Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: security

  • Ending the era of the computer password

    Ending the era of the computer password

    Earlier this year, Wired Magazine writer Mat Honan had his entire digital identity stolen from him when hackers cracked his email password and then systemically took over all of his cloud and social media accounts.

    Matt writes of his experience on Wired and proposes it’s time to kill the password.

    The problem with Mat’s proposal is that he doesn’t suggest an alternative.

    The age of the password has come to an end; we just haven’t realized it yet. And no one has figured out what will take its place.

    Every alternative authentication method to passwords has flaws just as serious, if not worse. Many are plainly impractical.

    All of them, including passwords, have the common weakness that those holding the information can’t be trusted either – one of the greatest ways for passwords to get into the wild is when incompetents like Sony give them away.

    Security is evolving, in the meantime we need to keep in mind some basic rules.

    • Use different passwords for different accounts
    • Only access accounts from trusted and up-to-date computers
    • Create strong passwords for accounts that matter, like online banking and email
    • Strong passwords are multiword phrases
    • Use two-factor authentication if its available
    • Don’t link unnecessary social media and cloud accounts together
    • Be very careful

    We should also remember that a skilled, motivated hacker will probably break into your account regardless of your computer security. In this respect it’s no different to the physical world where a determined criminal will get you regardless of the locks and alarms on your house.

    It’s also important to remember that security is more than just evil hackers; data can be damaged or given away by a whole range of means and people breaking into systems is only one risk of many.

    Computer security is an evolving field and while it might be premature to declare the password dead, we’re going to see big changes as we try to lock down our valuable digital assets.

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  • Unprotected computing practices

    Unprotected computing practices

    A US study finding malware is rampant on medical equipment shouldn’t come as a surprise to those running industrial computer systems in their businesses.

    It’s notoriously difficult to update medical equipment or other sensitive systems as a security patch could have unintended consequences. Unlike a home or business computer, these patches have to be thoroughly tested beyond the precautions vendors take.

    So it isn’t surprising that these systems aren’t kept up to date although some equipment suppliers are more tardy than they should be in updating the servers they supply.

    A few years ago I came across CCTV systems running on the original version of Windows 2000 which were hopelessly compromised. This is an unacceptable situation for the customer and was more the result of vendor carelessness than any concern that customers could be affected by these unsecured machines.

    Not having the latest software patches creates a weakness in any computer device as most common way viruses find their way onto networks is through systems not being updated – Australia’s Defense Signals Directorate rates unpatched systems as being the number one cause of corporate security breaches.

    This is what caught out the Iranian nuclear program with the Stuxnet worm as the Siemens SCADA devices used by the Iranians were running older, unpatched versions of Windows. The designers of Stuxnet took advantage of a number of known weaknesses in the software and were able to damage the equipment being controlled by the systems.

    Obviously systems should be patched wherever they can be and there’s no excuse for not patching most office and home computers. It’s also worthwhile carrying out a number of other security steps to ensure an infected computer can’t damage your network or catch a virus through your Internet connection.

    The survey looking at these medical systems is a good wake up call to all of us that we need to take computer security seriously in our businesses.

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  • Posting without permissions

    Posting without permissions

    A client of mine once had a angry worker scream at him when she found out he’d posted photographs of all his staff on the company’s website.

    “My ex is a psycho, he doesn’t know where I live or work. If he finds this, he might come around here and kill us all,” she cried.

    The photos went down immediately and Kevin made sure he got explicit consent before he posted any details of his staff onto the website.

    It was a valuable lesson on why you shouldn’t just post people’s details online without first asking them. We all have reasons why we’d like to keep certain facts out of the public light.

    A Texan gay choir’s organiser posting the details of members onto Facebook is another reminder of why it’s a bad idea to put someone else’s details online without asking them first.

    For two members of the Queer Chorus at the University of Texas, having their sexual orientation pasted on their Facebook feeds caused terrible damage with their families and it should serve as lesson to every manager, business owner or community group leader that this stuff matters.

    One of the worrying features with Facebook is how other people can add you to groups without your permission – almost certainly a recipe for misunderstanding and mischief.

    What’s even more unforgivable with Facebook’s conduct is the privacy settings for those groups overrides an individual’s own privacy settings.

    As one of the victims said in the Wall Street Journal of when his father saw the status update, “I have him hidden from my updates, but he saw this,” she said. “He saw it.”

    So even though both the individuals had chosen to lock their profiles away from public view, Facebook and the organiser of the group decided they knew better.

    We shouldn’t let the administrator of the Facebook off the hook on this lapse, Christopher Acosta decided to make the group open and public. “I was so gung-ho about the chorus being unashamedly loud and proud,” he’s quoted as saying.

    That’s nice when you have a tolerant family and you’re from a liberal community but for others that ‘transparency’ can lead to damaging family relations for years, if not lifetimes. In some communities the consequences could be far worse.

    “I do take some responsibility,” says Mr Acosta. Which is a nice way of accepting you might have screwed somebody’s life up by doing something you didn’t understand.

    Ultimately responsibility lies with the person who presses the button which causes the email or status post to be published. In this case Christopher Acosta was responsible.

    To be fair to Mr Acosta, the ability to add people to Facebook groups without their permission is a deeply flawed as are those groups’ setting overriding an individual’s privacy preferences.

    Facebook have to understand there are real life consequences to ‘transparency’ which can ruin careers and even cost the lives of people. The damage to families and communities can be immense.

    Coming from a secure upper middle class white background, Mark Zuckerberg probably doesn’t quite understand the risks his company’s policies pose to people in vulnerable situations, hopefully some of his older and wiser advisers will explain why ‘transparency’ and ‘openness’ are not always a good idea.

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  • Securing your online passwords

    Securing your online passwords

    Every Internet user has to struggle with the burden of passwords as we’re expected to remember dozens of log in details for various websites and computer networks.

    As we’re seeing though, passwords aren’t that effective with universities and private companies being hacked on a regular basis. The problem is so bad banks are considering moving to fingerprints to replace PIN and password logins.

    Even if passwords are going to become irrelevant as we move to biometric logins like fingerprints and iris scans they aren’t going away quickly, so how do we protect our important online accounts?

    Use different passwords

    One of the key ways to protect yourself is not to use the same passwords for every site. Some critical sites, like your online banking and email, need protecting with strong passwords while others like social media sites don’t require such tough security.

    As we’ve seen with various security breaches, most notably the continual Sony hacks of 2011 and the deeply embarrassing Stratfor leaks, even the strongest passwords are useless if some dill leaves them on an unprotected server.

    Use strong passwords

    For the sites that matter, make sure the passwords are strong. You’ll find how to make memorable, easy to use and strong passwords on the Netsmarts site.

    You don’t need to use strong passwords on every site, for some websites that require registration to access you might want to fall back on the much maligned password or 12345 for those publications.

    Change default passwords

    Most of the hacks on university and corporate networks happen because the default passwords on servers aren’t changed. This was also how News International workers broke into British mobile phone message banks.  When you get a new phone or tablet computer, make sure you change the basic passwords that have come with the device and any associated service.

    Update your systems

    One of the biggest vulnerabilities for home and business computer systems is unpatched systems. Malicious websites, viruses and various tricks use known weaknesses in computer systems to bypass security measures. This applies to Apple Mac users as well.

    Consider two factor authentication

    Two factor authentication involves having double security, this could be a password linked to a SMS or a special one-off code. Services like Gmail offer this as do many corporate networks and banks.

    Be careful linking social media services

    A bigger risk than hackers is phishing where someone tricks you into giving away your password. This has become very common in hijacking social media accounts.

    If you’ve linked various social media services together then one being compromised can mean bad guys have access to all of your accounts, so be cautious about what applications you allow to connect with your Facebook page or Twitter account.

    For businesses

    Cyber security is critical for business, it’s been estimated that one in six companies who’ve been compromised will fail as a result of the breach and a credit card lapse can be expensive as well as embarrassing.

    The Australian government’s Defense Signals Directorate has an excellent guide to securing computer networks. The DSD’s research shows that just following four basic rules will prevent 85% of attacks.

    We should also keep in mind no security system is perfect. Just as your car doors or home can be broken into by a determined thief, the same is also true with computer networks, a skilled operator with enough time and resources can beat even the toughest cyber security regime.

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  • ABC Nightlife Computers: The state of tech

    ABC Nightlife Computers: The state of tech

    Join Paul and Tony Delroy to look at some of the trends and events that are affecting how you use phones, computers and internet in your home or business.

    A lot’s happened in the tech world over the last few weeks – Facebook has gone from the web’s golden business to being shunned, new tablet computers have been launched and we’ve had a virus threaten to knock people off the Internet.

    If you missed the show, you can listen to it online through the Nightlife website. Some of the topics we looked at included;

    • So what was the DNS Changer Trojan? Did the FBI really take over a criminal computer network?
    • Could a virus really damage computers and bring the Internet to a halt?
    • Is it true the US, Israel and North Korea are using viruses to attack other countries’ computers?
    • Should we worry about viruses on smartphones and tablet computers?
    • What about virus hoaxes? There’s a good one going around about Facebook at the moment?
    • Both Microsoft and Google have launched new tablet computers, will they knock off the iPad?
    • Microsoft’s tablet is going to run the new Windows 8 operating system, how does that look?
    • Facebook seems to have gone from hero to zero since they launched on the stock market. What happened?
    • There’s been some pretty serious Facebook privacy changes recently, what should people watch out for?
    • Microsoft have had some big security updates this week, what are they.

    For the Microsoft updates we mentioned, the major security updates can be downloaded from the Windows Update page or the Automatic Updates in Windows Vista and 7.

    Windows 7 and Vista users should also disable the desktop widget feature, Microsoft have two fix it tools available for download and users should run both.

    Listeners questions included the following problems;

    Alternatives to Outlook Express

    George was looking at upgrading to a new version of Windows that doesn’t have Outlook Express included but still wants a computer based email client rather than trusting a cloud service.

    Some of the alternatives include;

    Antivirus programs

    Margaret asked about antivirus options for Macs, there’s a couple of free antivirus programs designed for the Apple Mac

    For Windows users, the easiest free anti-virus to use is Microsoft Security Essentials.

    Microsoft Silverlight on Android

    Accessing Microsoft Silverlight based services like NineMSN on Google Android devices can be a problem as Jason found.

    Unfortunately at this stage there’s no clear solution for playing Silverlight sites on Android devices as Moonlight, the open source Silverlight player has been abandoned.

    Next Nightlife spot

    Our next Nightlife tech spot will be on August 6 and we’ll decide the topics closer to the dates. Watch the website for details over the next few weeks.

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