[SecurityRatty] tag: couple

Tom Barnett Speaking in Minnesota

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:02:17 +0000

A couple of years ago, I saw Tom Friedman talk in Minneapolis. It was around the 3rd edition of World is Flat, so he did a brief talk on that and then launched into what became his focus on green which he has been writing on for the last few years. It was a great talk and afterwards I remember asking the people who put it on if they did another series they should consider bringing in Tom Barnett.

Well I had to wait a couple of years, and its a different organization, but Tom Barnett is speaking in MN in January and it should be great. I think if you want to understand globalization, how people and businesses are connected and what the security implications of this are (hint - its about federation and distribution not centralization), then Friedman and Barnett are two of the best people at articulating what's going on now and looking out to the horizon of what's coming next.

Too bad with all the colleges in the Twin Cities, that we have to go all the way to Mankato, but props to Minnesota State for making this happen!

Apple removes antivirus support page

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:00:00 +0000

A support page on Apple's Web site recommending users purchase antivirus software for their Macs received a lot of attention over the past couple of days, but on Tuesday Apple removed the page from its Web site.

Stampede Death at Wal-Mart

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:12:00 +0000

The death of a Wal-Mart employee on Black Friday in New York should never have been allowed to happen.

The Police are said to be reviewing tapes to see if they can identify who was responsible for trampling the poor man to death. What will that achieve? Obviously it was not done on purpose. The findings are bound to result in an "accidental death" determination.

Getting back to; who is responsible? I think that is quite clear. Wal-Mart has to accept responsibility. UNLESS...they really did hire an outside security company and the employees of that company did such a poor job organizing that mob of "door busters", that they lost control of the situation.

One thing is a given. The family of the employee who lost his life is bound to bring a civil law suit against Wal-Mart. If I were them, the first thing I would look to find out would be who(if anyone)was providing security on Thanksgiving night outside of the front door?

Unfortunately, many clients do not take the function of security very seriously and they delegate the responsibility to those with no security training or experience. We have consulted for clients at arenas and found that ordinary ushers will be given a fluorescent vest or jacket with "SECURITY" written on the back and asked to provide security. This is a libility claim waiting to be filed.

If Wal-Mart did in fact outsource their security to an outside company, was the company allowed to provide an adequate number of officers to ensure that shoppers lined up in an orderly fashion? One security officer to a couple of hundred people is another liability suit waiting to be filed.

Next, they should be looking at the training that the security officers (Wal-Mart better hope that shelve stockers were not given the task)receieved. Because it was Thanksgiving night, there is the possibility that the company couldn't get anybody else to work and used untrained and inexperienced personnel. If that turns out to be the case, hopefully the company was legal and had adequate insurance coverage.

Whatever happens regarding a civil law suit, one thing will remain unchanged. A man lost his life in an incident that should have been prevented. It is obvious that not everything was done to ensure the safety of the shoppers who traditonally lined up to get the best bargains when the store opened on "Black Friday".

Whether it was Wal-Mart or the security company who may have been hired to prevent this very incident from happening - somebody failed to do their job. Whichever one it was, they should step up to the plate and apologize to the grieving family for letting them down.

Tough times and risk management, Part 2

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:00:00 +0000

Gibbs discussed the concept of risk management in IT a couple of weeks ago, and vowed to continue with a discussion of the consequent politics. True to his word, here 'tis . . .

Arkansas Couple Sues McDonalds for Using Private Nude Photos in Online Ads

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:38:50 +0000

When an Arkansas couple visited a local McDonald’s in June, they got more than just their favorite burger. The couple apparently left their cell phone at the store, and even though it was returned, their personal information had already been compromised–and put online along with nude photos:

Staff promised to keep the phone safely until [the couple came to retrieve it].

However, after Philip Sherman retrieved the phone, his wife began receiving threatening calls and messages from strangers. This caused the Shermans’ to become suspicious about what had occurred with the phone.

Soon afterward the Shermans’ found the private photos that Tina Sherman had sent to her husband’s phone published on the Internet along with their names, address, and phone numbers. Pictures of Tina Sherman were altered to contain McDonald’s franchise logos, along with slogans such as, “I’m lovin’ it,” and “Hot as McDonald’s coffee.” The photos were located on several different sites online, but have since been removed.

The Shermans are suing for over 3 million dollars in damages, along with relocation costs.

Read the full article here.

Localizing Cybercrime - Cultural Diversity on Demand Part Two

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:55:21 +0000

It's where you advertise your services, and how you position yourself that speak for your intentions, of course, "between the lines". There's a common misunderstanding that in order for a malware campaigner or scammer to launch a localized attack speaking the native language of their potential victims, they need to speak the local language. This misconception is largely based on the fact that a huge number of people remain unaware on how core strategic business practices have been in operation across the cybercrime underground for the last couple of years.

Outsourcing the localization process (translation services for spam/phishing/malware campaigns) has been happening for a while, courtsy of DIY servics ensuring complete anonymity of their customers. Interestingly, the translators may in fact be unaware that the advertising channels the service is using is directly attracting everyone from the bottom to the top of the cybercriminal food chain as a customer. Sometimes, it's services like this that open a new market segment covering an untapped opportunity, with this particular service already pointing out that it's charging cheaper than their competitors.

"We offer our services in translation. We are only competent translators profile higher education. Service is working with all types of texts. Languages available at this time of Russian, English, German. Average translation of the text takes up to 10 hours (usually much faster) through the full automation of the order and payment. Just want to note that we do not keep any logs on IP and does not require registration. In addition you can remove your order from the database after his execution. In addition to running more than 1000 translations already, we can use all the lessons learned to be more effective in our services. Prices vary depending on the complexity of the topic covered.

Prices and deadlines:
* Standard - the deadline is not more than 24 hours. Prices depend on the direction and guidance from the 'Order'.
* Term - work on your translation begins precedence. The price of the 50% more than the standard translation. Prices also depend on the direction and guidance from the 'Order'.

The cost of the transfer depends on the amount of work. The workload is measured in symbols. In calculating the characters are shown letters and numbers. Punctuation do not count. Minimum order 100 characters."

I'm particularly curious how is a contractor(translator) going to react to a situation when a large scale malware campaign speaking several different languages tell a fake story that the contractor might have recently translated for them. With the employer positioning itself as a fully legitimate company, whereas its customers requesting localized version of texts for the spam/phishing/malware campaigns are the "usual suspects", the contractors would continue allowing cybercriminals the opportunity to build more authenticity within their campaigns.

Related posts:
E-crime and Socioeconomic Factors
MPack and IcePack Localized to Chinese
The Icepack Exploitation Kit Localized to French
The FirePack Exploitation Kit Localized to Chinese
Localizing Open Source Malware
Localized Fake Security Software
A Localized Bankers Malware Campaign
Lonely Polina's Secret (Localized malware campaign)

Hacking Airport Wi-Fi

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:10:02 +0000

Richard Farina booted up his computer on an American Airlines flight in October from New York to San Francisco. It was one of the first commercial flights to offer wireless Internet service. Within a couple minutes of reaching 10,000 feet, Farina was snooping the airwaves with the ability to see what his fellow pass

Stuff You Might Like

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:29:09 +0000

Usually I beg off of doing posts that link to other posts (Liquidmatrix does a great job of this on a regular basis), but I was afraid that James & Dave’s usually excellent intern might miss some items of note and so I thought I’d offer up a couple of things today:

1) Gunnar has put up his speech as the Quality of Protection Keynote: “The Economics of Finding and Fixing Vulnerabilities in Distributed Systems.” Don’t worry if that title doesn’t turn you on, his post is one of the best this year. I wanted to make today’s blog post some reflection on what he says there, but I haven’t the time today and we’ll have to table that until next week. Anyway, it’s excellent.

2) Aleks Jakulin writes about The Future of Data Analysis. I spoke with a CSO who is morphing into a CRO role and one of the things he plans on doing is hiring about a half dozen data analysts. If you think better use of Security Information is in your future, you’ll want to take a look at that blog.

3) Brent Huston of the Ohio voting machine fame writes about an incident he just worked on and risk and rational security.

4) Our friend Mike Rothman and our friends at Business Of Security/Cisco are doing a Pragmatic CSO thing. Mike is always entertaining and practical (dare I say, pragmatic) so I think this should be a fun webex. Hope you’ll sign up.

Namaste Risk Geeks!

SIRV5 Vulnerability Trends Webcast - 2 of 2 - Microsoft Trends

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:34:00 +0000

With the recent release of v5 of the Security Intelligence Report, I decided to produce a couple of webcast videos where I present my findings to you directly in a brief presentation. In this second one, I go over the vulnerability disclosure trends for vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft products.

1H08 Vulnerability Trends - Part 2 - Microsoft

To see all of my videos on http://edge.technet.com, click here (http://edge.technet.com/Tags/SecurityGuy/).

Best regards, Jeff

National Security Perspectives A Post-Election Insider View

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:13:25 +0000

Recently I participated in an event entitled National Security Perspectives held at the famous Congressional Country Club in Maryland. The featured panelists had impressive credentials from the NSA, DHS and the CIA. The topics of discussion ranged from Current Geopolitical Threats and Evolving Technology Demands to predictions about the New Administrations Intelligence, Defense and Homeland Security focus.

The panelists were:
William P. Crowell – former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency
Michael P. Jackson – Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr. – former Director CIA, National Clandestine Service & CIA, DCI Counterterrorist Center

Overall, it was a very nicely arranged event on a brisk fall evening with about 100 CXO attendees; mostly large but some small government contractors and a few product companies like ScienceLogic that conduct business with military, intelligence and the public sector.

No surprise, given the financial crisis the economy is suffering from that the panelists said we also have a crisis coming on the Federal budget front. This will put enormous pressure on the way Administration thinks, and how and where to spend the $$.

Obama’s tone regarding the issues he will be confronting in the world during the election was encouraging. Make the world more non-partisan and take on the threats that we have in front of us head-on!

The panel was very upfront about current threats. William Crowell said,

“It is highly imprudent to believe that there will not be another 9-11. We have to fund and support the work to stop other attacks. We can only mitigate risk but we can’t eliminate risk. We have to try to absorb the sense of urgency and wake up every day looking at the intelligence screens as if 9-11 happened within the last couple of months.”

He added,

“They (the intelligence community) need the innovation, sense of commitment and urgency that comes from the private sector – a sense of mutual commitment to that mission.”

Predicted Priorities for investment for DHS:

Cyber attack as the top issue
Nuclear threats including dirty bomb
Chemical and biological attacks
Explosive attacks against critical infrastructure with maximum # of lives and or financial disruption / loss.
Large scale natural disasters – hurricane + earthquakes
Border penetration - identity management and border management issues

An Obama administration will spend dollars around these threat vectors. They will want to spend $$ to help state and local governments. Grants to state and local governments should significantly increase with the Obama administration, so think about how you will increase your focus on the state and local government spending initiatives.

Secure border investments – the panelists believe that the new administration will feel compelled to invest here. Michael P. Jackson bluntly said, “You have to make investments in border tools to get meaningful immigration reform.”

Panelists agreed that the 1^st year will be an intense period of scrutiny about fundamental directions. We can’t afford it all at DHS; it is dramatically under budgeted. At TSA/DOT and then at DHS, we spent about $4 Billion on technology investments since 9-11; those investments are now reaching the end of the original service life.

One gripe from the panel that I found humorous: “We don’t have a group of people who think like entrepreneurs.” It is insane how long things last when you buy things in the government. As an example, we are still replacing vacuum tubes in some of the very old FAA gear… this is well beyond what any reasonable person would think these initial investments should/would last.

Final Thoughts:
I actually think that the Obama Administration will be quite favorable to COTS software products, SaaS offerings, and creative financing initiatives from the private sector. The government just won’t have the capital budget to do everything it wants to accomplish. I would say if you look at how intelligently and aggressively Obama used technology to assist his campaign, the odds are good that this new breed of IT talent (which is already really comfortable with SaaS products, blogs, wiki’s, hosted/outsourced Cloud solutions… this team really understands the latest technology trends) will quickly work to bring these new IT paradigms to the Federal marketplace. Clearly the private sector can help the Government achieve more with lower capital budgets – beginning to provide services rather than transaction-based selling. Another clear idea is to think about leasing as a better way to work with the government which going forward will have increased budgets restrictions.

They will likely be in confrontation with members of Congress that won’t change fast enough, however the future of our nation’s ability to fight terror lies in becoming more efficient and effective. It requires the government be flexible enough to figure out what jobs and IT functions to outsource in a nimble and smart way. My prediction: this is great news for Service Providers. Overall the next 4 years should be great for our business as well as the Managed Service Provider/SaaS industry!