How to Protect Your Social Network Identity
By Mark Smail, CTO at Onix International, Inc.
Over a billion people visited social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter last month so it’s not surprising that hackers have these sites in their cross-hairs. In fact, according to recent research from Breach Security Labs, social networks were the most targeted category in 2009, accounting for 19% of all malicious attacks last year. By using simple data encryption and password protection tools, you can ensure that your personal information and online identities remain secure and private…
Avoiding Enterprise Software Vendor Lock-In
By Bozidar Spirovski, CISSP, MCSA, MCP
Large enterprises rely on software products. And as everything else in large enterprises, the software products are large, complex, cumbersome and nearly unchangeable. This last attribute is better known as vendor lock-in. Software vendors love vendor lock-in.
Cell Phone Tapping: GSM Encryption Hacked
By Michael Coats for Information Security Short Takes
GSM cellular networks in the US and Europe use the A5/1 stream cipher meant to ensure cellular calls cannot be listened into by unauthorized parties monitoring radio traffic. However, the guarantee of privacy is no longer ensured. New attack techniques were unveiled at the Hacking at Random conference in The Netherlends which would allow an attacker to decrypt cellular calls made over a GSM network. The attacker only needs the new software and about $500 in radio monitoring equipment.
DECAF: Counter Forensics COFFEE Tool
By Bozidar Spirovski, CISSP, MCSA, MCP
After the leak of Microsoft COFFEE into the wild, a tool emerges that will supposedly make life very difficult for a forensic investigator using COFFEE. The tool is titled DECAF and is freely available, although not open source. The tool does not need to be installed, and when configured in ‘LockDown Mode’ offers a set of Counter-Forensics functions upon detecting a COFFEE process running on the computer. The following options Counter-Forensics functions are available…
Simplified Analysis: Forging A Biometric ID
By Bozidar Spirovski, CISSP, MCSA, MCP
Security of biometric ID’s like biometric passports is a very frequent topic of discussion and we all know there are issues. But most of those issues are related to encryption, materials and generally anything that requires a lot of technical knowledge. Here is an example of the possibility to create a fake Biometric ID…
Lest We Forget About Enterprise Security
By Shubhendu Parth, CTO Forum Team
Are CIOs spending less time on supervising what they should be doing the most—strengthening the citadel and securing the digital assets—particularly when corporate wide cyber crimes and espionage have started to show a quantum jump even in developing economies like India? Security may be a key thing that worries CIOs, but there are other things that keep him occupied these days.
Cloud Based Vulnerability Management
By Bozidar Spirovski, CISSP, MCSA, MCP
The services are usually delivered as a dedicated Black Box appliances that are placed within your infrastructure. They perform the scanning or IPS/IDS, but the results are then sent to the ‘cloud’ where reports are generated. Most companies are offering the usual set of services…
GenApple Boasts First Information Brokerage
By Bozidar Spirovski, CISSP, MCSA, MCP
The Internet is filled with free information, from search engines, to answer portals, to e-learning portals. However, something is missing. Every person has knowledge that they possess that another person may want, and to gain this knowledge there might have to be a personal relation. GenApple seeks to create a marketplace where people can sell that knowledge and information.
Security Assurances are Challenge for CIO’s
From the CTO Forum Team
In an exclusive interview with the CTO Forum, Tom Clare, Sr. Director Product Marketing Blue Coat Systems, cautions CIO’s about the ignorance towards the growing web-based security threats and prescribes simple remedies to prevent from damages.
Cloud Computing Challenges Infrastructure
By Bozidar Spirovski, CISSP, MCSA, MCP
Cloud Computing is becoming more and more the buzzword of every conference, meeting and article. Yet it is still in it’s inception, and there are multitude of issues and problems. Here are the mechanisms by which we can approach the level of trust that we have in our infrastructure for the cloud.
