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Displaying items by tag: Hacking

Back in 2007 or so I was asked to write a white paper on the subject of why Intel was able to pass AMD as quickly as they did. This is back in the AM2+ days when Intel was dropping Conroe on the world. Many people were surprised that Intel made this shift so quickly when you consider how badly AMD had beaten the P4. It was incorrectly assumed that AMD had reach a peak that Intel could not touch. Because of this they did not push their advantage. Instead they opted to move in a very different direction and purchase ATi for way more money than they should have. This one move started the long decline of AMD as we knew it. It was a massive strategic error and it all came down to one thing. A failure of management and stockholders’ to imagine that Intel could so easily blow past AMD’s performance lead. This type of failure can have catastrophic consequences in the business world and in security.

Published in Editorials

Cybersecurity is a fairly common buzz word used in Washington these days. It is tossed around to scare people that are ignorant of the way computer systems work so that legislation that is exceptionally pro-corporate friendly and anti-consumer can be pushed through. The latest of these is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act. This handy little bit of law just passed through the US senate on the 28th (74 to 21) and allow corporations to share customer data with the US government and other companies without any consequences for doing so. This effectively removes any recourse customers or users have about the sharing of their personal information.

Published in News

This is not the first time that I have spoken out about cloud computing (internet based, or the Internet of Things and the way they are impacting the ability to secure a network. It is also not going to be the last. Simply put, the concept that everything needs to be controlled by a computer and talk back to some sort of internet based cloud show a level of ignorance that should not still be out there. Sadly it is and companies are still trying to push the cloud and connected device mentality despite the inherent and known security flaws that exist.

Published in Editorials

It seems that someone may have found a way around at least one of the latest hot fixes for OpenSSL. According to some talk around the darker places on the internet, a rehash of metadata can allow a malicious individual to get around the latest hot fix designed to stop someone from bypassing the CA check in OpenSSL. The original flaw was found to exist during certificate validation. When OpenSSL checks the certificate chain it will try to build an alternate route if the first attempt fails. Due to a flaw in the way this is done can allow a “bad guy” to actually force some of the secondary checks to be bypassed and allow an invalid cert to pass.

Published in News
Monday, 28 September 2015 11:30

Possible Breach At Hilton Highlights PoS Risk

Just when you thought it was safe to use your credit card we are hearing rumblings of a breach at Hilton. According to Brian Kerbs and some of our own sources a payment card breach has taken place and the only unique feature about this was that all of the affected cards were used at a Hilton Property. This is not just the regular Hilton Logo properties, but also includes Embassy Suites, Doubletree, Hampton Inn and Suites, Waldorf Astoria Hates and Resorts, and potentially others. The exact timing of the breach is unclear at the moment, but could go as far back as November 2014.

Published in News

Security and malware research company, Kaspersky has recently released a paper describing what they say is the “ultimate level of anonymity” used by any malicious hacking group. In their report they describe a new attack by the group Ouroboros as “exquisite”. This is the same group that was linked to the Turla malware last year so we are not talking about amateurs or script kiddies. The attack uses commercial satellites’ unencrypted communication channels to send and receive traffic to their C&C servers.

Published in News

There are rumblings on the internet that all might not be well with EA after a round of password reset notices appear to have been sent out on Sunday (8-13-2015). EA does not give a specific reason behind the reset notifications other than suspicious activity. However, the timing seems to correlate with an authentication exploit that has been talked about on the darker side of the internet. These claims are that a group has been silently exploiting EA’s authentication servers for months. It is far from certain that EA has suffered a large-scale breach, but it does bring up the subject of authentication server security.

Published in News

The life of a security researcher is not all beer and pizza. In most cases the days are long and very few seem to appreciate what you are doing. From the stand point of a security researcher they are the good guys trying to help push an agenda of security. They spend countless hours finding the holes in code and hardware before the “bad guys” do. Sure there are bug bounty programs that pay fairly well and some researchers work for larger firms, but it is not all about the money or attribution.

Published in Editorials

Last year at Black Hat USA 2014 we met up with a company that was looking to make some changes in the way we protect our data, Ionic Security. The concept was very simple, but the implementation was sure to be complex. I was not sure that what they wanted to accomplish could even happen. However, after a conversation with them I became more than interested. It was a simple concept, but it did not need to be overly complex. To make things even more interesting this was not a truly new idea, but it was one that had never been implemented for real data security.

Published in Shows and Events

In addition to seeing more than a few products and ideas during Black Hat and DEF CON we also had the chance to see something really cool from the team at Trustwave. This was not a product, but a chance to see the back end of the command and control servers for a new and improved version of the RIG exploit kit. To say that what they showed was impressive is an understatement.

Published in Shows and Events
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