ITACS 5211: Introduction to Ethical Hacking

Wade Mackay

Mengqi He

“FAA Advisory Body Recommends Cybersecurity Measures”

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Recently, the RCTA developed drafting guidelines for the security performance standards in the aviation industry. With the guidelines, the Federal Aviation Administration aimed to ensure that cybersecurity protections will be incorporated into routine activities and day-to-day operation from the air to the ground on manufacturers, carriers, maintenance facilities and airports. Cyber issues in aviation industry ware elevated to such a high priority for the first time. I think it is important that the FAA pay attention on the cyber security in aviation industry. It will be super dangerous if terrorists hacked into a flying plane or airport control tower. From the articles I found through the past 5 weeks, I realized that cyber security is not only about confidential information to business to privacy to individuals, it also relates to our safety.

Article: http://www.wsj.com/articles/faa-advisory-body-recommends-cybersecurity-measures-1474587049

“Uber, Dropbox, Other Tech Leaders Team Up To Boost Vendor Security”

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Recently, tech companies including Uber, Dropbox, Twitter, and Docker have joined farce to create the Vendor Security Alliance (VSA) for improving internet security. With the VSA, security experts and compliance experienced officers will team up to release a yearly questionnaire to benchmark its members’ risks. The questionnaire will measure risks based on policies, procedures, privacy, vulnerability management and data security. By sharing the expertise and practices across businesses, VSA will create standards and scoring processes to assess the security level of its members, and ensure appropriate controls are in place to improve security.  The first questionnaire will be available on Oct. 1 free of charge.

I think this article is interesting that some tech leaders decided to team up to standardize the cybersecurity practices. I think it is a good thing that the VSA takes advantages of collective expertise across different industries to improve the security practices. With the standards, companies belonging in the VSA are able to evaluate and measure their own risk levels and determine their vulnerabilities and strengths without additional audits.

Article: http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities—threats/vulnerability-management/uber-dropbox-other-tech-leaders-team-up-to-boost-vendor-security-/d/d-id/1326926

Article: “Crimeware-as-a-Service Hack Turns Potential Hackers into Victims.”

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Hacking now is so easy that hackers don’t even have to be a technically sophisticated hacker with hacking skills and knowledge, and to deal with the technical challenges to run their own crimeware. Instead, they can just buy a hacking service that will do most of hacking works for hackers, enables them to automate the hacking online and gain access to sophisticated network easily. Obviously, the Crime-as-a-Service (CaaS) offering is contributing to the increasing volume and sophistication of cybercrime and the increasing difficulties of tracking malicious hackers. The victims are not only the targets under attacks, but also those attackers, customers of the CaaS offerings. For example, a newly discovered crimeware service is using Facebook hacking tools hosted on Google Drive. It requires users/customers to provide their Facebook login credentials before they can hack other accounts. It steals aspiring hackers’ account information and tricks them that they can hack into other accounts. This crimeware service makes money by selling stolen account information in the underground market. This also put enterprise user accounts under at risk. Hackers can steal business users’ credentials and develop a botnet for stealing a company’s intellectual property, damaging software or conducting other future attacks, while it is hard to track back and find the real attackers. They can also make money by selling the credentials to the highest bidder. Therefore, to prevent this kind of attacks, IT managers are suggested to prevent employees from using business accounts for personal use, open suspicious link or downloading unauthorized files, and ensure to have fast response to attacks.

This article made me think about the security of social media sites, like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. As most trusted communication channels to most of people, many social media sites even cannot secure their own environment. It makes social network a hotbed of CaaS and other cyber crime that allow hackers to manipulate users and develop botnet easily. It is weaponized, and makes hacking more effective and less trackable. To companies, social media attacks are not only about reputation damage, it also leads to big data breaches. According to research, eighth companies suffered a security breach due to social media-related cyber attacks. However, companies can hardly prevent employees from using social network because it has become part of our lives. Instead, companies should identify their social assets, develop an effective social media security plan, educate employees, and be almost prepared to for social media attacks.

Article: http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/crimeware-as-a-service-hack-turns-potential-hackers-into-victims/d/d-id/1326849

References: http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/why-social-media-sites-are-the-new-cyber-weapons-of-choice/a/d-id/1326802

http://www.scmagazine.com/snack-attack-a-crimeware-as-a-service-menu-for-wannabe-hackers/article/509166/

Article: “Car hacking is the future – and sooner or later you’ll be hit”

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This article discussed about how vulnerabilities of automotive system enable car hacking. As the car becomes increasingly computerized, many accidents due to system and software flaws are exposed to the public. Therefore, the security of car’s system and internal network should one of the top concern of car manufacturers. However, I think just few auto manufacturers have placed enough emphasis on developing secure vehicle information system. Back to 2014, it was approved that Jeep could be remotely took over, and therefore, Fiat had to recall all the affected cars to fix the problem. Even though the car manufacturer is keeping improving their systems, researchers still find vulnerabilities that enable hackers to access the car’s internal network through the entertainment system. Hackers are able to seize the control of the car by turning the steering wheel, hitting the brake or slamming on the accelerator. Researchers are currently focusing on the potential attacks related to sensors and radar that enable self-parking and self-driving.

 

I think this article is interesting because when people talk about information security and hacking, I would first think about privacy. However, it is much more than privacy, it also relates to people’s safety and health especially for vehicles and medical devices. The most common interconnected system connecting different systems in most of cars is called CAN bus. One of the greatest vulnerabilities is the lack of encryption on the CAN bus. A weakness of any one of the system could enable attackers access the the rest of the systems and even take control of the car. This would become the one of the greatest challenges to car manufactures, as most of them are focusing on developing self-parking and self-driving car.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/28/car-hacking-future-self-driving-security