Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: security

  • Telstra’s five ‘knows’ of security

    Telstra’s five ‘knows’ of security

    Telstra, Australia’s incumbent telco, held their Cyber Security Summit in Sydney today looking at the issues facing organisations in protecting their networks and data.

    One of the recurring themes speakers raised were the ‘five knows’ that Telstra’s security people believe are the core of business security.

    Those ‘knows’ sound simple but in truth in they are hard to carry out in even a small, simple network;

    • Know the value of your data
    • Know who has access
    • Know where the data is
    • Know who is protecting the data
    • Know how well that data is being protected

    With these five rules we’re moving into Donald Rumsfeld territory of ‘known unknowns’. In most organisations the honest answer to these questions is “we don’t fully know”, some data that’s seen as irrelevant by management could be a goldmine for a competitor or malicious actor while a relatively junior staffer could be saving critical documents on an external drive or consumer cloud service with a weak password.

    Managing those knowns, or unknowns, is a tough task and one that needs to be tempered by realism.

    In truth no system administrator has full knowledge of their network, for organisations real security comes from having strong leadership, robust processes and delivering the products and services demanded by the public.

    Technology will help deliver those products and services while helping strong leaders implement robust process but ultimately a secure organisation needs good management, not better tech.

    From the cyber security point of view, Telstra’s forum had many useful thoughts and we’ll look at more aspects regarding security that came up in the sessions later in the week.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts

  • Hacking the power grid through air conditioners

    Another example of the unintended consequences of poor security in the Internet of Things is Wired’s story about the possibility of hacking the power grid by accessing smart air conditioners.

    In the US, electricity companies offer deals where consumers get reduced bills in return for the utility being able to throttle the usage of air conditioners during peak power periods.

    Those devices turn out not to be well secured which opens the possibility of malicious actors causing brownouts or service interruptions in a targeted areas.

    Sadly this story isn’t isolated, too many connected devices have poor security that opens up the a range of risks to homeowners, businesses and the community at large.

     

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts
  • BlackBerry’s last smartphone

    BlackBerry’s last smartphone

    Having written about BlackBerry’s ambitions in the marketplace for The Australian last week, it wasn’t surprising to be invited to the company’s Down Under launch of their Priv handset earlier today.

    The event illustrated some brutal realities about mobile phone market and BlackBerry’s efforts to build on its strengths in the enterprise security space.

    With 2.7 billion dollars of cash reserves, the company has seven years of breathing space at its current loss rates although it’s notable the stock market values the company at $3.5bn, implying investors value the business’ operations at a measly $800 million.

    Given the collapse in BlackBerry’s handset business from twenty percent of the market at the beginning of the decade to an asterix today, that pessimism from investors isn’t surprising and underscores why the company is recasting itself as an enterprise security provider.

    Five major acquisitions in the last 18 months have demonstrated how BlackBerry is attempting to recast its business; security services like Good Technology and Secusmart through to warning software like At Hoc have seen the company bolster its range of offerings.

    Blackberry-software-chart

    Coupled with the recent acquisitions are its own longstanding messaging and secure communications services combined with the QNX software arm that promises a far more reliable Internet of Things than many of the current operating systems being embedded into smart devices.

    The Android smartphone system itself is bedevilled with dangerous apps running on outdated software and where BlackBerry hopes their PRIV handset can attract enterprise users conscious of the need to secure their employees’ devices.

    For BlackBerry though, the PRIV being shipped with the Android operating system is a capitulation to the smartphone market’s stark reality where there is only demand for two products and outside players like BlackBerry or Windows are destined to wither away.

    While the PRIV is a nice, albeit expensive, phone and the slide out physical keyboard is nice to use, the device seems to be a desperate attempt by the company to stay in the smartphone market.

    As an outside observer it’s hard to see the justification for BlackBerry continuing as a phone manufacturer, there may be some intellectual property value from the development of the devices – although it should be noted the company only valued its IP assets at $906 million in November 2015.

    While the PRIV is a perfectly good Android phone it will probably be the last smartphone BlackBerry makes, the challenge for the company’s management now is to tie together the software assets it has into a compelling suite of products for the enterprise sector.

    In an age where devices of all types are going to be connected, the market for ensuring their security should be huge. Catering to that market should be BlackBerry’s greatest hope of survival.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts
  • Securing the drones

    Securing the drones

    While we assume military equipment has far higher levels of IT security, it isn’t always the case reports Ars Technica.

    Allegedly the US National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ were able to intercept the video feeds of Israeli and Syrian drone aircraft using off the shelf software. While it appears security has become more sophisticated on this equipment, it is a concern that data feeds can be monitored from military equipment.

    This is even more concerning given the reliance of software and telemetry systems in modern weapons. The troubled F-35 project shows just how complex computer code has now become in military equipment and it is safe to say some of those bugs will create weaknesses in the systems.

    For those of us with more modest security needs, all is not lost though as Rob Joyce, the NSA’s hacker-in-chief, has given some useful tips on how to protect your systems. These are worth following although Joyce is quite clear that you’ll have to work hard to stay ahead of a sophisticated and persistent cyber-enemy.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts
  • Knowing what we don’t know

    Knowing what we don’t know

    The 2016 Cisco Security report is in many ways an encouraging document, while it describes a litany of threats facing the modern business the fact managers are less confident about their defenses is a good thing.

    Of the 2432 security executives surveyed 59% claimed their security infrastructure was up to date against 64 percent said the same. Acknowledging this is motivating them to improve their defenses.

    For industry, the real concern is the small business sector where there’s a clear decline in the use of IT security tools. As the Target breach showed, trusted contractors and suppliers provide a weakness in an organisation’s systems that malicious actors are keen to exploit.

    In Cisco’s analysis, the main reasons for SMBs lack of concern is their belief they are too small to be valuable to hackers and most of their IT management is outsourced.

    A shift to the cloud shouldn’t be understated, particularly given many SMBs are shifting their IT functions onto cloud services. While this doesn’t fully protect businesses, the cloud providers certainly offer a far higher level of protection that the local plumbing contractor relying on a mom and pop computer support service.

    The bad guys however are responding to that shift with Cisco reporting increased browser based and DNS attacks, both of these are useful in compromising cloud computing services which means both service providers and end users have to be vigilant about security.

    At all levels of business though the lack of confidence in security has major ramifications as the Internet of Things is rolled out and common devices start being connected to fragile and often compromised networks.

    The good news for vendors like Cisco is this lack of confidence could spur a new wave of business investment as companies improve their network security.

    Another important aspect of CIOs and business owners not being confident about their network security is they are far less likely to assume their systems are safe or to passively accept vendor assurances about their safety.

    For all of us a customers and users of these technologies, a greater focus on security by the organisations we deal with should be welcomed as well.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts