admini – Page 376 – CyberSecurity Institute

Security vendor says offshore development needs checks

Posted on June 2, 2004December 30, 2021 by admini

Software companies must add additional controls to the development process for software produced outside the U.S., said Steve Solomon, chief executive officer of the Dallas, Texas-based Citadel.

“Software development organizations should be required to have all overseas-developed software examined for malicious capabilities embedded in the code,” Solomon told the House Government Reform Committee’s Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census.

Much of the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, was devoted to government agencies detailing their cybersecurity efforts, but Solomon’s comments drew disagreement from Microsoft Corp. and Juniper Networks Inc. representatives.

Subcommittee chairman Adam Putnam, a Florida Republican, focused some of his questions on the patching process after software vulnerabilties are discovered. Asked by Putnam if the patching process and the alert process that accompanies it is working well, Scott Culp, senior security strategist for Microsoft, said he believes software vendors are working hard to notify government and private customers. “I remain concerned that we are collectively not moving fast enough to protect the American people and the U.S. economy from the very real threats that exist today …

Solomon also suggested that companies that rely on patch management services have “false security” because they are missing larger problems, such as the lack of broad security policies and recovery after attacks.

Incentives such as tax breaks, cybersecurity insurance and lawsuit reform could help software companies make more secure products, Rosenthal added.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is working with private companies to pump up the programs offered by US-CERT, the government’s computer emergency readiness team, said Amit Yoran, director of the National Cyber Security Division at DHS. US-CERT launched a national cyber alert system in January, and around mid-year it plans to roll out a partner program to encourage private companies and universities to work with government agencies. Goals of the partner program include the better sharing of information on cyber threats, improving cyber response and increasing discussion about cybersecurity, Yoran said.

More info: http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/06/02/HNoffshorecheck_1.html

Hackers costing banks millions

Posted on June 1, 2004December 30, 2021 by admini

The world’s financial and banking systems are under increasing attack from internet viruses. Many attacks, according to the Deloittes Global Security Survey 2004, have resulted in costly losses.

Despite this experience, the survey also found that 25 per cent of the top 100 companies interviewed have flat budgets for their security systems.

This month Westpac was penetrated by the Sasser virus which slowed down its information processing. Westpac spokesman Paul Gregory said the bank’s systems were purged overnight and no financial loss was incurred. Westpac, AMP financial Services and Kiwi Bank also said they regard information systems security and planning to be critical.

Global leader of Deloitte’s IT Risk Management and Security Services, Adel Melek, said the challenges were getting greater as banks fought bigger battles around security and resources stagnated. Although more than 70 per cent of respondents saw viruses and worms as the greatest threat to their systems in the next 12 months, only 87 per cent had fully deployed anti-virus measures.

The ASB’s general manager retail banking Barbara Chapman said her organisation had security as a top priority and its banking systems had never been penetrated. Management took a very firm view that security was critical. There were significant policies, practice and adequate funding to support initiatives in this area. She said an area where there was potential for harm for any bank was when customers accessed their accounts from unsafe environments like internet cafes. It was the same as being aware that someone could be watching as you used your Eftpos card to get money from a hole in the wall.

More info: http://www.dsinet.org/?id=3797

Financial Firms in Hackers’ Crosshairs

Posted on May 28, 2004December 30, 2021 by admini

The professional service firm’s annual Global Security Survey showed a dramatic rise in the number of respondents reporting system breaches.

“Security threats such as viruses, worms, malicious code, sabotage and identity theft are real and have already cost millions of dollars in lost revenues to institutions globally,” Ted DeZabala a principal and national leader of Security Services for Deloitte & Touche, said in a statement.

Despite that, fewer respondents reported fully deployed antivirus measures — 96 percent last year compared to 87 percent this year. Also, IT security budgets were flat at more than 25 percent of the survey base, with 10 percent reporting reduced security budgets.

The survey found gains in the areas of privacy and regulatory compliance efforts, where two-thirds claim to have a privacy management program in place, up incrementally by 6 percent over the previous year. Most identified themselves as “effective users of demonstrated technology” according to the surveys authors. That said, only 9 percent were willing to take risk associated with being an early adopter.

The survey also found vulnerability and identify management technologies were the two most common technology initiatives planned for pilot programs or deployment in the next 18 months.

A recent Gartner group survey estimated the cost of fake e-mail ‘phishing’ attacks at $1.2 billion dollars. This year also looks to be bad for viruses and Trojans of all sorts, though according to one study infection rates are holding steady.

More info: http://www.internetnews.com/fina-news/article.php/3360961

Deloitte security survey has some puzzling figures

Posted on May 28, 2004December 30, 2021 by admini

The release accompanying the survey has it differently.

“Practitioners from Deloitte’s Global Financial Services Industry practice conducted face-to-face interviews with senior information technology executives of the top 100 global financial services organizations (sic),” it says. The survey claims that the results, published this month, “provide a global benchmark for the state of security in the financial sector.” Did the company actually speak to representatives from the top 100?

Kevin Shaw, Leader Security Services Group – Asia Pacific for the company’s Enterprise Risk Services, said: “What we can say is that interviews with senior information technology executives of top 100 global financial services organizations (sic) were conducted and that the sample includes 31 of the top 100 global financial services institutions.” He said four Australian banks were among those interviewed but refused to name them.

“I am sure that you will understand that respecting the confidentiality of those who were so kind as to participate is very important to us, and so unfortunately, we cannot denote the true number of organizations (sic) that have participated in the survey,” Shaw said.

“If we indicate the number of organizations, (sic) people may start to reverse engineer the number and make assumptions about who participated. This could have impact on two levels, one being that unfair assumptions are made leading to potentially erroneous conclusions, and the other in that they circumvent our intent and promise of allowing organizations (sic) to remain anonymous.”

Last year’s survey had some question marks over it as well. The company claimed the participants represented 35 percent of the top 500 global financial services organisations, which would have meant that 175 companies of the top 500 had been interviewed. However, when asked about it, Deloitte admitted that the facts were that 35 percent of the top 50 global financial services organisations – meaning 17 or 18 – had been involved.

More info: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/28/1085641687991.html

Linux Servers Up, Unix Down: Survey

Posted on May 27, 2004December 30, 2021 by admini

The report said server unit growth for the March quarter was up 27 percent (1.6 million units) over last year while worldwide revenues grew 9.3 percent to $11.8 billion.

Despite legal threats from SCO Group and competition from Microsoft, Gartner’s report said Linux continued to be the growth powerhouse in the operating systems server market, with a revenue increase of 57.3 percent in the first quarter of 2004.

Windows continued to be the operating system of choice for servers with revenue hitting 35.1 percent of total market share. On a shipment basis, Windows dominated all others with 69.4 percent of the OS server market.

As for Unix, the study said the OS suffered a decline with first quarter revenue down 2.3 percent from the first quarter of last year.

Each of the major vendors of the low-end servers, IBM, (Quote, Chart) HP, (Quote, Chart) Sun, (Quote, Chart) and Dell (Quote, Chart), have something to brag about — depending on how they read Gartner’s tea leaves with respect to product cycles, industry segment emphasis and geographic demand patterns.

Although IBM made the most money from servers in the last three months, HP sold the most units, and Dell gained the most ground, said Mark Stahlman, technology analyst with Caris & Company.

He told internetnews.com the only vendor who is positioned for significant upside in this market is Sun.

Sun has been working very hard to make up for lost time, bolstering its volume server lineup with support for x86 products.

The company recently said its Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) for the Solaris OS on x86, doubled in size in the last six months.

More info: http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3359981

First known 64-bit virus threat found

Posted on May 26, 2004December 30, 2021 by admini

Representatives at the Cupertino, Calif.-based company were quick to point out that the threat was merely a so-called proof-of-concept virus–a worm developed by someone to show that vulnerabilities are present in a particular type of system–and not a virus already spreading in the wild.

However, Oliver Friedrichs, senior manager of Symantec’s Security Response Team, said W64.Rugrat.3344 can attack 64-bit Microsoft Windows files successfully. He said the virus does not infect 32-bit files and will not run on 32-bit Windows systems. Since 64-bit systems have yet to proliferate widely, Symantec maintains that the virus does not yet represent a serious threat. “We always see early adopters trying to find a way to attack new technology right away, as we did with 32-bit, so it’s not surprising to see this,” Friedrichs said. “But we do expect to see more of these, as 64-bit technology becomes more prominent.”

The 64-bit market is expected to grow rapidly. By the end of next year, most Intel chips, will be 64-bit capable, and virtually all of rival Advanced Micro Devices’ processors will be 64-bit chips. Software titan Microsoft is also pushing the high-end market forward. Earlier this month, Chairman Bill Gates asked hardware makers to start writing 64-bit drivers for their software.

Among the advantages of 64-bit software is the ability to gracefully accommodate more physical memory than the 4GB limit in 32-bit systems.

Symantec said it was not expecting widespread copycats of W64.Rugrat.3344, since the affected assembly code requires fairly advanced technical knowledge. Symantec said W64.Rugrat.3344 was created in IA64 (Intel Architecture) assembly code and infects IA64 executable files, excluding .dll files. The security specialists reported that W64.Rugrat.3344 also infects files that are in the same folder as the virus, as well as all files within related subfolders.

Symantec is currently updating its Norton AntiVirus product line to protect against W64.Rugrat.3344 and expects to have versions of the software armed to defeat the virus ready by the end of the day Thursday. The company earmarked the 64-bit virus as a Level 1, or the least dangerous sort of threat ranked on its five-tiered ratings system, but warned users to update their virus protection systems as quickly as possible.

The company earmarked the 64-bit virus as a Level 1, or the least dangerous sort of threat ranked on its five-tiered ratings system, but warned users to update their virus protection systems as quickly as possible.

More info: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5221949.html?tag=adnews