights in the Timothy Edgar, however, defend the part of the data collection.
Edgargaan not completely lost his NSA’s spying activities. According to him, the matter should have been made public.
It the fashion industry term for big data would also be charmed authorities.
Technology and information security consultant Ashkan Soltani according to analytics are not guaranteed to work just as it is annealed.
“The trouble is, if you claim to be able to predict the future, as long as you only have enough for a lot of data.”
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/kriitikot+tietojen+keraaminen+ei+esta+terrorismia++quotliian+scifiaquot/a911429?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-26062013&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Greenwald: Snowden’s Files Are Out There if ‘Anything Happens’ to Him
by Eli Lake Jun 25, 2013 1:36 PM EDT
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/25/greenwald-snowden-s-files-are-out-there-if-anything-happens-to-him.html
Snowden has shared encoded copies of all the documents he took so that they won’t disappear if he does, Glenn Greenwald tells Eli Lake.
The former NSA systems administrator has already given encoded files containing an archive of the secrets he lifted from his old employer to several people. If anything happens to Snowden, the files will be unlocked.
Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who Snowden first contacted in February, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that Snowden “has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published.” Greenwald added that the people in possession of these files “cannot access them yet because they are highly encrypted and they do not have the passwords.” But, Greenwald said, “if anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives.”
The fact that Snowden has made digital copies of the documents he accessed while working at the NSA poses a new challenge to the U.S. intelligence community that has scrambled in recent days to recover them and assess the full damage of the breach. Even if U.S. authorities catch up with Snowden and the four classified laptops the Guardian reported he brought with him to Hong Kong the secrets Snowden hopes to expose will still likely be published.
A former U.S. counterintelligence officer following the Snowden saga closely said his contacts inside the U.S. intelligence community “think Snowden has been planning this for years and has stashed files all over the Internet.” This source added, “At this point there is very little anyone can do about this.”
“I don’t know for sure whether [Snowden] has more documents than the ones he has given me,” Greenwald said. “I believe he does. He was clear he did not want to give to journalists things he did not think should be published.”
“He was not trying to harm the U.S. government; he was trying to shine light on it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Google report shows malware by country: highest rates in India, Central Europe
http://gigaom.com/2013/06/25/new-google-report-shows-malware-by-country-highest-rates-in-india-central-europe/
Summary:
Google has expanded its Transparency Report to include the global malware problem. The new feature includes a map that shows which countries have the highest rate of infected sites.
The highest rate of malware, however, doesn’t belong to obvious suspects like Russia or Ukraine (8% each), but instead India (15%) and many Latin American countries like Mexico (12%) and Chile (11%). Central Europe also had high malware rates, in particular Hungary (15%) and Bosnia (16%). Google cautions that this data is “not comprehensive and is best viewed as an indicator of the global malware problem.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google report
https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/malware/#region=ALL&period=90&size=LARGE&compromised&attack&asn=36057&page=1
Tomi Engdahl says:
ICANN working group seeks to kill WHOIS
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/465895/icann_working_group_seeks_kill_whois/
An ICANN working group is seeking input on a replacement for the current WHOIS system for retrieving details of domain name registrations
The Expert Working Group on gTLD Directory Services (EWG) has issued a report (PDF) that recommends a radical change from WHOIS. The working group, which had a clean-slate approach to a new domain name information, was formed “to help resolve the nearly decade-long deadlock within the ICANN community on how to replace the current WHOIS system, which is widely regarded as ‘broken.’”
With the current system, client software can retrieve database records from a WHOIS server run by a registrar or registry that typically list details such as administrative and technical contact details for the owner of a domain name, name servers and details of the registration and expiry dates of a domain.
The EWG is proposing a shift to an “aggregated RDS [registration data service] (ARDS) model”, whereby most access to domain name registration details would be provided from a central repository.
Access to the ‘live’ domain records maintained by gTLD registries would also be possible via the ARDS “upon request and subject to controls to deter overuse or abuse of this option”.
“Requestors” – people who want to query the data maintained by ARDS – would have to apply for the right to access domain information.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Do your Facebook friends a favour. Remove all your imported contacts now
http://grahamcluley.com/2013/06/facebook-users-nice-friends-remove-imported-contacts/
Are you careful about your online security? Have you been sensible over the years about what information about yourself you choose to share with Facebook?
Good. Well done.
Unfortunately, it isn’t enough.
Because, you don’t just need to be careful about what information you *yourself* have uploaded to Facebook. You also need to worry about what *other* people might have been sharing about you.
The truth is that, even if you have never had a Facebook account, the website might know your email address and phone number because of what your friends, acquaintances and colleagues might have told the website – perhaps unwittingly.
How to remove all your imported contacts from Facebook
So, here’s how you resolve the issue.
Remove all of your imported contacts by visiting this page on Facebook.
Note that if you do decide to remove your imported contacts, Facebook’s suggestions as to who you should connect with may reduce in quality. But that’s a small price to pay for helping respect your friends’ privacy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ORIGINAL NSA WHISTLEBLOWER: I Saw The Order To Wiretap Barack Obama In 2004
Tice claimed that he held NSA wiretap orders targeting numerous members of the U.S. government, including one for a young senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.
That sounds like a lot of abuse of the rules that govern NSA domestic spying. And that’s exactly what Tice is claiming.
“The abuse is rampant and everyone is pretending that it’s never happened, and it couldn’t happen. … I know [there was abuse] because I had my hands on the papers for these sorts of things”
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-nsa-spied-on-barack-obama-2004-russ-tice-2013-6#ixzz2XPAYuUt
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Much is Your Gmail Worth?
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/06/how-much-is-your-gmail-worth/
If you use Gmail and have ever wondered how much your account might be worth to cyber thieves, have a look at Cloudsweeper, a new service launching this week that tries to price the value of your Gmail address based on the number of retail accounts you have tied to it and the current resale value of those accounts in the underground.
The brainchild of researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Cloudsweeper’s account theft audit tool scans your inbox and presents a breakdown of how many accounts connected to that address an attacker could seize if he gained access to your Gmail. Cloudsweeper then tries to put an aggregate price tag on your inbox, a figure that’s computed by totaling the resale value of other account credentials that crooks can steal if they hijack your email.
In a blog post earlier this month titled The Value of a Hacked Email Account, I noted that many people do not realize how much they have invested in their email account until that account is in the hands of cyber crooks.
That post quoted prices from one seller in the cybercrime underground who buys compromised accounts, such as hacked iTunes accounts for $8, or credentials to Groupon.com for $5, for example.
“So with the user’s expressed permission only, we’ll store stuff like, ‘there was a password that was duplicated in seven different emails and the user chose to redact them all,’” Kanich said. ”It’s a little bit funny because you don’t have to give us your password for Cloudsweeper to work, but a big reason you’re coming to us is so we can find your other account credentials.”
Click the blue “Cleartext Password Audit” button from the Cloudsweeper homepage and the service will scour your inbox for passwords that various third-party services may have sent to you in plain text.
This process works by loading your messages via the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), which lets users edit messages in their inboxes. Using IMAP, Cloudsweeper can redact or encrypt just the plaintext password in any email, leaving the rest of the message intact and untouched.
The password redaction/encryption feature is nifty, but it might be more trouble than it’s worth. After all, crooks who gain access to your Gmail account can simply request a new password from the site that sent it in the first place.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ex-Pentagon general target of leak investigation, sources say
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/27/19174350-ex-pentagon-general-target-of-leak-investigation-sources-say
Legal sources tell NBC News that the former second ranking officer in the U.S. military is now the target of a Justice Department investigation into a politically sensitive leak of classified information about a covert U.S. cyber attack on Iran’s nuclear program.
According to legal sources, Retired Marine Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has received a target letter informing him that he’s under investigation for allegedly leaking information about a massive attack using a computer virus named Stuxnet on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Gen. Cartwright, 63, becomes the latest individual targeted over alleged leaks by the Obama administration, which has already prosecuted or charged eight individuals under the Espionage Act.
Last year, the New York Times reported that Cartwright, a four-star general who was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs from 2007 to 2011, conceived and ran the cyber operation, called Olympic Games, under Presidents Bush and Obama.
The Times story included details of the Olympic Games operation, including the cooperation of Israeli intelligence and the way the virus was introduced to an Iranian nuclear facility.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reporting 1.2K crashes
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2013/06/msg00720.html
I am a security researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, and my team
has found thousands of crashes in binaries downloaded from debian
wheeze packages. After contacting [email protected], Don Armstrong
advised us to contact you before submitting ~1.2K bug reports to the
Debian BTS using [email protected] (to avoid spamming
debian-bugs-dist).
We found the bugs using Mayhem [1], an automatic bug finding system
that we’ve been developing in David Brumley’s research lab for a
couple of years. We recently ran Mayhem on almost all ELF binaries of
Debian Wheezy (~23K binaries) [2], and it reported thousands of
crashes.
This is a lot of bugs, and we want to make sure we’re doing bug
reports right
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacked without knowing it
http://www.controleng.com/industry-news/single-article/hacked-without-knowing-it/e5d9c2b312d10880e3c64a3745751d9a.html
Engineering and IT Insight: Cyber-criminals are stealing manufacturing companies’ intellectual property (IP). Is your lack of cyber security hardware, software, and best practices giving away millions of dollars of IP to unknown competitors without your knowledge?
Companies compromised by directed attacks, usually called advanced persistent threats (APTs), have included those in the aerospace, energy, transportation, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, engineering services, high-tech electronics, chemicals, food and agriculture, and metals industries. Information stolen has included product development data, test results, system designs, product manuals, parts lists, simulation technologies, manufacturing procedures, descriptions of proprietary processes, standard operating procedures, and waste management processes. This is information that can be used to replicate production facilities. Many companies think this information has little value outside their company, but if they have global competition and the competition can replicate products and processes at a fraction of the cost, there will be damages.
Most of your competitors will not resort to using illicitly acquired information, but if your competition is based in a country with limited intellectual property rights, or even in a country actively stealing manufacturing IP, then you are at risk. If you are at risk, you may have already been hacked and not even know it. Intellectual property theft is done in a stealth mode. There is a saying among cyber security experts that there are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked, and those that don’t yet know they have been hacked.
Once an APT has established access, the thief will periodically revisit the victim’s network over several months or years and steal technology blueprints, proprietary manufacturing processes, recipes, SOPs, and test results. APTs have been known to maintain access for several years and steal gigabytes of data before they were eventually detected.
With physical security, a company can reduce your risk by operating in safe neighborhoods, alarming all of your windows and doors, and hiring security guards. Unfortunately, with cyber security there are no safe neighborhoods. The Internet has put cyber-criminals only one click away from your doorstep, so we are all in the same electronic neighborhood
Many attacks are introduced through infected USB drives and email, but report back through Internet communications. IT departments should have procedures in place to monitor all outbound Internet traffic for suspicious and atypical behavior.
For example, there may be a burst of communications to overseas servers from a manufacturing server at the same time every day, or a set of port scans coming from a server that should be running only document management services. These are indications of a compromised system.
tomi says:
Interesting Slashdot discussion:
Explaining Cloud Privacy Risks To K-12 Teachers?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/06/29/188253/ask-slashdot-explaining-cloud-privacy-risks-to-k-12-teachers
“With the advent of Google Apps for Education, there has been a massive uptake by the K12 schools I deal with on signing students up with their own Google powered email address under the school domain. This combined by the fact that the students’ work when using Google Apps is stored offshore and out of our control — with no explicit comeback if TOS are breached by Google — it seems to me that the school cannot with integrity maintain it has control over the data and its use.”
“the students are getting a digital footprint from the age of seven and are unaware of the implications this may have later in life.”
“Does anyone have ideas about defining the parameters of ‘informed consent’ where we inform of risks without bringing about paranoia? (Google Apps is just an example here, I think it applies to many cloud services.)”
Tomi says:
Facebook’s outmoded Web crypto opens door to NSA spying
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57591560-38/facebooks-outmoded-web-crypto-opens-door-to-nsa-spying/
It’s relatively easy for the National Security Agency’s spooks to break outdated Web encryption after vacuuming up data from fiber taps, cryptographers say. But Facebook is still using it.
Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden confirm that the NSA taps into fiber optic cables “upstream” from Internet companies and vacuums up e-mail and other data that “flows past” — a security vulnerability that “https” Web encryption is intended to guard against.
But Facebook and a few other companies still rely on an encryption technique viewed as many years out of date, which cryptographers say the NSA could penetrate reasonably quickly after intercepting the communications. Facebook uses encryption keys with a length of only 1024 bits, while Web companies including Apple, Microsoft, Twitter, Dropbox, and even Myspace have switched to exponentially more secure 2,048-bit keys.
Eran Tromer, an assistant professor of computer science at Tel Aviv University who wrote his 2007 dissertation on custom code-breaking hardware, said it’s now “feasible to build dedicated hardware devices that can break 1024-bit RSA keys at a cost of under $1 million per device.” Each dedicated device would be able to break a 1024-bit key in one year, he said.
“Realistically, right now, breaking 1024-bit RSA should be considered well within reach by leading nations, and marginally safe against other players,” Tromer said. “This is unsatisfactory as the default security level of the Internet.”
The NSA’s budget is estimated to be at least $10 billion a year.
“Some companies may not feel that intelligence agencies are a threat they care about, so may feel less pressure to upgrade,” said Ron Rivest, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, and the “R” in RSA. Tromer’s published estimates of code-breaking times are “plausible,” Rivest said, and it’s possible that “additional benefits might be obtained by an intensive research and engineering push.”
Factoring a 1024-bit RSA key is about 1,000 times as hard as a 768-bit key — an expensive but hardly difficult task for the NSA or other well-resourced national intelligence agencies. That’s why NIST recommended (PDF) that 1024-bit RSA keys are no longer viable after 2010, and companies that sell Web SSL certificates began to phase out 1024-bit RSA keys in favor of 2048-bit RSA keys a few years ago.
Google also uses 1024-bit keys, but in 2011 it implemented a clever trick called forward secrecy, meaning a different key is used for each encrypted Web session, instead of a single master key that’s used to encrypt billions of them. The company said last month it will switch over to 2048-bit keys by the end of 2013.
“We would have preferred to move sooner, but operating at the scale we do, client compatibility is always an issue,” said Adam Langley, a software engineer at Google. “Everything on the planet seems to connect to us.”
Tomi says:
Der Spiegel: The United States was spying EU
http://yle.fi/uutiset/der_spiegel_yhdysvallat_vakoili_myos_euta/6711298
According to German Der Spiegel magazine the EU offices in Brussels and the United States had installed listening devices.
Snowden gave magazine “most secret” classified document from 2010 about the U.S. National Security Agency NSA spying the EU’s diplomatic representation in Washington. The building was installed listening devices and office computer network intrusion in order to get the NSA to monitor e-mails and read the mission documents.
EU Parliament President Martin Schulz, Der Spiegel commented that if the spyware is true, it is a “big scandal”. Schulz said, however, wish to find out more information.
Tomi says:
Report: NSA spied on EU institutions
http://www.dw.de/report-nsa-spied-on-eu-institutions/a-16915813
According to a report in the German news magazine Der Spiegel, the US National Security Agency bugged institutions of the European Union. The magazine cited documents provided by whistle-blower Edward Snowden.
Spiegel reported in its Saturday online edition that the NSU used bugs, phone taps and cybermonitoring to obtain information from EU institutions in Washington, DC, New York and Brussels.
Part of the surveillance included monitoring the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels where the European Council is housed.
Spiegel reports that five years ago, EU security officers had investigated a series of missed calls to NSA offices located in NATO facilities in Brussels.
Tomi says:
Number of federal wiretaps rose 71 percent in 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/number-of-federal-wiretaps-rose-71-percent-in-2012/2013/06/28/9ffde292-e032-11e2-963a-72d740e88c12_story.html
The number of wiretaps secured in federal criminal investigations jumped 71 percent in 2012 over the previous year, according to newly released figures.
Federal courts authorized 1,354 interception orders for wire, oral and electronic communications, up from 792 the previous year
There was a 5 percent increase in state and local use of wiretaps in the same period.
A single wiretap can sweep up thousands of communications. One 30-day local wiretap in California, for instance, generated 185,268 cellular telephone interceptions, of which 12 percent were incriminating, according to the report.
The vast majority of the wiretaps in both federal and state cases were obtained as part of drug investigations, and they overwhelmingly were directed at cellphones, according to the report. Only 14 court orders were for personal residences.
The amount of encryption being encountered by law enforcement authorities is also increasing, and for the first time, “jurisdictions have reported that encryption prevented officials from obtaining the plain text of the communications,” the report noted.
Tomi says:
Stealth Wear Aims to Make a Tech Statement
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/technology/stealth-wear-aims-to-make-a-tech-statement.html?_r=0
THE term “stealth wear” sounded cool, if a bit extreme, when I first heard it early this year. It’s a catchy description for clothing and accessories designed to protect the wearer from detection and surveillance. I was amused. It seemed like an updated version of a tinfoil hat, albeit a stylish one.
Fast-forward a few months. Flying surveillance cameras, also known as drones, are increasingly in the news. So are advances in facial-recognition technology. And wearable devices like Google Glass — which can be used to take photographs and videos and upload them to the Internet within seconds — are adding to the fervor. Then there are the disclosures of Edward Snowden, the fugitive former government contractor, about clandestine government surveillance.
It’s enough to make countersurveillance fashion as timely and pertinent as any seasonal trend, like midriff tops or wedge sneakers.
Adam Harvey, an artist and design professor at the School of Visual Arts and an early creator of stealth wear, acknowledges that countersurveillance clothing sounds like something out of a William Gibson novel.
“The science-fiction part has become a reality,” he said, “and there’s a growing need for products that offer privacy.”
Mr. Harvey exhibited a number of his stealth-wear designs and prototypes in an art show this year in London. His work includes a series of hoodies and cloaks that use reflective, metallic fabric — like the kind used in protective gear for firefighters — that he has repurposed to reduce a person’s thermal footprint.
He also developed a purse with extra-bright LEDs that can be activated when someone is taking unwanted pictures; the effect is to reduce an intrusive photograph to a washed-out blur. In addition, he created a guide for hairstyling and makeup application that might keep a camera from recognizing the person beneath the elaborate get-up. The technique is called CV Dazzle — a riff on “computer vision” and “dazzle,” a type of camouflage used during World War II to make it hard to detect the size and shape of warships.
Mr. Harvey isn’t the only one working on such products. The National Institute of Informatics in Japan has developed a visor outfitted with LEDs whose light isn’t visible to the wearer — but that would blind some camera sensors and blur the details of a wearer’s nose and eyes more effectively than a pair of sunglasses.
Tomi says:
Der Spiegel: The NSA monitors in Germany on a daily basis 20 million telephone connections
Der Spiegel says German to the United States as an important intelligence target than, say, China and Saudi Arabia. Germany is the most important U.S. ally in Europe.
United States of America monitors the months of the year in Germany alone, half a billion telephone calls, e-mails and text messages, to write the German Der Spiegel magazine. The magazine gives its suppliers to have seen U.S. documents, which are highlighted. Papers that the United States has defined the German equivalent to the intelligence on the Chinese.
On an average day the U.S. National Security Agency NSA told to observe the 20 million German phone line and 10 million files online. Busy day total to 60 million. According to documents from the NSA has entered the network intelligence from the metadata of communications.
“Reminder cold war ‘
PRISM data from the U.S. and British intelligence program similar Tempora project, are outraged the Germans. Especially in East Germany, who lived in the memory of a secret police, the Stasi spy and most elders have experienced the Nazi Gestapo of arbitrary power.
Source: http://yle.fi/uutiset/der_spiegel_nsa_tarkkailee_saksassa_paivittain_20ta_miljoonaa_puhelinyhteytta/6711474?ref=leiki-es
Tomi says:
NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/
The newly released documents below give additional details about how the program operates, including the levels of review and supervisory control at the NSA and FBI. The documents also show how the program interacts with the Internet companies. These slides, annotated by The Post, represent a selection from the overall document, and certain portions are redacted.
purewaterhq filters says:
Very interesting info !Perfect just what I was searching for! “Energy is the power that drives every human being. It is not lost by exertion by maintained by it.” by Germaine Greer.
Tomi says:
Here’s what an eavesdropper sees when you use an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043095/heres-what-an-eavesdropper-sees-when-you-use-an-unsecured-wi-fi-hotspot.html
You’ve probably read at least one story with warnings about using unsecure public Wi-Fi hotspots, so you know that eavesdroppers can capture information traveling over those networks. But nothing gets the point across as effectively as seeing the snooping in action.
It’s similar to listening in on someone’s CB or walkie-talkie radio conversation. Like CBs and walkie-talkies, Wi-Fi networks operate on public airwaves that anyone nearby can tune into.
As you’ll see, it’s relatively easy to capture sensitive communication at the vast majority of public hotspots—locations like cafes, restaurants, airports, hotels, and other public places. You can snag emails, passwords, and unencrypted instant messages, and you can hijack unsecured logins to popular websites. Fortunately, ways exist to protect your online activity while you’re out-and-about with your laptop, tablet, and other Wi-Fi gadgets. I’ll touch on those, too.
I opened my laptop at the coffee shop and began capturing Wi-Fi signals, technically called 802.11 packets, with the help of a free trial of a wireless network analyzer. The packets appeared on screen in real time as they were captured
I first searched for packets containing HTML code, to see which websites other hotspot users were browsing.
the trial network analyzer I used reassembled the packets and displayed them as a regular webpage view.
Since I use an app to connect to my email service via POP3 without encryption, you could have seen my login credentials along with the message
If you still use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to download, upload, or share files, you should avoid connecting to them over unsecured hotspots. Most FTP servers use unencrypted connections, so both login credentials and content are sent in plain text, where any eavesdropper can easily capture them.
app called DroidSheep
app can be used to gain access to private accounts on popular Web services, such as Gmail, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Facebook.
DroidSheep looks for and lists any unsecure logins to popular websites.
DroidSheep detected Google, LinkedIn, and Yahoo logins from other people
I could magically access my Facebook account on that rooted Android phone
without ever providing my username or password from that device.
here’s how you can use a public hotspot with some degree of security:
Every time you log in to a website, make sure that your connection is encrypted.
You also need to make sure that the connection stays encrypted for all of your online session. Some websites, including Facebook, will encrypt your log-in and then return you to an unsecured session—leaving you vulnerable to hijacking
Many sites give you the option of encrypting your entire session. You can do this with Facebook by enabling Secure Browsing in the Security settings.
When you check your email, try to login via the Web browser and ensure that your connection is encrypted
Never use FTP or other services that aren’t encrypted.
To encrypt your Web browsing and all other online activity, use a VPN
Keep in mind that private networks have similar vulnerabilities: Anyone nearby can eavesdrop on the network. Enabling WPA or WPA2 security will encrypt the Wi-Fi traffic
tomi says:
Bolivia leader’s jet diverted ‘amid Snowden suspicions’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23156360
Bolivian President Evo Morales’s plane had to be diverted to Austria amid suspicion that US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden was on board, the Bolivian foreign minister has said.
Officials in both Austria and Bolivia said Mr Snowden was not on the plane.
Mr Snowden is reportedly seeking asylum in Bolivia and 20 other countries to avoid extradition to the US.
Mr Snowden withdrew his application to Russia after President Vladimir Putin said he could stay only on condition that he stopped damaging Russia’s “American partners” with his leaks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Tomi says:
Security Police would like to screen for web traffic in Finland – to exchange information with the NSA
Finnish telecommunications guarding needed about a hundred an external hard drive, as many computers as well as a large number of staff.
Security Police Director Antti Pelttari announced before midsummer Talouselämä Journal of the Security Police would like to “sift” the Finnish web traffic. Also, the National Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero support for the idea .
Yle News Supolta tried to get an interview, in which it should be made clear what is meant, traffic screening. Security Police refused to be interviewed.
YLE interviewed experts believe that Finland wants to join the ranks of online snooping, as it may be for Finland international interest, and in addition it can be used in some cases to improve safety in daily life.
Finland has always had a special position next door to Russia. Information networks by monitoring should be recorded in Finland, for example from Russia through Finland to reduce the data traffic. Material should be able to trade with other countries’ intelligence services. In return to Finland of a foreign something interesting information.
The worst villains encrypt traffic
Finland through on a daily basis so much traffic that the store would require one hundred external hard drive and data analysis for at least a hundred computers and a large number of staff. This could be done, for example by investing in proper equipment of the Finnish telecommunications node, the so-called FICIX-point of interconnection.
Monitoring of communications, however, can easily collide with a practical problem: the worst villains encrypting data communications. An example of this two widespread encryption method:
Criminals agreed that the exchange of letters used in common by Google Gmail account. Both will take turns writing the symbol draft folder for new messages. Posts are going to be copied anywhere, so they will not leave fewer marks than sending an email.
The desired message is written in the Internet emitted into the picture. The image is on the feet see that it contains encryption.
Encryption methods are easy to use, and they spread fast through the Internet. The hardest criminals in search of a haystack is pretty hopeless, Westerlund said.
Nevertheless, Finland is to go online material intensive screening direction.
Source: http://yle.fi/uutiset/supo_haluaisi_seuloa_nettiliikennetta_suomessa_-_tietoja_voitaisiin_vaihtaa_nsan_kanssa/6715195
Tomi says:
Theft-as-a-Service: Blocking the Cybercrime Market
http://it.slashdot.org/story/13/07/04/1512214/theft-as-a-service-blocking-the-cybercrime-market
“The same layers of virtualization that have made networked business computing so much more convenient and useful have also given bad guys much easier access to both physical and virtual servers within previously-secure datacenters.”
Comment:
The overwhelming majority of breaches are not exotic. It’s been shown that 85% of recent breaches would have been stopped by four fundamental security processes: patching, proper antimalware (both signature-based and whitelisting) and restriction of user access rights. Exotic hardware-based solutions to protect data in RAM do not help you when the application server itself has been compromised and the attacker has the same rights to the Oracle DB that your SAP instance has.
tomi says:
Spy tech secretly embeds itself in phones, monitors and operates them from afar
http://www.privacysos.org/node/789
In 2008, a Reston, VA based corporation called Oceans’ Edge, Inc. applied for a patent. On March, 2012 the company’s application for an advanced mobile snooping technology suite was approved.
The patent describes a Trojan-like program that can be secretly installed on mobile phones, allowing the attacker to monitor and record all communications incoming and outgoing, as well as manipulate the phone itself. Oceans’ Edge says that the tool is particularly useful because it allows law enforcement and corporations to work around mobile phone providers when they want to surveil someone’s phone and data activity. Instead of asking AT&T for a tap, in other words, the tool embeds itself inside your phone, turning your device against you.
A former employee of Oceans’ Edge notes on his LinkedIn page that the company’s clients included the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency, and other law enforcement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yet another spy scandal: France also spying on users of the Internet and phone calls
The French intelligence service DGSE has its own citizens monitoring program, reported on Le Monde .
Intelligence spy is responsible for the project in many respects, the U.S. and UK wide network monitoring program. The French authorities, at least store the meta-data communications within the country, and perhaps even beyond.
The data collected include, among other things, call from a phone, the recipient, place, date and time. In addition to watching the Google and Facebook-like services.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/taas+uusi+urkintakohu+myos+ranska+vakoilee+internetin+kayttajia+ja+puheluita/a913059