Black Hat USA 2017 - Las Vegas, NV.
Another company that we have the chance to sit down with was Attivo Networks. Attivo, if you are not familiar with them specialize in network deception through the use of projected systems. These are systems that do not really exist in the network but that occupy space and would appear real to someone looking at the network from behind the scenes. They use different methods to make these systems appear to be real including mapped drives (that are invisible to an actual user). This way when a system on the network is compromised an attacker might be fooled into interacting with a deception system and give themselves away.

The term privacy has come to mean a great many things in the last few years. To some the idea of privacy is being able to do or say certain things without the fear of anyone finding out. Most people like to know that what they do on their own time is their business. Where things get a little muddy is when people liken the desire for privacy with a desire to hide wrongdoing. This belief couldn’t be farther from the truth . It is not just that it is wrong, but it is also dangerous. To imply that anyone that wants to have privacy is somehow hiding something illegal sets a dangerous precedent. Keeping this mentality alive will allow for a further erosion of peoples’ rights and grants very worrying powers to agencies that are there to protect, not to oppress.

The slippery slope of Censorship that many predicted when SOPA, PIPA and other IP protecting laws first hit the scene is starting to come true in the UK. After winning a battle to apply network (ISP) level filters for Pornographic and File Sharing sites the UK government is now moving on to what they are labeling “extremist” web sites. On the surface they claim they want to stop extremist rhetoric on the internet (which is still not a good thing) and are working to bundle this in with existing laws that allow for the blocking of pornography and file sharing.

As if it were not bad enough that the NSA, FBI, Local Law Enforcement and the Copyright industry is spying on you now we find out that even rent-to-own companies are doing it. Yup, you read that right: rent-to-own companies are leasing/selling computers to their customers that have spyware installed on them. According to a complaint filed by the FTC against Aaron’s they have been doing this for a while and their efforts have caught everything from logins to actual pictures of the people on the other end of the line.

After working so very hard (and unsuccessfully) to convince everyone that CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) would not be like SOPA and that it is all good for everyone, it seems that the lawmakers involved in it just could not resist adding in a special little touch. There is an amendment to CISPA that would grant the Department of Homeland Security some brand new powers over all that data.