On Friday, several organizations around the world fell victim to a wave of ransomware that swept the globe. Ransomware is malware that encrypts the hard drives of compromised machines until the owner makes full payment. Such attacks have been persistent but relatively quiet.
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A hacking tool leaked in April by a mysterious organization is attacking older Windows boxes, exposing gaps in organizational update and upgrade policies. One researcher estimates that between 100K and 200K boxes may already be compromised worldwide.
Posted in Data Breach, Software Architecture and Design | Comments Off on DoublePulsar continues to expose older Windows boxes: What you need to know
Faced with the constant threat of cyber attack, software security is evolving at an unprecedented rate. DevOps must ask itself, What’s more likely to lead to long-term survival: investing in better cyber security or reducing the number of software components it must struggle to secure?
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Last fall, someone released a benign worm looking to protect Internet of Things (IoT) devices from more dangerous worms. Known as Hajime, the vigilante malware appears to be designed to block another IoT worm, Mirai. The two are chasing each other around the world. Each are locked in a weird internet turf war seemingly bent on IoT domination and we have already seen collateral damage from it. Virus vs worm First, some basic terminology here.
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Legacy vulnerabilities are often old “features” that weren’t designed for modern use. Since every new day brings a new attack, it’s time to secure them.
Posted in General, Software Architecture and Design | Comments Off on Sirens in the night: Civil defense systems susceptible to legacy vulnerabilities
The features that drive new car sales today are increasingly based on software. Drivers want their own music. They want to stay connected with their digital world. They want digital assistants to help park or even drive autonomously.
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Last month a researcher announced that a commercial dishwashing machine contained a dangerous vulnerability allowing a remote attacker to gain access to privileged assets on a connected network. Jens Regel of the German company Schneider & Wulf made the vulnerability public on Full Disclosure after contacting the vendor and waiting the customary 90 days. The vendor, Miele, has yet to respond.
Posted in Internet of Things | Comments Off on What happens when dishwashers attack the network?
Software quality and security assurance both concern risk to the organization, but they do so for different reasons. Risk might be mission critical such as software on a scientific robot crawling another planet. Or risk might be associated with sensitive financial information. In the first example the integrity of the software is paramount; it is hard to fix something on another planet. In the latter example both quality and security are important, with security perhaps paramount.
Posted in Security Standards and Compliance, Software Architecture and Design, Software Composition Analysis | Comments Off on Does software quality equal software security? It depends.
Earlier this month WikiLeaks announced it had in its possession a cache of zero days allegedly from the Central Intelligence Agency. These unpatched vulnerabilities, it said, could affect Apple and Android devices (including TVs). It is suspected that exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow the spy agency – or anyone else who knows about them — to surveil targets by activating microphones and receivers as well as eavesdropping on communications.
Posted in Fuzz Testing, Static Analysis (SAST) | Comments Off on Zeroing in on zero day vulnerabilities
Sophia Goreczky, Senior User Interface Design Engineer at Synopsys Software Integrity Group, is the recipient of 2017 YWCA Emerging Leader Award. She will be honored, along with four other award honorees, at an awards dinner on May 11, 2017 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose.
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