Posts Tagged ‘security training’

What Happens On The Internet Stays On The Internet…No Matter What A Judge Says!

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

For those of you that weren’t aware, this past weekend the long-running Defcon convention (historically started with only “hard core” hackers in attendance, but now huge numbers of information security pros and law enforcement attend) was held in Las Vegas.
Some MIT students, Zack Anderson, R.J. Ryan and Alessandro Chiesa, were scheduled to talk about “Anatomy of a Subway Hack,” detailing a school project they did, and received an “A” on, that showed how the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) cards could be hacked to basically change a $1.25 MBTA fare card to a $100 fare card.
Well, the MBTA got wind of this…actually the MIT students contacted them in July to tell them about this security flaw, as well as let them know they were giving a presentation about it…and filed an injunction last Friday to keep the MIT students from giving their presentation on Sunday.
But guess what? Yep…I bet you can see this coming…

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Missouri Dept of Revenue Sued (Under DPPA) For Releasing PII That Was Posted for Sale on the Internet

Monday, August 11th, 2008

It used to be very common for various state and local government agencies, such as the Department of Motor Vehicles, to sell their records, containing vasts amounts of personally identifiable information (PII), as a revenue stream. That changed when Rebecca Schaeffer’s stalker killed her in 1989 after paying $250 to get her address, and other PII on file, from the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
After this horrible, tragic demonstration of how very bad things can happen when people have full reign to get access to PII, states started enacting drivers protection acts to keep the PII the agencies had on file from being accessed in such egregiously irresponsible ways. Finally, a U.S. federal law, the Drivers Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) was enacted to help protect the PII in drivers’ records.
So, I found the following inappropriate release from a state agency to be very interesting…

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Social Engineering Suckers Security Sages

Friday, August 8th, 2008

Yesterday at Black Hat a couple of the presenters, Shawn Moyer and Nathan Hamiel, reportedly discussed their experiment that revealed how easily they got some prominent Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) to fall for a social engineering scam played out using social networking sites.
Here’s a short excerpt…

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Social Engineering, Ethics, and Why You Should Never Put Anything Online That You Don’t Want Others To See

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

Okay, now here’s an example of how people will take information you’ve given them, under false pretenses, just because they can, and post it for the world to see, with no regrets about how it hurts other people.

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40+ Million Credit Cards Stolen Using Wardriving…This Is Nothing New, Folks!

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

Okay, lots and LOTS has already been written about the DoJ press release yesterday, “Retail Hacking Ring Charged for Stealing and Distributing Credit and Debit Card Numbers from Major U.S. Retailers: More Than 40 Million Credit and Debit Card Numbers Stolen.
But, I still want to put a few thoughts out about this…

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40+ Million Credit Cards Stolen Using Wardriving…This Is Nothing New, Folks!

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

Okay, lots and LOTS has already been written about the DoJ press release yesterday, “Retail Hacking Ring Charged for Stealing and Distributing Credit and Debit Card Numbers from Major U.S. Retailers: More Than 40 Million Credit and Debit Card Numbers Stolen.
But, I still want to put a few thoughts out about this…

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Whose PII Is Covered Under the EU Data Protection Directive?

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

I got a great question from a business friend of mine, and I wanted to provide my answer here, too, because it is something all multi-national organizations need to think about. Eric Nelson, who heads Secure Privacy Solutions asked, “If a company collects and manages PII from another country, e.g., India or the U.S., and transfers that PII to the E.U. for some type of processing or storage or even just transit, does the E.U. Data Directive apply once that PII leaves a country within the E.U.?”

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Privacy Concerns Of Google Walking Directions

Monday, August 4th, 2008

Last Friday afternoon I got a message from a Popular Science reporter, John Brandon, asking me if I thought that the Google walking directions feature created any privacy concerns. I was finishing a client deliverable at the time, but indicated I would answer him later in the day…which I did take the time to do late in the evening instead of doing other, more recreational, things. I heard no ackowledgment or response with him about the information I provided, but he did write an article about Google walking directions that was published today, “Google Walking Directions: a Privacy Concern?”
John did just confirm to me that he had received my message but too late to include in the article.
Here is the information I provided…

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Privacy Concerns Of Google Walking Directions

Monday, August 4th, 2008

Last Friday afternoon I got a message from a Popular Science reporter, John Brandon, asking me if I thought that the Google walking directions feature created any privacy concerns. I was finishing a client deliverable at the time, but indicated I would answer him later in the day…which I did take the time to do late in the evening instead of doing other, more recreational, things. I heard no ackowledgment or response with him about the information I provided, but he did write an article about Google walking directions that was published today, “Google Walking Directions: a Privacy Concern?”
John did just confirm to me that he had received my message but too late to include in the article.
Here is the information I provided…

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New Website Seal For Companies Participating In The EU Safe Harbor Program

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

Something I’ve been spending a lot of work on this summer is creating management tools to help information security and privacy practitioners do their jobs more effectively and efficiently. In the past three months I’ve had over a dozen CISOs and CPOs call me and ask if I had specific types of tools to help them with their information security, privacy and compliance efforts and iniatives. One of the tools will help them with managing their programs and processes for, along with the many complex issues involved with, transferring personally identifiable information (PII) with any of the 27 European Union (EU) contries to the U.S. and other countries. One of the areas involved with tackling this issue is whether or not to participate in the Safe Harbor program.
So, I was very interested to read that the U.S. Commerce Department announced a new certification mark/seal for organizations to put on their websites to show that they have self-certified compliance with the Safe Harbor Framework requirements.

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