Defensive Security Podcast Episode 28

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Perception of risk as an art vs science, Estimating the economic impact of cybercrime and espionage, The futility of analyzing malware and the need to get better at detecting its activity, An attempt to link bad metrics to data loss trends, Insurance is getting cyber security savvy, Application whitelisting, Don’t forget about risks from security devices, Verizon releases the VERIS community database.

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Perception of risk as an art vs science: http://www.tripwire.com/ponemon/2013/#riskmetrics

Estimating the economic impact of cyber crime and espionage: http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-economic-impact-cybercrime.pdf

The futility of analyzing malware and the need to get better at detecting its activity: https://blog.damballa.com/archives/2052

An attempt to link bad metrics to data loss trends: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-security/why-security-metrics-arent-helping-prevent-data-loss/

Insurance is getting cyber security savvy: http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/it-security-data-protection/security-controls/enterprise-insurance-policies-and-the-20-critical-security-controls/

Application white listing: http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/the-one-security-technology-actually-works-222763

Don’t forget about risks from security devices: http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/07/security-vendors-do-no-harm-heal-thyself/

Verizon releases the VERIS community database: http://www.verizonenterprise.com/security/blog/index.xml?postid=4642

Defensive Security Podcast Episode 27

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Ten year old Java bug, old and vulnerable versions of Java dominate on corporate desktops, a guide on critical infrastructure security, what is wrong with applying standard security approaches to industrial control environments, Lloyds survey finds cyber security is the number 3 concern of business leaders, watering hole attacks are replacing spear phishing as the attack method of choice, the crazy high value of health information dossiers and a cyber exercise performed by some large US banks.

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http://podcasts.infoworld.com/d/security/most-enterprise-networks-riddled-vulnerable-java-installations-report-says-222983

http://images.infoworld.com/d/security/new-vulnerability-found-in-java-7-opens-door-10-year-old-attack-researchers-say-223029

http://www.osce.org/atu/103500?download=true

http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/david_lacey/2013/07/scada_security_requires_a_bett.html

http://www.infosecurity-us.com/view/33436/lloyds-cybersecurity-is-the-no-3-global-business-threat/

http://www.infosecurity-us.com/view/33493/water-hole-replacing-spearphishing-as-statesponsored-weapon-of-choice/

http://www.secureworks.com/resources/blog/general-hackers-sell-health-insurance-credentials-bank-accounts-ssns-and-counterfeit-documents/

http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/178_138/mock-cyberattack-on-banks-a-success-sifma-says-1060721-1.html

Defensive Security Podcast Episode 26

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Vulnerability market, OWASP top 10 still relevant, HP Storage back door, Default root ssh keys in EAS servers, IPMI Vulnerabilities, Dark Seoul update, Incident response goes horribly wrong, Dropbox and WordPress leveraged by attackers

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Vulnerability market: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/world/europe/nations-buying-as-hackers-sell-computer-flaws.html

OWASP top 10 still relevant: http://www.cyberwarzone.com/dutch-domain-registrar-hacked-sqli

HP Storage back door: http://www.infoworld.com/t/data-security/hp-admits-undocumented-backdoors-in-two-separate-storage-lines-222614

Default root ssh keys in EAS servers: http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/33372/eas-vulnerability-bodies-of-the-dead-could-rise-again/

IPMI Vulnerabilities: http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/serious-flaws-found-in-ipmi-server-management-protocol-222107

Dark Seoul update: http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/07/hard-drive-wiping-malware-that-hit-s-korea-tied-to-military-espionage/
http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/white-papers/wp-dissecting-operation-troy.pdf

Incident response goes horribly wrong: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/us-agency-baffled-by-modern-technology-destroys-mice-to-get-rid-of-viruses/

Dropbox and WordPress leveraged by attackers: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/security/3457260/dropbox-wordpress-used-in-cyberespionage-campaign/

Vulnerability Wednesday?

Here is an interesting article on changing the social contract of vulnerability disclosures from the current, though recent, seven day cycle, to one that follows patch Tuesday, or whatever equivalent date the particular software vendor has for patches.

It’s a good idea, but I think the author missed an important nuance: the short 7 day notice is for situations where the discovering researcher has found evidence that the vulnerability is being actively exploited. In other cases where the vulnerability is not being actively exploited, the time frame is 6o days, which is compatible with the author’s idea. Note that the 7 day recommendation comes from Google and is available to read here.

I do not think that it makes sense to wait until after the next patch Tuesday in cases of active exploitation. The point is that users of the vulnerable technology need to know that there is a vulnerability being actively exploited, whether or not a patch is available, so that the user can take steps to mitigate the problem.

Defensive Security Podcast Episode 25

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Snowden offered asylum, Germany’s interior minister cautions Germans against using US-based services, California AG urges legislation to require the use of encryption, 85% of virus infections are from drive by download, Attacks on energy sector, Texas government infections, MS Tuesday

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85% of virus infections are from drive by downloads: http://www.csis.dk/en/csis/news/3981/

Attacks on energy sector: http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/15820/security/ics-cert-surge-in-attacks-against-energy-industry.html

Texas government infections: http://www.kens5.com/news/State-computers-compromised-but-theres-not-enough-staff-to-fix-it-214231541.html

MS Tuesday: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/05/ms_july_2013_patch_tuesday_prealert/

 

Defensive Security Podcast Episode 24

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Kaspersky study indicates 200,000 malware variants are released daily, the Carberp trojan’s source code is leaked and an 0day is discovered, FINRA reports on prolific cyber attacks against its members, the FT is attacked by the Syrian Electronic Army and gives a play by play on what happened, Kaspersky reports an 87% increase in phishing attacks, Google reports that compromised legitimate sites are more dangerous than malicious sites, Sophos says 30,000 SMB sites are hacked per day to spread malware, the age old debate about administrator rights, password complexity, and the unintended consequences of leaks: foreign companies defect to more hospitable countries, renewed focus on systems administrators, and we can stop pretending to not know where Stuxnet came from. Continue reading “Defensive Security Podcast Episode 24”

Defensive Security Podcast Episode 23

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The discrepancy between perception and reality when it comes to quantifying risk, the major fail that was OpPetrol, Malvertising, EMET 4 released, How not to be a CSO by the Harvard Business Review, Linked In’s DNS woes, and CSOs are not recognizing reality. Continue reading “Defensive Security Podcast Episode 23”

Risk Perception Versus Reality

One of the side effects of podcasting is that I read a lot of infosec news on a daily basis and a lot of industry reports.  Sometimes, I see an odd overlap.  For instance, I was reading this article about a survey from McAfee on how long IT professionals believe it would take for them to detect a breach.  The numbers were all over the map, but is described like this:

“… 22 percent thought they’d need a day to recognise a breach, with one in twenty offering a week as a likely timescale.

Just over a third said they would notice data breaches in a matter of minutes, which counts as real-time by today’s standards.

In terms of general security, three quarters  confidently reckoned they could assess their security in real-time, with about the same number talking up their ability to spot insider threats, perimeter threats and even zero-day malware.”

 

The article raises the point that the polled population seems overly optimistic, however I think it needs to be explored a little deeper.

  • Mandiant’s 2013 annual report claims that data breaches take an average of 243 days to find.
  • Trustwave’s report finds that the average to be 210 days.
  • Verizon’s DBIR finds that 66% of breaches in the scope of their report took “months” to “years” to discover.

This is not a minor miss.  This is not “being overly optimistic”.  This is a fundamental lack of understanding of the world we live in.

What concerns me most about this disconnect is how these beliefs are used as an input into risk management processes.  If organizations are prioritizing their security efforts based on the input from internal authoritative sources, such as the 500 people McAfee polled, that breaches will be detected quickly, when in reality they take months, there will be little appetite to make improvements in detection capabilities.

 

Defensive Security Podcast Episode 22

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Risk Science Podcast, Forensic 4Cast podcast, Gartner security myths, 2013 OWASP top ten, FDA finds security risk in medical devices, Oracle fixes 40 more java bugs, B-sides Rhode Island videos, Can the Germans break PGP?

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Risk Science Podcast: http://riskscience.net/

Forensic4Cast :http://forensic4cast.com/

Gartner security myths: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/061113-gartner-reveals-top-10-it-270738.html

2013 OWASP top ten: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Top_Ten_Project

FDA finds security risk in medical devices: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/061413-federal-regulators-address-rising-security-270844.html

Oracle fixes 40 more java bugs: https://www.infoworld.com/d/security/oracle-ship-40-security-fixes-java-se-220758

B-sides Rhode Island videos: http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=videos%2Fbsidesri2013%2Fmainlist

Can the Germans break PGP? http://malwarejake.blogspot.com/2013/06/are-germans-really-breaking-pgp-and-ssh.html

Defensive Security Podcast Episode 21

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Verizon, PRISM and Edward Snowden, Java users are bad at patching, cost of breaches is up, Microsoft operation takes down 1462 Citadel botnets, malware increasingly using peer to peer communications for command and control, and malware trends.

 

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