There has been a lot of talk over the last couple days since John Markoff published his New York Times article asking the world if a new Internet is necessary. I read the article in its entirety a number of times, both backwards, forwards and sideways, and can not for the life of me can not find any compelling reason for architecting a new internet. It seems, Markoff is either smoking crack or has no true understanding of the Internet.
Currently browsing Posts Tagged “security”
Page 5 of 5
We Do Not Need A New Internet
Posted by Scott Jarkoff in Articles
Why Obama Losing His Blackberry Is Asinine
Posted by Scott Jarkoff in Articles
Like most folks in the beltway, President-elect Barack Obama is a Blackberry addict. Obama lives on his handheld, using the device to stay in touch with the “outside” world. With all the idle time sitting in a vehicle, transiting in helicopters and airplanes, a Blackberry is an essential device for staying in touch with everything from information to important people. Unfortunately for the President-elect, government lawyers are poised to issue an opinion may ultimately force Obama to give up the one habit he should be allowed to keep, even if such a policy is completely asinine!
DoD Has No Desire to Mitigate Windows Dependency
Posted by Scott Jarkoff in Articles
The United States Department of Defense is one of the largest consumers of Microsoft’s Windows family of operating systems. There are certainly a small number of organizations with a larger install base, but definitely not one as distributed, inter-connected and solely dependent upon Windows to complete just about every facet of work accomplished. The reliance solely on Windows, from the end-user workstation to the back-end server farm, is a huge risk which DoD has shown no desire to mitigate.
There are a staggering number of workstations required for the warfighters throughout DoD. Approximately 95% of these systems are WinTel, with only a very small number being Unix based. However, even the Unix based workstations are merely virtual Windows sessions – although the host OS is Unix, the user is performing all work within Windows!
The reliance on Windows is the single biggest weakness in the DoD information assurance strategy. Our adversaries know what we run and use that knowledge to craft specific attacks aimed directly at Windows. The Windows family of operating systems are riddled with vulnerabilities if not properly maintained – this delicate foundation has allowed attackers to compromise DoD networks at-will.
Hacked Twitter Accounts Highlight Need To Be Security Conscious
Posted by Scott Jarkoff in Articles
Highly popular micro-blogging site Twitter has had a series of widespread security incidents over the course of the last week, culminating when high profile accounts owned by President-elect Barack Obama and Britney Spears were hacked. In addition to Obama and Spears, approximately 30 other accounts had inappropriate tweets generated by this latest round of attacks.
Following these highly publicized incidents, such as the recent Twply issue followed by the widespread phishing scam aimed at Twitter users, one has to wonder what, if anything, Ev and Co. are going to do to improve Twitter’s security.
But is mitigation ultimately Twitter’s responsibility? I say no.
Beware of Twitter Phishing Scam
Posted by Scott Jarkoff in Articles
The world was shaken apart this New Years weekend when a substantial number of Twitter users received a Direct Message (DM) directing them to a phishing site hosted on Google’s Blogspot. The phishing scam was seemingly designed to steal the Twitter credentials (ie. username and password) of unsuspecting visitors. A lot of chatter about the phishing scam continues on Twitter even though the fire has been mostly extinguished. Naturally, Mashable, Inquisitr and many others have picked up the story.
If you have received, or do receive a DM directing you to a malicious web site using an access-logins.com domain, I encourage you to not enter your Twitter credentials at the site, should you opt to visit. If you use Firefox, the site has already been added to their phishing database and should be automagically blocked by default.
New No-Cost Security From Microsoft?
Posted by Rich Chuckrey in Articles
Come off it Microsoft — you know your own platform like no one else. I would have expected you to offer a ‘free’ security solution for your operating systems starting back in the Windows 3.1 day.
Well, in the latter half of 2009 [as reported by Redmond on their PressPass site] the software giant will finally launch their no-cost comprehensive protection software for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. And Microsoft offered these shocking words in their news release-:
“To address the growing need for a PC security solution…..
Growing need? This tells me that the folks at Microsoft don’t yet get security.
Information Security Basics
Posted by Scott Jarkoff in Articles
Whether you run your own home network or are part of the IT shop administering the corporate network, there are some basic information security protocols which should always be followed. These tips are designed to help you, the administrator, adequately protect the network from the myriad of attacks available today. Ensuring your network is free of compromise is vitally important for all network users because it allows for the continued, uninterrupted operation of the very network they rely upon to perform their job.
This list is, by no means, designed to be all-inclusive. It is merely a small subset of tips which should help set most people in the right direction. These tips are generally married with more complex solutions, producing a far more comprehensive effort than the mere implementation of these basics.
On Twply, Giving Out Your Password and Other Security Issues
Posted by Scott Jarkoff in Articles
There has been a small but vocal brouhaha brought to light by chatty Robert Scoble over Twply, a new Twitter-to-email service which recently launched. The problem started out as the service seemingly spamming Twitter but the conversation has quickly changed gears in to a full-fledged Twitter security incident.
As part of a means of promoting the service, framed in the context of “supporting” Twply, when you first sign-up for the service it sends the following tweet from your Twitter account:
Just started using http://twply.com/ to get my @replies via email. Neat stuff!
Twply clearly states on their front page, directly beneath the Twitter username and password fields, “Support Twply on your first login?” followed by a couple of radio buttons: Yep, go ahead! (default) and No thanks!.
Recent Comments