These are the top five reads on this blog in the Month of June. Thanks for reading.
Data Without a Warrant is Speculation:
Cyberwar Dies for Lack of Targets
China Controls US Media Channels
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Yellen Warns of Cyber Threat
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Monday, June 27, 2016
Intel Selling Cyber Unit
There are a few outlets, among them the Financial Times and CRN [http://www.crn.com/news/security/300078725/intel-security-confirms-divestiture-of-mcafee-ngfw-firewall-enterprise-businesses-in-memo-to-partners.htm], that reported the news that Intel was considering selling its cyber unit, which includes McAfee anti-virus and not much more. It is a good idea. Most of us can remember the promise of Intel when the purchase was made - they were to integrate the malware detection into Intel chips. I wondered at the time how that chip would function without the signatures of malware that go with the detection and removal of most threats. It seems that either could not be done, or could not be done the way they envisioned. The truth may be far simpler.
The Financial Times noted in a brief comment that antivirus and malware products have not been able to stop most of the current types of threats. Of course, phishing has largely replaces a number of other ways to get access to systems. It bypasses the security features of a a system and relies on the inability of users to discriminate between one attachment and another, something McAfee software suites were not designed to do. Nobody else is able to do it either, though several are working on solutions. In big business, when something doesn't work, get rid of it.
The other thing to do is squeeze all you can out of it before you sell it. Intel managed to do that by moving the support operations to India. Perhaps it didn't even occur to them that a security product should have a help desk in its own country and not be transferred to another one. My experience with that support was awful. They wanted to connect to my computer and do installs or trouble shooting - even to removed the McAfee suite which I did a few months into a one year license. This is insane. Nobody wants a connection to someone outside their own country - a root permission, no less - to do anything.
We have to wait for something better to come along, though it will be a few years before we see something that will defend a user from the most common type of attack to get into a system. They sort of tells us the current state of detection and threat mitigation on user systems, especially mobile ones. The industry has not been adapting to new threats, while spinning the wheel on the same old products which are increasingly less capable. They seem to have lost sight of why users buy these kinds of products, and have paid the price of doing so.
The Financial Times noted in a brief comment that antivirus and malware products have not been able to stop most of the current types of threats. Of course, phishing has largely replaces a number of other ways to get access to systems. It bypasses the security features of a a system and relies on the inability of users to discriminate between one attachment and another, something McAfee software suites were not designed to do. Nobody else is able to do it either, though several are working on solutions. In big business, when something doesn't work, get rid of it.
The other thing to do is squeeze all you can out of it before you sell it. Intel managed to do that by moving the support operations to India. Perhaps it didn't even occur to them that a security product should have a help desk in its own country and not be transferred to another one. My experience with that support was awful. They wanted to connect to my computer and do installs or trouble shooting - even to removed the McAfee suite which I did a few months into a one year license. This is insane. Nobody wants a connection to someone outside their own country - a root permission, no less - to do anything.
We have to wait for something better to come along, though it will be a few years before we see something that will defend a user from the most common type of attack to get into a system. They sort of tells us the current state of detection and threat mitigation on user systems, especially mobile ones. The industry has not been adapting to new threats, while spinning the wheel on the same old products which are increasingly less capable. They seem to have lost sight of why users buy these kinds of products, and have paid the price of doing so.
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Yellen Warns of Cyber Threat
Janet Yellen, the Federal Reserve Board Chair, warned yesterday that cyber security was an important influence on the financial community. In Fed terms, that is not big news, since financial services are under attack every day. Looming in the background of that statement, however was the undermining of SWIFT, the basic infrastructure of transactions from one institution to another. This is a trillion dollar daily transfer system that the big banks rely on. When there is even a whif of trouble in that area, people come running from everywhere.
At Yellen's level of financial management, cyber security is one of hundreds of elements like inflation, recession, employment, wage growth, and teutonic shifts in other countries' economies, like China's shift to a consumption model instead of export driven economy. In that mix, cyber security usually doesn't get honorable mention. This time, it did.
We are at a point that hackers have been near a few times in the past, when they could do damage to our infrastructure by undermining the safety of transactions from one country to another. The credit card industry was at that point before chips were added to cards. Europe made that change long before the US. Even the Internet has faced that kind of attack against the DNS system. In the past, the hackers knew there were limits because new systems and controls would make it harder for them to do their job. The reaction would not benefit them. This new crop of thieves doens't seem to care.
The cyber security industry, particularly the malware defenses for major systems, need a revolutionary change in the way they do detection and erratication of malware. The current state of the profession is not good enough to stop intrusions that use e-mail as the delivery method, targeting a specific user. All those security features are bypassed in one swoop. The intruders have even faked internal email asking a CEO for authority to transfer funds to a third party. For at least the last eight years, we have known the detection systems didn't work very well, but have done almost nothing about it. It is going to take some drastic policy changes that are going to be unpopular, and innovation from the vendors who do this kind of work. We would think the e-mail providers would have an interest in stopping that kind of attack. Don't they?
At Yellen's level of financial management, cyber security is one of hundreds of elements like inflation, recession, employment, wage growth, and teutonic shifts in other countries' economies, like China's shift to a consumption model instead of export driven economy. In that mix, cyber security usually doesn't get honorable mention. This time, it did.
We are at a point that hackers have been near a few times in the past, when they could do damage to our infrastructure by undermining the safety of transactions from one country to another. The credit card industry was at that point before chips were added to cards. Europe made that change long before the US. Even the Internet has faced that kind of attack against the DNS system. In the past, the hackers knew there were limits because new systems and controls would make it harder for them to do their job. The reaction would not benefit them. This new crop of thieves doens't seem to care.
The cyber security industry, particularly the malware defenses for major systems, need a revolutionary change in the way they do detection and erratication of malware. The current state of the profession is not good enough to stop intrusions that use e-mail as the delivery method, targeting a specific user. All those security features are bypassed in one swoop. The intruders have even faked internal email asking a CEO for authority to transfer funds to a third party. For at least the last eight years, we have known the detection systems didn't work very well, but have done almost nothing about it. It is going to take some drastic policy changes that are going to be unpopular, and innovation from the vendors who do this kind of work. We would think the e-mail providers would have an interest in stopping that kind of attack. Don't they?
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