The FBI came to Syracuse

On Wednesday, Steve Vizyary of the FBI came to our IST 323 lab to discuss cyber security and hackers. Vizyary is based out of New York and specializes in tracking Jihads and their use of the internet. Here  are some of the main points I picked up on.

1. Soon hacking will be the number 1 threat to the country, over terrorism. This idea came from a quote from Vizyary's former director. But it's finally happening. Hacking is growing and growing. Soon hacking will be the form of terrorism. Countries will be hacking each other in order to try and get the upper hand.

2. A level 2 hacker is usually somebody searching for financial information. Sure, that's not too strange. But I found it strange that the 3 leading countries for this type of hacking are Russia, China, and Iran. These are 3 of the stronger economies in the world yet they are still trying to steal financial information. I find it peculiar. It's probably more mob/Mafia type of people doing these attacks. I'm not accusing any country of financial fraud or some type of crime but it does seem fishy.

3. One in eight spam messages are clicked on. ONE IN EIGHT! I can't believe that. It was harder for Shaq to shoot a free throw then for a hacker to catch somebody with a spam attack. I wouldn't think in 2013 that the number would be so high. I could maybe understand one in twenty. But one in eight?! Come on.

4. Hacktivists are the largest group of hackers around, but they are not that much of a threat. Mainly because these hackers are not that experienced, and some like to do it just for fun (like the Joker in Batman). But I see a lot of potential in Hacktivist if they were more organized and skilled. They could really cause major problems in computer security world wide.

5. The FBI's "arch-nemisis" is Industrial Espionage. I find the idea of it really cool. It's basically like Inception only with computers. Some hackers will break in and then patch the area so nobody can get in and then they can hide in the system they hacked.

Overal the talk today was pretty interesting. We also learned that malware is still the leading type of attack.

That's all for now.

--Chris

U.S. Caught Spying...Again

The Associated Press reported a story that the United Stated monitored over 60 million calls in Spain. A Spanish newspaper ,El Mundo, published a documentary on Monday that said the United States spied on over 60 million phone calls in one month.  A graph titled "Spain-Last 30 days" which depicted the call traffic between December 10, 2012 and Jan. 8, 2013. The document says the NSA monitored the numbers and durations of the calls, but not the content. El Mundo said the Metadata System the US used could monitor e-mails and text messages, but that was not shown on the graph. The document used for the documentary was one leaked by Edward Snowden, who, if you can remember, has asylum in Russia from the United Stated for information leaking.

Last week there was a report in the French newspaper, Le Monde, reported a similar story of allegations that the US had been spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone. The same story was reported in a German magazine, Der Spiegel. US Ambassador James Costos, was summoned to Spain last week to discuss the United States targeting with Foreign Ministry. Afterwards the Ministry called on the US to hand over all information from the "supposed eavesdropping carried out in Spain.

I understand that when you are leading a country and you are concerned for there wellbeing, sometimes you might have to do things that aren't as ethical as we'd like them to be. But my concern is why are spying on our allies? Last I knew they were there so we could trust them and depend on them. This is a bad reputation for the US to have. These countries are very angry with what the Government has been doing, and rightfully so. We would be very upset if England or somebody was spying on us. We would feel exposed and violated. I know that we aren't the only country to be doing this. It's just sad that this is what it has come to.


Here is the full story: http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_289563/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=RVibRptQ

Google Chrome Doesn't allow Google Apps

We all praise Google. They are the best tech company to date, they're so innovated, everything that they do is so amazing!!! But I have found a hole in the great Google. The older version of Google Chrome does not allow you to use any of GOOGLE'S APPS. If you do not have the newest version of Google Chrome you are not allowed to use anything that isn't just a google search or Google Images. Gmail, Blogger, or Google Maps are all unreachable because of and incorrect certificate for the host. When I try to get on Google Maps in Chrome I receive a pop up message saying "The server presented a certificate that doesn't match built-in expectations. The expectations are included for certain, high security web sited in order to protect you." And then it says the servers certificate appears to be a forgery.

I find this EXTREMELY ironic that Google itself is not allowing it's own services. So obviously the smart move would be to delete Chrome and install the new version which is a hassle. But what if you can't download the new version? My girlfriend's Mac is so old that she is not able to download the newest Chrome because she does not have a new enough Mac OS. The kicker is, her computer does not have the ability to update itself any further. Her computer is stuck at Mac OS X 10.5.8.

So what do you do if you're in this position? You go to a different browser. For the user it is frustrating and funny (the irony). But think about if you're Google. There are people who cannot use your web browser they are going to go somewhere else which is bad for business.

Mozilla mobile OS hacked by a Teenager

Hey guys welcome back to I Stayed For Wake Forest. Let's dive back into some security news. 

Mozilla's Firefox mobile OS has been hacked by a 17 year old named Shantanu Gawde. Gawde, is the first person to infect Mozilla's OS with malware. The interesting part, aside from him being 17, is he will not share his secrets until the Ground Zero Summit in India in early November. 

Adam Greenberg of SCmagazine.com said "At the four-day information security event in New Delhi, Gawde will show how his malware will allow him to give commands to remotely access the phone's SD card, remotely transfer all contacts, track users' geographic location, control radio functions, and upload and download pictures, music and videos." 

Mozilla has said that they are aware of Gawde's plans to present at the conference. Mozilla reached out to Gawde in attempt to hear his findings before the conference, but because of rules of the conference he was not able to reveal anything. Mozilla believes that they have already figured out how Gawde attacked their OS. Andreas Gal, Mozilla vice president of mobile, said that such attacks rely on developer mode functionality, which is normally disabled on smart phones. Also Gawde said they believe in order for the attack to work that the phone must be physically connected to a computer controlled by the attacker, and unlocked by the attacker.  

I find it interesting that Gawde still planned to present at the Ground Zero Summit instead of turning in his secrets to Mozilla for what I'm sure would be a nice payday and could possibly turn into a job. I guess that Gawde believes that he is going to get an even bigger payday after his presentation. Maybe working out for the long run will pay off for him. 


Here's the full story: http://www.scmagazine.com/mozilla-addresses-teenagers-purported-mobile-firefox-os-malware/article/318056/