Get expert insights on the latest developments in cybersecurity to stay ahead of the curve.
Learn how to surf websites vulnerable to Firesheep without getting fleeced. Years after BlackHat sidejacking demos, far too many websites remain vulnerable to this session cookie hijack attack. Frustrated by apathy and inaction, web developer Eric Butler and colleague Ian Gallagher decided to raise awareness with Firesheep – a Firefox plug-in that makes sidejacking as…
Email has long been described as the “killer app” that attracted masses to the Internet starting in the mid-90’s. By one estimate, as of May 2009 some 247 billion emails are sent per day. Despite its massive and widespread use, the vast majority of these emails are relatively insecure. A conventional email message is vulnerable…
Wireless security concerns don’t seem to be slowing hotspot growth. In 3Q09, AT&T hotspots serviced over 25 million Wi-Fi sessions – 66 percent more than in 2Q09. Aircell now offers in-flight Wi-Fi service on over 4,000 flights per day. In my hometown (Philadelphia), Comcast just launched over 2000 new Xfinity hotspots. Yet, few public hotspots…
The Enterprise mode of Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA or WPA2) encryption uses 802.1X authentication to provide better security for wireless networks. This mode should be used by all businesses and organizations (no matter how small) rather than the Personal or Pre-Shared Key (PSK) mode. There are myriad reasons why your business’s Wi-Fi network should be…
If your employees carry sensitive company data on unencrypted laptops, portable hard drives or USB flash drives, your job and theirs may be in jeopardy. We report cases almost weekly in these pages of lost or stolen computers and drives with unencrypted data, and the havoc that ensues. Sometimes you shake your head in wonder…
In this tutorial, we’ll see exactly how to configure and connect to WPA/WPA2-Enterprise networks in 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard. A quick note about the screen shots: they are taken from 10.5; some windows differ in 10.6. Quickly connecting to an 802.1X network First, let’s see how easy it is to connect to an…
Introduction Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) entered the IT security scene about 10 years ago with offerings from start-up companies Perfecto (renamed Sanctum before being acquired by WatchFire in 2004), KaVaDo (acquired by Protegrity in 2005), and NetContinuum (acquired by Barracuda in 2007). The premise was fairly simple: as attacks moved up the IP stack to…
One of the best ways to defend yourself against a Wi-Fi hacker is to learn to think like one. As a hacker, you could simply be on a quest to find something as innocent as free Internet access, or you could be a serious criminal, hired by a cybercrime syndicate to get inside a corporate…