MIS 5212-Advanced Penetration Testing

MIS 5212 - Section 001 - Wade Mackey

Fox School of Business

Mauchel Barthelemy

Please stop charging your phone in public ports

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Let me start with Selena Larson’s (a CNN tech reporter) opening idea of this article, “I know the feeling: Your battery is low, but you have to keep tweeting. You see a USB port or an outlet in public, plug in your device and feel the sweet relief of your phone charging.”

It is explained in the article that if a port is compromised, there’s no limit to what information a hacker could steal. Security researchers call “Juice jacking” a method hacker utilized to steal mobile devices’ information such as: email, text messages, photos and so forth via a loaded charging station. I believe this is the case of a lot of people out there, especially when travelling. To a surprise, even I.T. security professionals.

One of the best ways to avoid being hacked via a public charging station is to use your own portable USB battery pack. Other good suggestions can also be found in the article below.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/15/technology/public-ports-charging-bad-stop/

BATTLE OF THE SECURE MESSAGING APPS: HOW SIGNAL BEATS WHATSAPP

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We live in a text messaging world. In fact, texting is arguably one of the most (if not the most) commonly used form of communication many people interact, share contents with family and friends. WhatsApp, Facebook’s Messenger, Google’s Allo, the list goes on and on.

Encryption security is the crucial intersection that messaging cannot afford to avoid to gain the minimum trust of users. Most of messaging services I mentioned above implement good effort to address the security issue, but are they doing enough with all the leaking, hacking and contents interception going? Numerous controversies surfaced over the past few months about attackers stealing people’s information via most popular messaging platforms. For example, bgr.com’s Chris Smith wrote this year about hackers having a new way to steal banking login information using WhatsApp. Which brings me to my point to ask, are there any reliably secure messaging service out there? This is the answer “Signal” is trying to answer. Signal is by far the best secure messaging services I have ever used thus far. It comes with several good features to at least make someone feel secured. For instance, Signal won’t allow users to take screenshots from its system. Snowden recommended Signal as the most secure messaging app out there. Also, The Hillary Clinton campaign utilized Signal to avoid creating another email controversy. I would suggest you to go and try it, then let us know your thoughts.

https://theintercept.com/2016/06/22/battle-of-the-secure-messaging-apps-how-signal-beats-whatsapp/

Anti-virus software is just a terrible idea, warns former Mozilla engineer

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This is a claim I find hard to believe, but worth investigating further for the sake of curiosity. Anti-virus has been for years the primary or essential way for PC/Mac owners to protect their devices. Even though not sufficient, but anti-virus represents the basic step for regular computer users and large corporations to implement in terms of IT security.

According to an alternative study, anti-viruses maybe well overrated. This is what Ars Technica’s Robert O’Callahan, who is a former Mozilla engineer explains in this article. O’Callahan continues to add the best solution in place of anti-virus is Microsoft’s Windows defenders if user(s) keeps updating Windows 10 regularly, unless you are on Windows XP or something, where even he admits you might need some third-part help. He recommends that anti-virus vendors are terrible and not to buy them. This report deserves some attentions and further studies to ensure if it’s founded. Otherwise, this could be catastrophic if many choose to believe this claim.

 http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/former-mozilla-engineer-dont-use-third-party-antivirus-software/

Top 10 companies hiring cybersecurity professionals

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I was browsing top cybersecurity news for this week and I came across this article that I believe could be meaningful for a lot of you. Especially for those who are about to graduate this coming August. Alison DeNisco, a Tech Republic writer, conducted a research to reveal the top-rated organizations currently hiring cybersecurity professionals.

Among the group are Apple, Lockheed Martin, Intel and surprisingly several more interesting ones. Alison shared an important statistic revealing that “The US faces a 33% skills shortage for crucial security roles…” Conversely, this gab is shrinking as job seekers in cybersecurity roles rose from 60% in 2014 to 67% today. Let’s hope the trend keep gearing up as these are important positions the U.S. and several other countries need more than ever.

You may access the full article via the link below.

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/top-10-companies-hiring-cybersecurity-professionals/