Tag: Android

Can We Secure the ‘Internet of Other People’s Things’?

http://www.eweek.com/security/can-we-secure-the-internet-of-other-peoples-things.html

I think that title expresses the problem very well. Continue reading Can We Secure the ‘Internet of Other People’s Things’?

14 antivirus apps found to have security problems

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/29/antivirus_blood_splattered_as_biz_warned_audit_or_die

Let us pass over the “All A are B” illogic in this and consider what we’ve known all along. AV doesn’t really work; it never did.
Signature based AV, the whole “I’m better than you cos I have more signatures in my database” approach to AV and AV marketing that so bedazzled the journalists (“Metrics? You want metrics? We can give you metrics! How many you want? One million? Two million!) is a loosing game. Skip over polymorphism and others.  The boundary between what actually works and what works for marketing blurs.

So then we have the attacks on the ‘human firewall’ or whatever the buzz-word is that appears in this month’s geek-Vogue magazines, whatever the latest fashion is. What’s that? Oh right, the malware writers are migrating to Android the industry commentators say. Well they’ve tried convincing us that Linux and MacOS were under attack and vulnerable, despite the evidence. Perhaps those same vendor driven – yes vendors try convincing Linux and Apple users to buy AV products, just because Linux and MacOS ran on the same chip as Microsoft they were just as vulnerable as Microsoft, and gave up dunning the journalists and advertising when they found that the supposed market wasn’t convinced and didn’t buy.

That large software production is buggy surprises no-one. There are methods to producing high quality code as NASA has shown on its deep space projects, but they are incompatible with the attitudes that commercial software vendors have. They require an discipline that seems absent from the attitudes of many younger coders, the kind that so many commercial firms hire on the basis of cost and who are drive by ‘lines of code per day’ metrics, feature driven popularity and the ‘first to market’ imperatives.

So when I read about, for example, RSA getting hacked by means of social engineering, I’m not surprised. Neither am I surprised when I hear that so many point of sales terminals are, if not already infected, then vulnerable.

But then all too many organization take a ‘risk-based’ approach that just is not right. The resistance that US firms have had to implementing chi-n-pin credit card technology while the rest of the world had adopted it is an example in point. “It was too expensive” – until it was more expensive not to have implemented it.

 

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Mistaken Thinking – Risk not threats

Various mobile devices creating interoperability.
Image via Wikipedia

Via a LinkedIn posting in the Infosecurity magazine forum titled
“Internet Threats Posed By Mobile Devices: How Can We Prevent Them?”
I came to
http://www.mxsweep.com/blog/bid/65075/Internet-Threats-Posed-By-Mobile-Devices-How-Can-We-Prevent-Them

OUCH OUCH OUCH!

The mobile devices don’t pose threats.
The mobile devices represent risks.

Threats are external. They are not under your control.

The article title is clearly confusing THREATS with RISKS.

There are aspects of risks which ARE under your control.
You can control how EXPOSED you are to threats and how they will IMPACT you – or more specifically your assets. In this case the mobile devices.

You can’t prevent threats, you can only mitigate their IMPACT.
You can instigate preventive measures.

Mobile devices and the data on them are ASSETS, not threats.

Correct terminology leads to correct thinking.
Eliminating misunderstanding and confusion leads to effective results.

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Google Phasing out Windows

http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Report-Google-phasing-out-internal-use-of-Microsoft-Windows-1012679.html

“According to a report in the Financial Times, Google are phasing
out the use of Microsoft‘s Windows within the company because of
security concerns. Citing several Google employees, the FT report
reports that new hires are offered the option of using Apple Mac
systems or PCs running Linux. The move is believed to be related to a
directive issued after Google’s Chinese operations were attacked in
January. In that attack, Chinese hackers took advantage of
vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer on a Windows PC used by a Google
employee and from there gained deeper access to Google’s single sign
on service.

Security as a business decision?
Don’t make me laugh!
Look at what precedence they’ve shown!
Look at Microsoft’s attitude and approach to security (no matter how flawed the end result) and compare it with the public stance Google has taken.

No, this is about Business Politics.
Microsoft has been ‘staggering’ this last decade and now Apple is on the ascendency and the real battle will no longer be in the PC world but in the consumer world with embedded systems.
On the surface this will be Android vs Apple, but since embedded Linux goes so much further, embedded in TVs, GPS units, traffic light controllers, and perhaps it will even replace UNIX in telephone
exchanges (ha-ha-ha!) there’s more potential.
(Freudian slip: I just wrote portential.)

Yes, Microsoft hasn’t been asleep in the embedded market, or the phone/PDA market, but compared to Linux its a resource hog. To top that, its also proprietary, so vendors rely on Microsoft for the porting to new processor/hardware and for support. Linux/Android doesn’t have that limitation. And there are plenty of ‘kiddies’ eager to play with Android (source) on a new toy.

No, this isn’t a security issue, its a business and political issue.
If Google is pushing its range of Android products then it doesn’t want to have people – journalists, investors, bloggers – saying “yes, but you USE Windows even though you preach Linux”.

Or perhaps you though Google was taking the “High Moral Ground”?
No, I think they are taking the advice of Sun T’Zu and applying it to business

“For them to perceive the advantage of defeating the enemy, they must
also have their rewards.”

Betcha Google will be supplying Android phones/slates/pads to its workers.

“He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious.”

Look at that ZDNet article and think about the timing of Google’s announcement.

“It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct
espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them
instructions and care for them. Thus doubled agents are recruited and used.”

Think about that one.

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”

And look how Android is spreading.
Balmer said Linux was a virus – yes a “meme”.

“Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.”

Indeed. Microsoft has proclaimed a commitment to “security”. Bill Gates said so. That is their “strategy”. But Google is working on the fact that Microsoft products still have security flaws. Regardless of the reality, that is “voice” of this announcement. They are saying that Microsoft’s strategy isn’t working. They are attacking it in the minds of the consumers.

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