Tag: IoT
With the explosive growth of the Internet of Things, and the increasing threat posed by botnets that leverage IoT, more must be done to ensure IoT devices include security by design, says David Holmes, principal threat researcher at F5 Networks. The Named Data Networking project can play a critical role, Holmes says in an interview with…
Read MoreAn advanced thingbot, nicknamed Reaper (or IoTroop), was recently discovered infecting hordes of IoT devices. Reaper ups the ante for IoT security. It has a sophisticated C2 channel system and a Lua code execution environment (to deliver much more complicated attacks), and it comes prepackaged with 100 DNS open resolvers. Researchers are tracking Reaper, even…
Read MoreIt’s a sad state of Internet affairs when the US government must publish a US-CERT Alert about Russia targeting US entities through negligent network infrastructure misconfigurations.1 In Alert TA18-106A, US-CERT discloses that since 2015, the US government, in partnership with the UK, has been receiving data from numerous sources that “large numbers” of enterprise-class and…
Read MoreThe rise of poorly secured Internet of Things (IoT) devices has made it possible for attackers to gain access to targets of interest. Nation-states, spies, mercenaries, and others don’t need to dress up as repairmen to plant bugs in rooms anymore; they can just hack into a room that has vulnerable IoT devices. In May,…
Read MorePotential Attacks and Impact We stumbled upon the issues with cellular IoT devices during our “Hunt for IoT” research of devices that were infected by Mirai. Attackers know how to exploit these systems and are actively monitoring them. Sierra Wireless, one of the largest manufacturers of cellular IoT devices, issued a public statement describing how…
Read MoreAttack Destination Ports The following ports in order of prevalence were targeted in the Singapore attacks: 5060 — clear text Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) 23 — Telnet remote management 1433 — Microsoft SQL Server database 81 — Alternate web server port for host-to-host communication 7547 — TCP port used by ISPs to remotely manage…
Read MoreIn August 2018 when we presented our research on the extreme vulnerability of many emergency services vehicles due to their use of onboard cellular gateways, we hoped to get the attention of people who could help change things. After all, when you tell the world you’ve been able to easily track police cruisers, in real-time,…
Read MoreThe number of Mirai scanner systems across the world decreased slightly from December 2017 to June 2018. There is less concentration of scanner systems in North America, South America, and Asia in June 2018 versus December 2017. Europe is the only region where Mirai scanner infections remained relatively the same from December 2017 to June…
Read MoreIoT attacks, budget shortfalls, and the skills gap are among the problems keeping security pros up at night. The world of cybersecurity gets more intriguing every year. In 2017, security professionals saw their share of attacks, but the increasing sophistication of the skirmishes is notable — with almost machine-like weaponization of code on the attackers’…
Read MoreStep 3: Investigate the State of IoT Usage within Your Organization Never believe what you’ve been told or your own assumptions. You need to find out for yourself what IoT devices are already in use within your environment. It’s dangerously naïve to assume there aren’t any in place already. Just like standard IT security risk…
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