Paul's Stories
A Guide To Network Vulnerability Management - Dark Reading - If you want the "training wheels" approach to vulnerability management, then you should read this article. However, the problem goes so much deeper, and this article doesn't even know what tool to use in order to scratch the surface. Sure, you gotta know what services are running on your systems, but it goes so much deeper than that. Environments, threats, systems and people all change, so howdo you keep up? How do you really find, and more importantly fix, the vulnerabilities in your environment?
Old Operating Systems Die Harder - Dark Reading - Okay, here is where you could make a lot of money. Create a company that can actually provide some real security to legacy operating systems. So many of our defenses fail if there is a vulnerability that doesn't have a patch. You can implement some security, but it doesn't really solve the true problem. Once an attacker is able to access the system, its game over. Unless, there is something that can really solve the problem, even thwart the exploit and/or shellcode. Technologies exist, but back-porting to legacy systems is not often done. And this is where we need the help.
Microsoft Disrupts ‘Nitol’ Botnet in Piracy Sweep - Microsoft takes down another botnet. Why is this news? Not-so-sure, as this should be the rule rather than the exception.
Blackhole Exploit Kit updates to 2.0 - Check this out, attackers are implementing security! Check this out, this exploit kit now sports: Dynamic URL generation, so there is no longer a standard URL pattern that could be used to identify the kit.IP blocking at the executable URL, so that AV companies can't just download your binary. This is meant to slow down AV detection. Use of Captcha in the admin panel login page, to prevent brute forcing unauthorized access. If legit defendersonly did all that, well, except for the CAPTCHA, which is useless.
Domino's Pizza says website hacked - One of the most useful things the Internet has ever given birth to, aside from access to free porn, is the ability to order pizza online. So back off! Oh, then there is this: "This is a very unfortunate event which has happened despite the security ecosystem that we have created around our online assets. Some security "ecosystem" you got there.
More SSL trouble - SSL is broken, again, Drink!
Apple unveils redesigned iPhone 5 with 4-inch display - I did not see any mention of improved security, but what a sexy device. Wireless now supports dual band n, which is awesome.
Google helps close 163 security vulnerabilities in iTunes - iTunes is a beast, I use it all the time and well at the end of the day its kind of a resource pig, but gets the job done. However, its pretty crappy software, tons of vulnerabilities, and new ones found by Google! Webkit was to blame for many...#Antivirus programs often poorly configured - New study finds AV is not configured correctly. No huge surprises there... Do weneed to make it easier to configure or are people just lazy or both?
Larry's stories
Who's your GoDaddy - [Larry] - Yup, GoDaddy dns was down for the count. This included their own authoritative DNS as well as for those for the hosted stuff. Of course, now folks are talking about DoS against root name servers, and OMG the sky is falling. Of course, a single Anonymous member took credit, and GoDaddy, said along the lines of "Ooops, we tripped on a cable and corrupted our routing tables". Who do you believe… In other notes, a leaf fell from a tree and an individual member from anonymous took credit.
What happens when your encryption is EOL-ed - [Larry] - Victorinox (the Swiss Army folks) are offering full refunds if you return the secure usb thumb drives. Why? As of September 15th the certificate will expire, and they have no intent on renewing and are stopping support for the software. If you don't get your data out of the encrypted volume before then, you'll allegedly lose it. So, what happens when we have something else like this that is significantly more mission critical, we have significant investment and no upgrade path. Choose wisely.
Judge rules WiFi Sniffing Legal - [Larry] - Basically it boils down that is you have an open network and the data is in the clear, you should be able to sniff it. Don't want someone to sniff it? Encrypt it - and yes, WEP would be sufficient for word of law here. So, why did the judge rule this way? Wireless is a shared medium. If you are not allowed to sniff traffic that is not destined to you, then how are you able to determine that the traffic on said network is destined for you? Ruling against it would make all WiFi networks illegal, just by nature of the technology.
ACTUAL Stego in the wild for "legitimate purpose" - [Larry] - I just put this story in for Darren to bust John's stones. But, it appears that Blizzard has been embedding information about the user via stegonaography into screenshots taken by the WoW clients.
Jack's Ruminations
Half of all Androids have Vulns? Also, water is wet. I'm surprised at this, I would have expected much higher. Android phones are at the mercy of their carriers for updates. And carriers are not noted for their mercy.
Chip and Pin, er, PWN Chip and pin research shows that this bandage for the fundamentally obsolete and insecure payment card systems. The EMV protocol has crypto issues, as in "programmers may not be using cryptographic random number generator algorithms to create UNs, and instead may be using counters, timestamps or homegrown algorithms that are not so random."
New FBI Facial Recognition program what could possibly go wrong? From the article "nabbing crooks after a crime is only part of the appeal. The technology also foreshadows upcoming security enhancements that will stop many offenses before they start". That "before they start" bit sounds pretty damned scary to me.
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