ISD Podcast Episode 137 for May 25, 2010. This podcast is our contribution back to the community where we will discuss the vulnerabilities of interest, information security related news hopefully providing you a few laughs and a little knowledge.

Announcements:

MyHardDriveDied.com:

• MHDD Data Recovery Class current dates and locations:
  • San Francisco – June 14th -18th
  • Atlanta – July – 12th-16th
  • Dallas, TX – October – 11th – 15th
  • Washington DC – December 6th – 10th
  • Cost is $3500 for all classes to reserve and register, call (678) 445-9007, email: smoulton@nicservices.com or go to http://www.myharddrivedied.com. Use the Discount Code: isdpodcast for a $300 discount.

SANS Mentoring Program:

• Jason Lawrence will also be putting on the SANS Mentor Forensics 508 – Computer Forensics and Investigations course in Sandy Springs starting Tuesday, June 22, 2010 – Tuesday, August 24, 2010 (http://www.sans.org/mentor/details.php?nid=21538).  Use the Discount Code: isdpod15 for a 15% discount.

Atlanta ISSA:

• ISSA Chapter is hosting a CISSP Workshop starting May 26 – August 14 (Preparing for the August 15, 2010 Exam) 6:00 to 9:00 PM 2 sessions per week, every Wednesday and Friday at the Clendenin Building, Kennesaw State University.  The CISSP workshop is free of charge to Metro Atlanta ISSA members only. For further information, contact Ben Sholes, Director of Training, at: training@gaissa.org.
• ISSA International Conference – September 16, 2010  (http://www.issa.org/page/?p=105)

North Alabama ISSA:

• Hosting Second annual North Alabama Cyber Security Summit to be held on June 9th in Huntsville AL.  Event is open to ISSA members at a discounted price ($35 full price is $50). For more information please visit the North Alabama ISSA’s web site at: http://northalabama.issa.org/.  Email cybersecuritysummit@northalabama.issa.org.

Friends of the Podcast:

Webhosting services:WebSpeedway

Stories of Interest:
News item 1: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/052410-women-more-likely-to-snoop.html

According to research conducted by the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Nottingham Trent University, 14 percent of wives read their partners emails, while 13 percent snoop at their text messages and 10 percent admitted to looking at their web browsing history.

However, only eight percent of men said they would read their wives emails while just seven percent claimed they would check their text messages and browsing history. “The findings show that wives were indeed more likely to monitor their husbands’ behaviour. This contrasts with general research that suggests women are less technologically skilled than men,” LSE’s Ellen Helsper and Monica Whitty from the Nottingham Trent University told the Sunday Times.

News item 2: http://www.selfstoragepromotions.com
McAfee has released its “McAfee Threats Report: First Quarter 2010,” which reveals that a portable storage device worms are the most dangerous threat to computers.

According to McAfee, threats on portable storage devices took the lead for most popular malware. AutoRun related infections held the first and third spots due to the widespread adoption of portable storage devices. By contrast, portable storage containers are still among the safest places to store industrial goods.

“It’s almost a shame that USB drives have so many names. Some people call them thumb drives. But other people call them portable storage—and these devices tend to carry a security risk for corporations,” says John Finnessy, CMP, Executive Director of the NPSA, a nonprofit membership association dedicated to the advancement of the portable storage industry. “Portable storage as we know it in the portable storage container industry is a means to secure goods rather than a way for malicious hackers to exploit sensitive files.”

From retailers to construction companies to transportation interests to medical facilities and more, portable storage containers are serving the storage and temporary office needs of a myriad of industries. Department stores are a prime example. Along with pharmacies, supermarkets, hospitality and food service venues, department stores have discovered that portable storage can offer much-needed extra space, especially in busy seasons.

“There is seemingly no end for the uses of portable storage,” says NPSA Operations Manager Joel Rathbone. “We continue to see industries large and small discover new ways to use portable storage containers. They are ideal for manufacturers, contractors, auto dealerships, retail outlets. If it’s an industry that needs quick and easy access to storage, these containers are finding a place there.”

ISD Podcast Episode 136 for May 24, 2010.  This podcast is our contribution back to the community where we will discuss the vulnerabilities of interest, information security related news hopefully providing you a few laughs and a little knowledge.

Announcements:

MyHardDriveDied.com:

• MHDD Data Recovery Class current dates and locations:
  • San Francisco – June 14th -18th
  • Atlanta – July – 12th-16th
  • Dallas, TX – October – 11th – 15th
  • Washington DC – December 6th – 10th
  • Cost is $3500 for all classes to reserve and register, call (678) 445-9007, email: smoulton@nicservices.com or go to http://www.myharddrivedied.com. Use the Discount Code: isdpodcast for a $300 discount.

SANS Mentoring Program:

• Jason Lawrence will also be putting on the SANS Mentor Forensics 508 – Computer Forensics and Investigations course in Sandy Springs starting Tuesday, June 22, 2010 – Tuesday, August 24, 2010 (http://www.sans.org/mentor/details.php?nid=21538).  Use the Discount Code: isdpod15 for a 15% discount.

Atlanta ISSA:

• ISSA Chapter is hosting a CISSP Workshop starting May 26 – August 14 (Preparing for the August 15, 2010 Exam) 6:00 to 9:00 PM 2 sessions per week, every Wednesday and Friday at the Clendenin Building, Kennesaw State University.  The CISSP workshop is free of charge to Metro Atlanta ISSA members only. For further information, contact Ben Sholes, Director of Training, at: training@gaissa.org.
• ISSA International Conference – September 16, 2010  (http://www.issa.org/page/?p=105)

North Alabama ISSA:

• Hosting Second annual North Alabama Cyber Security Summit to be held on June 9th in Huntsville AL.  Event is open to ISSA members at a discounted price ($35 full price is $50). For more information please visit the North Alabama ISSA’s web site at: http://northalabama.issa.org/.  Email cybersecuritysummit@northalabama.issa.org.

Friends of the Podcast:

Webhosting services:WebSpeedway

Stories of Interest:
News item 1: http://news.techworld.com/security/3224283/ibm-red-faced-after-handing-out-usb-drives-stuffed-with-malware/
You might get more than you bargained for if you attend a security conference. IBM shocked delegates at the Australian AusCERT conference in Queensland by handing out USB sticks infected with malware.

The company was forced to write to delegates apologizing for its error. “At the AusCERT conference this week, you may have collected a complimentary USB key from the IBM booth. Unfortunately we have discovered that some of these USB keys contained malware and we suspect that all USB keys may be affected.”

It was actually worse than IBM intimated. To make it doubly embarrassing, according to security company Sophos, the company included two examples of malware: W32/LibHack-A. and W32/Agent-FWF.

Sophos’s senior technology consultant, Graham Cluley had a guess how the error occurred. “My guess is that they didn’t check the USB sticks before handing them out. Maybe they out-sourced the creation of the USB content to a third party, and they weren’t careful enough. After all, if an infected PC was used to create the “image” of the USB drive then it would have been easy for that disk image to be infected and copied onto every USB stick they handed out.”

News item 2: http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/ct-met-eisenhower-travel-times-0521-20100523,0,7325891.story
Whoever thought that talking on a cell phone while driving would be considered a public service?

But that will be the case in one respect starting within the next few weeks on the Eisenhower Expressway, where travel times have soared since a resurfacing project began this spring between Thorndale Avenue in the western suburbs and the Circle Interchange near downtown Chicago.

To generate travel-time information on the torn-up highway, the state has hired a Wisconsin company to monitor signals sent from motorists using Bluetooth-enabled personal electronic devices such as hands-free headsets for cell phones, wireless headphones and computer peripherals.

Each device has a unique identification marker that will be tracked anonymously at various points on the Eisenhower to determine travel times and pinpoint areas of congestion, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation.

ISD Podcast Episode 135 for May 21, 2010. This podcast is our contribution back to the community where we will discuss the vulnerabilities of interest, information security related news hopefully providing you a few laughs and a little knowledge.

Announcements:

MyHardDriveDied.com:

• MHDD Data Recovery Class current dates and locations:
  • San Francisco – June 14th -18th
  • Atlanta – July – 12th-16th
  • Dallas, TX – October – 11th – 15th
  • Washington DC – December 6th – 10th
  • Cost is $3500 for all classes to reserve and register, call (678) 445-9007, email: smoulton@nicservices.com or go to http://www.myharddrivedied.com. Use the Discount Code: isdpodcast for a $300 discount.

SANS Mentoring Program:

• Jason Lawrence will also be putting on the SANS Mentor Forensics 508 – Computer Forensics and Investigations course in Sandy Springs starting Tuesday, June 22, 2010 – Tuesday, August 24, 2010 (http://www.sans.org/mentor/details.php?nid=21538).  Use the Discount Code: isdpod15 for a 15% discount.

Atlanta ISSA:

• ISSA Chapter is hosting a CISSP Workshop starting May 26 – August 14 (Preparing for the August 15, 2010 Exam) 6:00 to 9:00 PM 2 sessions per week, every Wednesday and Friday at the Clendenin Building, Kennesaw State University.  The CISSP workshop is free of charge to Metro Atlanta ISSA members only. For further information, contact Ben Sholes, Director of Training, at: training@gaissa.org.
• ISSA International Conference – September 16, 2010  (http://www.issa.org/page/?p=105)

North Alabama ISSA:

• Hosting Second annual North Alabama Cyber Security Summit to be held on June 9th in Huntsville AL.  Event is open to ISSA members at a discounted price ($35 full price is $50).
• For more information please visit the North Alabama ISSA’s web site at: http://northalabama.issa.org/

Friends of the Podcast:

Webhosting services:WebSpeedway

Stories of Interest:
News item 1: http://www.news.com.au/business/breaking-news/hacker-stole-7m-game-code-at-tech-show/story-e6frfkur-1225868939880
A BOSTON man appeared in court today charged with trying to download the code of a soon-to-be released video game at a tech convention. Justin May, 20, of Delaware, was attending the March PAX East 2010 in Boston where he allegedly used his laptop to hack into an Xbox 360 Test Kit that was demonstrating the game Breach, and downloaded the code, WBZ reported.

Breach, an unreleased game due out this northern summer worth $US6m ($7.1m), was being shown for the first time at the convention by Atomic Games, a subset of Destineer.

“Breach, and our Hydrogen game engine, are the result of millions of dollars of investment and years of hard work,” said Peter Tamte, President of Atomic Games. “It would have been very harmful if Breach had been posted on the internet months before its planned release.”

News item 2: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle09.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2010/May/theuae_May541.xml&section=theuae
The UAE should have a strategy to defend itself against cyber crimes, cyber espionage and the possibility of a cyber war, an expert on security said.  “We should know who can and will attack us and we should be able to defend ourselves,” Richard A. Clarke, who has served three consecutive US presidents as senior White House advisor, said in a lecture, “Cyber War: The next Threat to the UAE’s National Security”, at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research.

Praising the UAE’s role at the UN and GCC level against cyber threats, he said, “Diplomacy is one way to deal with these threats at the international level. Diplomacy and dialogue can be used to control them. The UAE has a great role to play in creating an international system of cyber teeth.”

Every nation is vulnerable to cyber threat, including the UAE, since it is one of the most wired nations in the world, he said. Masdar’s (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company) work on alternativee energy, for instance, could be of interest to many and espionage in a modern society can come from anywhere in the world.

News item 3:   http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/us-hypocrisy-in-china-cyberwar-says-expert/story-e6frgakx-1225868338373
The recent China-US “cyberwar” exposed American hypocrisy on the issues of government surveillance and censorship, according to a US-based expert on security system design.

“Why is the country with the best technology for online surveillance of its citizens’ communications taking other nations to task over censorship and free speech?” Mr Ranum, chief security officer of Tenable Network Security, challenged a packed forum at AusCERT 2010.

“For years, the US has embraced portions of the hacker community into our labs to build cyber-weapons, and there’s government funding connections between our offensive weapons writers and our defensive weapons writers.

“We own the search engines everybody uses, and the incredibly valuable data they produce.

“So it’s bizarre that in the recent exchange of accusations over China targeting dissident supporters of the Dalai Lama, no country asked the US to rein in its own cyber-hackers.”

ISD Podcast Episode 134 for May 20, 2010. This podcast is our contribution back to the community where we will discuss the vulnerabilities of interest, information security related news hopefully providing you a few laughs and a little knowledge.

Announcements:

MyHardDriveDied.com:

• MHDD Data Recovery Class current dates and locations:
  • San Francisco – June 14th -18th
  • Atlanta – July – 12th-16th
  • Dallas, TX – October – 11th – 15th
  • Washington DC – December 6th – 10th
  • Cost is $3500 for all classes to reserve and register, call (678) 445-9007, email: smoulton@nicservices.com or go to http://www.myharddrivedied.com. Use the Discount Code: isdpodcast for a $300 discount.

SANS Mentoring Program:

• Jason Lawrence will also be putting on the SANS Mentor Forensics 508 – Computer Forensics and Investigations course in Sandy Springs starting Tuesday, June 22, 2010 – Tuesday, August 24, 2010 (http://www.sans.org/mentor/details.php?nid=21538).  Use the Discount Code: isdpod15 for a 15% discount.

Atlanta ISSA:

• ISSA Chapter is hosting a CISSP Workshop starting May 26 – August 14 (Preparing for the August 15, 2010 Exam) 6:00 to 9:00 PM 2 sessions per week, every Wednesday and Friday at the Clendenin Building, Kennesaw State University.  The CISSP workshop is free of charge to Metro Atlanta ISSA members only. For further information, contact Ben Sholes, Director of Training, at: training@gaissa.org.
• ISSA International Conference – September 16, 2010  (http://www.issa.org/page/?p=105)

North Alabama ISSA:

• Hosting Second annual North Alabama Cyber Security Summit to be held on June 9th in Huntsville AL.  Event is open to ISSA members at a discounted price ($35 full price is $50).
• For more information please visit the North Alabama ISSA’s web site at: http://northalabama.issa.org/

Friends of the Podcast:
Webhosting services:WebSpeedway

Stories of Interest:
News item 1: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/19/bill_oreilly_ddos_attacks/
Federal prosecutors have accused a man of carrying out a series of botnet offenses including attacks that brought down the websites of conservative talking heads Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, and Rudolph Giuliani.

Mitchell L. Frost was an undergraduate student at the University of Akron at the time of the DDoS, or distributed denial-of-service, attacks, which lasted over a five-day period in March 2008, prosecutors alleged in court documents. The attacks on billoreilly.com, anncoulter.com and joinrudy2008.com “rendered each website inoperable, at least temporarily, and required intervention and repair by the owners of such sites, and caused damages or losses which exceeded $5,000,” they wrote.

Frost, who went by the handle “FrostAie,” also stands accused of using his botnet to launch a much bigger assault on a University of Akron server that knocked out the college’s entire network, depriving “tens of thousands of students, faculty and staff members” of connectivity for more than eight hours. Prosecutors said the attack appeared to be a mistake and that the intended target was an unnamed gaming server that was hosted on the university network.  The outage cost the university more than $10,000.

News item 2: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/lifelock-identity-theft/
Apparently, when you publish your Social Security number prominently on your website and billboards, people take it as an invitation to steal your identity.

LifeLock CEO Todd Davis, whose number is displayed in the company.s ubiquitous advertisements, has by now learned that lesson. He’s been a victim of identity theft at least 13 times, according to the Phoenix New Times.  That’s 12 more times than has previously been known.

In June 2007, Threat Level reported that Davis had been the victim of identity theft after someone used his identity to obtain a $500 loan from a check-cashing company. Davis discovered the crime only after the company called his wife’s cellphone to recover the unpaid debt.

About four months after that story published, Davis. identity was stolen again by someone in Albany, Georgia, who opened an AT&T/Cingular wireless account using his Social Security number, according to a police report obtained by the New Times. The perpetrator racked up $2,390 in charges on the account, which remained unpaid. Davis, whose real name according to police reports is Richard Todd Davis, only learned a year later that his identity had been stolen again after AT&T handed off the debt to a collection agency and a note appeared on his credit report.

ISD Podcast Episode 133 for May 19, 2010. This podcast is our contribution back to the community where we will discuss the vulnerabilities of interest, information security related news hopefully providing you a few laughs and a little knowledge.

Announcements:

MyHardDriveDied.com:

• MHDD Data Recovery Class current dates and locations:
  • San Francisco – June 14th -18th
  • Atlanta – July – 12th-16th
  • Dallas, TX – October – 11th – 15th
  • Washington DC – December 6th – 10th
  • Cost is $3500 for all classes to reserve and register, call (678) 445-9007, email: smoulton@nicservices.com or go to http://www.myharddrivedied.com. Use the Discount Code: isdpodcast for a $300 discount.

SANS Mentoring Program:

• Jason Lawrence will also be putting on the SANS Mentor Forensics 508 – Computer Forensics and Investigations course in Sandy Springs starting Tuesday, June 22, 2010 – Tuesday, August 24, 2010 (http://www.sans.org/mentor/details.php?nid=21538).  Use the Discount Code: isdpod15 for a 15% discount.

Atlanta ISSA:

• ISSA Chapter is hosting a CISSP Workshop starting May 26 – August 14 (Preparing for the August 15, 2010 Exam) 6:00 to 9:00 PM 2 sessions per week, every Wednesday and Friday at the Clendenin Building, Kennesaw State University.  The CISSP workshop is free of charge to Metro Atlanta ISSA members only. For further information, contact Ben Sholes, Director of Training, at: training@gaissa.org.
• ISSA International Conference – September 16, 2010  (http://www.issa.org/page/?p=105)

North Alabama ISSA:

• Hosting Second annual North Alabama Cyber Security Summit to be held on June 9th in Huntsville AL.  Event is open to ISSA members at a discounted price ($35 full price is $50).
• For more information please visit the North Alabama ISSA’s web site at: http://northalabama.issa.org/

Friends of the Podcast:

Webhosting services:WebSpeedway

Stories of Interest:
News item 1: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9176949/Symantec_to_buy_VeriSign_s_security_unit_for_1.3B_reports_say
Security vendor Symantec Corp. is reported to be close to buying Internet infrastructure services vendor VeriSign Inc.’s security business for $1.3 billion.  The Wall Street Journal quoted unidentified sources who are said to be close to the deal as saying it would give Symantec control of VeriSign’s $410 million authentication business, which provides a range of encryption technologies and services.  A Reuters report late Tuesday also quoted an unnamed source as saying that VeriSign had been shopping for a buyer for its security unit recently.  Meanwhile, other news reports fuled the speculation by adding that VeriSign CFO Brian Robins had abruptly pulled out of a JP Morgan investors conference on Tuesday afternoon.

News of the possible deal pushed VeriSign’s shares up by $1.39 or 5.18% to $28.23 Tuesday afternoon. But with the expected deal not announced until late Tuesday, VeriSign’s shares yielded back some of that gain in after hours trading. Shares of Symantec meanwhile were down 2.03% to $15.95 on news of the rumored deal.

News item 2: http://www.metasploit.com/

Version 3.4.0 of the Metasploit penetration testing framework has been released, encompassing major improvements to the Meterpreter payload, an expansion of the framework’s brute force capabilities, and the complete overhaul of the backend database schema and event subsystem.

In addition, more than 100 new exploit modules and over 40 auxiliary modules have been added since version 3.3. The full release notes are online.