Noah J Berson

While the government has several standards for security, it seems that not everyone follows them. A lot of the basics could have protected Podesta from all of his recent troubles. There are plenty of people who have heard of the Nigerian prince scam but haven’t been updated on the latest spear phishing techniques. A regular change of his…[Read more]

Spending money to hoard bitcoin instead of developing security policies seems misguided to me. I do not recall any evidence that DYN was attacked for a ransom while we do know that is a possibility sometimes. Hacktivists turn their attention to any target they feel is powerful and have slighted them in some way; a category banks can easily fit…[Read more]

Cyber security can be hard to implement as it isn’t always the same as just hiring more IT staff. It often has to be its own department which businesses can be reluctant to start. Some companies are choosing to outsource cyber security instead of taking the time and resources to develop their own.

Its a bit frightening that now that the source code is out there multiple people are already abusing the IoT botnet to attack key infrastructure. Infrastructure will always be a target for those who want to disrupt a whole system. Another problem is that mitigation is only a defense and that it doesn’t prevent a 2nd wave of an attack. In this case…[Read more]

“New, more-powerful IoT botnet infects 3,500 devices in 5 days”
Linux/IRCTelnet is a new player in the IoT botnet game. This new botnet is built similar to Frankenstein’s monster; recycled parts of other successful botnets combined. It starts with one of the first IoT botnets named Aidra, originally a research a project that was a bit too…[Read more]

In chapter 42, I learned how onion routing got its names because it works with the layers that run counter to the typical OSI model. When you view a packet sent with OSI, you can know where it is ultimately headed. Onion routing, or TOR (The onion router) as you may see more often as the name, is a system that is meant to obscure web traffic…[Read more]

For some bigger companies, a long TTL may reduce the ability of round robin DNS load balancers to distribute web traffic. Its part of what these big companies pay for. For medium companies they should be setting longer TTLs.
I like that the article covers 2014’s DNS attack as it shows that the internet decided to just absorb/reduce the risk…[Read more]

When I buy a new piece of equipment I like when it has a randomly generated password on it, usually in the form of a sticker. Xiongmai should’ve been doing something like this from the start. Since for some devices this is just circuit boards and the brand isn’t listed as Xiongmai, a lot won’t be recalled. Without the ability to send updates to…[Read more]

“American vigilante hacker sends Russia a warning”
It was recently announced and even discussed in the debate that US intelligence has identified that Russia was behind attacks on the DNC and other targets. A vigilante known as “The Jester” (or th3j35t3r in leet speak) decided to take it upon himself to retaliate against a Russian target. He…[Read more]

I think that in the context of being attacked by a DDoS that spear phishing is the bigger threat. A DDoS to take down an organization’s resources would need to know how to access servers via IP or by figuring out how to get past firewalls. Network administrators may be targeted to reveal this sensitive information. A spear phisher may request…[Read more]

The effectiveness of skimmers should only last as long as they remain relatively unknown. The benefit against skimmers is that you can confiscate the attacker’s equipment whenever they attempt this. With over the internet attacks, you would need law enforcement’s help to do anything to their physical machines. Education is still the best defense…[Read more]

There are a lot of factors to consider when thinking about the physical location of data storage. This chart seems to combine three factors; infrastructure, politics, and natural disasters. The problem with an overall score like this is that it is only a good starting place to understand good locations. The real challenge is understanding how…[Read more]

A word that jumped out at me from your post is “antiquated” when describing working with utilities. The more specialized software has to be the fewer options a company has so they often have to pick something that isn’t maintained as often as mass consumer software. A lot of patching has to be done in-house to make sure the system can still work…[Read more]

Nuclear power plant was disrupted by cyber attack

The International Atomic Energy Agency director Yukiya Amano announced that a nuclear power plant had some disruptions due to a cyber attack. For security reasons, he did not clarify which power plant or what was disrupted. He was able to say that the plant stayed open but took precautionary…[Read more]

A thorough test of a BCP is not practical. There would be great expense and it can cause disruption to employees. Also, the organization may be outsourcing some of IT and cannot view inside their operations.
We can do a lot of disaster recover testing in general though insted of a thorough test. There are four main categories of testing;…[Read more]

These attacks are so common because they work. People tend to trust what their computer is asking of them and may not look at whether the popup is from Microsoft or a malicious program. Sometimes they even have phone lines that you can call and they will continue to try to take money from you. I think users should know what their official channels…[Read more]

What I find interesting is that by doubling the bits its actually 16 million times harder to decrypt. I think the slow switch has to due with understanding the raw computer power required to take down a 1024 bit key. 3,000 cpus like an i5 would cost about 600,000 dollars, not factoring in the facility, staff, and power costs to run them for 2…[Read more]