Ethical Vulnerability Disclosure
The debate on whether vulnerabilities should be disclosed to force a vendor to fix the problem in a reasonable period or kept covert until a fix has been implemented has been a big discussion in the Information Security field. Black Hats, White Hats and even Grey Hats have their opinions.
Taxonomy of Computer Security
Computer security is frequently associated with three core areas, which can be conveniently summarized by the acronym “CIA” standing for Confidentiality — Ensuring that information is not accessed by unauthorized persons; Integrity — Ensuring that information is not altered by unauthorized persons in a way that is not detectable by authorized users; Authentication — Ensuring that users are the persons they claim to be.
IT Security Audits: A Necessary Evil…
As I prepare to conduct my next IT security audit at a client’s site, I realize some things have not changed in the past few years. The client’s reaction towards the security audit is always amazing the day before the on-site visit as they exhibit a sense of fear. For the most part, it has […]
iPad Security
Apple's new iPad is set to be released on April 3rd and securityorb.com/ a Washington D.C.-based information security media company has looked beyond the hype into the possible security matters consumers should be concerned about.
SANS WhatWorks in Virtualization and Cloud Computing Summit with Tom Liston, Washington DC, August 19-20
As security professionals, we work in an environment that never stops changing. New technologies and innovative new uses for old technologies seem to appear every day. Unfortunately, along with the benefits that every new technology brings, there are new and novel security challenges that need to be addressed. We're forced to constantly learn just to […]
(IN)SECURE Magazine Issue 26 released
(IN)SECURE Magazine is a freely available digital security magazine discussing some of the hottest information security topics. Issue 26 has just been released. Download it from: http://www.insecuremag.com The covered topics include: - PCI: Security's lowest common denominator - Analyzing Flash-based RIA components and discovering vulnerabilities - Logs: Can we finally tame the beast? - Launch […]
Digital Forensic Acquisition
One of the key aspects of conducting digital forensics pertains with the proper collection and authentication of the evidence. If the evidence is not collected properly, there is a very good chance the results of the examination will be questioned. Following digital forensic best practices, we typically conduct our examination on copies, often referred to as "forensic images" of the original evidence.
Microsoft Office 2008 12.2.5 Update for Mac OS X
Microsoft has released security bulletin MS10-038. This security bulletin contains all the relevant information about the security updates for Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac OS X. To view the complete security bulletin, visit the following Microsoft website: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms10-038.mspx This update improves security. It includes fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the […]
Information Security vs Information Privacy
Information technology conflicting with personal and information privacy has been a major topic in recent months keeping privacy organizations including the Washington D.C. based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) busy as the premiere privacy watchdog in the U.S. For example, recent issues such as Google asking the NSA for assistance in the investigation of a cyber-attack that occurred on its network.
Types of Wireless Attacks
Standard wireless communication occurs when the end user and the wireless access point are able to communication on a point-to-point basis without interruptions. There are many attack variations in existence against wireless networks that breaks the standard communication format. These attacks includes the denial of service attacks, the man in the middle attacks and the WEP key-cracking attack to name a few and are described below.