Are your protecting your WordPress website from attacks?

With the popularity of WordPress, and the support it gets from the development team, it’s easy to think that your installation of WordPress is secure. Since you didn’t code it from scratch, you might assume that it is hardened and you don’t have to do any further tinkering with security.  Well, you may just want to put some effort into locking down your WordPress installation.  As with any website, you need an IT Security Policy, walk through an IT Security Checklist, and conduct consistent IT Security Audits.

There are several methods that are generally used in an attack on a website. First you have mis-configurations. This can mean everything from leaving the ‘wp-config’ file readable to the world to allowing any kind of file to be uploaded in a form to weak password security.  The second type of access can usually be gained through bad coding techniques. If you add a Plugin or write your own code to add to the WordPress installation, this can possible allow and attacker to take advantage of bad code to break into your site. And lastly you have can lump other attacks into infrastructure attacks. Maybe you don’t have a firewall running, or intrusion prevention service running to stop attacks. Or you are hosting you website on a shared service like Godaddy or Hostgator and someone else’s website is vulnerable, leading to a compromise of the whole hosted server.

For now, lets address some easy things you can do to reduce configuration weaknesses that could lead to a hacked website.

1)      Password – no matter how many times you say it, people still use weak passwords that can be guessed or broken with brute force attacks.  There are several free and paid login protection plugins you can use.

2)      File Permissions – this is a bit trickier if you do not know how file permissions works. You can get an easy primer from the WordPress help file, http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress  Its also provide a lots of details for the more technically savvy.

3)      Monitoring – you should know what is going one with access attempts or changes in your files and configurations of your WordPress site. There are a number of tools you can search for monitoring and logging activity. Its especially important to monitor for healthcare IT security.

4)      Security Testing – even if you have installed security plugins and have configured your website correctly, you should still periodically test the security for vulnerabilities. You can pay third party companies to do penetration testing or you can try some of the plugins on your own. Testing is important to risk management and assessment

There are lots of different tools you can use to secure your site. The first step is to know that it will not stay secure without you actively implementing security measures.

Passwords Still the Easiest Hack

Recently it was reported (http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/305227,linkedin-adds-salting-after-password-scare.aspx) that LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) has a breach and it is speculated that over 6 million passwords were compromised. A file containing 6,458,020 SHA-1 unsalted password hashes was posted and can be cracked, although associated email were not found. Network security is a challenge for even such a large and well-funded company such as LinkedIn. Obviously everyone on LinkedIn should be changing passwords. Although the data which has been released so far does not include associated email.

LinkedIn has subsequently confirmed the compromise and that a majority of the stolen passwords have been cracked. From the list cracked, it’s easy to see why it’s easy to crack passwords as users frequently user very simple passwords. 

Check out one of the many password crackers, Cain and Abel http://www.oxid.it/cain.html

LinkedIn has since changed the passwords to be stored in salted hashed format, which means a string is added to the password before it is hashed and harder to crack.

Passwords are usually used across multiple logins. Most users do not use unique passwords across 10 or 20 or 30 logins, as that is pretty hard to remember. So assuming the passwords are cracked and email logins discovered, it can be used to leverage access to other sites. For example, is your LinkedIn email id is your company email, then with a password, perhaps an attacker can log into your Outlook Web Access email system. Vulnerability linkage works the same for password compromises.

There is no really solution from the consumer perspective when the company entrusted with securing your data is compromised. Given enough time, even a very complex password can be cracked. The response from consumers has to be demanding better security and accountability around network security by vendors.

Whitehouse has released a cybersecurity plan

The Whitehouse has release a cybersecurity plan. “White House Cybersecurity Plan: What You Need To Know” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/12/white-houses-cybersecurity-plan_n_861382.html). Perhaps the administration is finally waking up to the need.

According to the press release they say “Our critical infrastructure – such as the electricity grid, financial sector, and transportation networks that sustain our way of life – have suffered repeated cyber intrusions, and cyber crime has increased dramatically over the last decade. The President has thus made cybersecurity an Administration priority. When the President released his Cyberspace Policy Review almost two years ago, he declared that the “cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.” The Administration has since taken significant steps to better protect America against cyber threats. As part of that work, it has become clear that our Nation cannot fully defend against these threats unless certain parts of cybersecurity law are updated.”

There are a couple of key elements to the proposed legislation:

Protecting the American People

1. National Data Breach Reporting. Proposal to help businesses by simplifying and standardizing the existing patchwork of 47 state laws that contain these requirements. (I personally do not think we will have 1 national privacy policy anytime soon. States rights!!)
2. Penalties for Computer Criminals. Clarifies the penalties for computer crimes, synchronizes them with other crimes, and sets mandatory minimums for cyber intrusions into critical infrastructure

Protecting our Nation’s Critical Infrastructure

1. Voluntary Government Assistance to Industry, States, and Local Government. Proposal to enable DHS to quickly help a private-sector company, state, or local government in a breach
2. Voluntary Information Sharing with Industry, States, and Local Government. Proposal to help entities share information. ( Sure ATT will share information with Sprint and Bank of America will share information with the government)
3. Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Plans. Proposal to enable transparency to help market forces ensure that critical-infrastructure operators are accountable for their cybersecurity.(Thats way to vague)

Protecting Federal Government Computers and Networks

1. Management. Update the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and formalize DHS’ current role in managing cybersecurity for the Federal Government’s civilian computers and networks. (They definitely need this now!).
2. Personnel. Recruit and retain highly-qualified cybersecurity professionals. (With reduced funding for education, we will probably have to recruit from China)
3. Intrusion Prevention Systems. Implement better IDS systems. (Imagine having to read all the log files from all the government agencies, need to outsource this effort)
4. Data Centers. Embrace Cloud Computing. (if you use cloud computing, you will rely on Facebook for your security requirements?)

New Framework to Protect Individuals’ Privacy and Civil Liberties

The Administration does propose protecting civil liberties. Can the plan be any worse that everyone giving away all their information anyway on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc?

Gary Bahadur

www.kraasecurity.com

The Dangers of Employee Social Media Usage

Employers are hearing constantly of social media this and social media that. When your employees go on break or eat lunch, they are always on their cell phones talking. But, now there are also applications on phones like Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare and others where an employee can actually send photo uploads while being mobile and even post to Facebook automatically. Are employees using social media securely?

Does your company have anything in place for protecting confidentiality through social media usage? Do you have a Social Media Security Policy? Employees sign agreements when joining the company but did the business cover disclosing things like pictures or private conversations and even meeting information via Google Buzz or Facebook? What about brand new products being developed that are trade secrets?

If your employees are online working to do their job and Facebook, MySpace, or gaming sites like Pogo are not blocked, how do you know they are doing their work 100% of the time? Just because their production numbers look great, doesn’t mean they are not slacking. Have you done a Social Media Security Assessment?

It is becoming an epidemic in the work force with employees breaking rules and ultimately being fired every day. If security monitoring technologies are in place you could possibly sue the former employee but your trade secrets are gone and so might be your reputation. If an employee is bad-mouthing your company and tells everyone to not buy or shop with you, there goes your business immediately.

You can make a legal policy for employees to sign when they start their job that they will not talk, disclose, or say anything bad about the company on social media sites. If businesses do not step up soon and do something it can be a total free for all!

Here are a few interesting facts to consider. One out of every ten employees admitted overriding their job’s security system so they could access restricted sites. In 2009, 24% of eight hundred employers surveyed said they had to discipline an employee for using social media sites. Another study showed 8% of employees were terminated for accessing Facebook out of two hundred businesses polled. Twenty eight thousand people were polled in the United Kingdom at the beginning of 2010 and a whopping 87% said they can do what they want; it is their right to do so.

It is now believed that social networking will replace email by 2014 as the main way to communicate for 20% of all business owners or users. Is your company prepared for Secure Social Media?

Gary Bahadur

CEO KRAA Security, baha@kraasecurity.com

http://www.kraasecurity.com

http://blog.kraasecurity.com

http://twitter.com/kraasecurity

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Webinar Monday Dec 20: Top 10 Social Media Security Attacks: Reduce Risk and Protect Your Brand http://ow.ly/3pOmR

Tips to Avoid Confidentiality Issues When Using Social Networking Media

Social media sites have gained popularity in the past ten years as a medium to keep in contact with loved ones, business associates and friends. However, there can be drawbacks to the usage of said media when one is employed in certain career fields, such as the healthcare industry. Utilizing social media networks can inadvertently give way to the sharing of confidential patient information with people that may not have a need to know which would then cause the company to violate HIPAA Security Rule compliance.

Social media applications are not just a part of one’s personal lifestyle; this has also become incorporated in the corporate climate. Many places use these applications for marketing, file sharing, communication, and employee recruitment. While these applications can open up a great many doors of communication, some type of guidance or governance is necessary. Because banning the use of such sites is most likely unenforceable or impractical, a hospital or other such entity that must shield private information should at least ask or force their employees to adhere to some Social Media Policy guidelines.

For instance, when utilizing social networking sites, one should use separate passwords for the different sites, as an individual can easily hack all of one’s accounts if they know the one password. A security breach of one account could snowball. Passwords should be complex and change every 90 days. Accessing social media sites should be over SSL and only from trusted network connections, not coffee shops especially for business purposes!

In the case of company documents or patient information, if it isn’t found on the company’s web page it probably should not be posted elsewhere. There are sites that exude a feeling of privacy and security, but are far from it. Allowing one’s corporate information security team to determine what sites are acceptable is the best option.

Another thing one should not do is post his or her own identifying information publicly, such as date of birth, his or her social security number, or an employee ID number. If a site requires this information, 1) it is most likely not a reputable site, and/or 2) one could make something up or ensure that it is not going to be displayed in a profile that will be public.

Some information may not be considered confidential; yet not posting these items to public social media sites is probably a good idea. This can include anything from rumors, to purchases the company plans on making, anything about the technology one’s company uses or will use, and any projects the individual may be working on.

So in one’s personal endeavors, it is most beneficial to all involved if confidential information, or information that could be considered secret, stays out of the hands of the public. Follow practical posting guidelines and do not share more information than is necessary in corporate social media activities.

Gary Bahadur

CEO KRAA Security, baha@kraasecurity.com

http://www.kraasecurity.com

http://blog.kraasecurity.com

http://twitter.com/kraasecurity

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going to TECH TUESDAY Presents the POLITICS of TECHNOLOGY w/ Senator Jeremy Ring at Ecco Pizza in downtown miami today

http://ping.fm/zEcvz Device with sensitive data stolen from Rice University How many victims? 7,250

Does anyone think that Twitter turning on the geo-tagging feature to make it easy is a security risk? or privacy risk? Could be dangerous

TJX Hacking Conspirator Gets 4 Years
sentenced Thursday in Boston to 46 months in prison and fined $75,000
http://ping.fm/iuqkF

Can you protect yourself on Social Media?

One of the greatest challenges to privacy and security in the next several years is Social Networks and Social Media. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and others can be the downfall of valuing information. The ability to share and provide information is completely the opposite of network security requirements. This is really encouraging people to do things that are not security conscious activities. Social media encourages:

• Lack of privacy
• Encouraging information sharing
• Giving away answers to security questions
• Social engineering

As we have seen recently, a lot of spam, spyware and malware is attacking social network. Just in the past week I have probably gotten a 100 requests to be my friend on Facebook from people who i do not know and funny enough, all the message have the exact same personal message. Malicious people are attracted to social networks because of the ease of gaining trust and availability of data for social engineering. Relationship building is easier through social media which can easily lead to phishing attacks.

With these sites, people install applications without knowing what goes on in the background, and its easy to download malicious code to your computer. There are no external third party audits of these applications before the make it to your Facebook application. Your computer can be easily infected by a virus or spyware.

What does the Social Media user to to protect their information?
No Personal information - This is anti-social network, but there are things you can limit about what you post. Don't post your Birthday! Or your address, or your mothers middle name or any really personal data.

Limit who can view and contact you - Don't let your profile be truly public, restrict to people you know for requested users. Remember you can't retract information you put out there.

Dont trust strangers - Your mother was right, don't open the door to strangers. Limit who you accept chat or friend requests from and well as even communicate with.

Trust no one - People lie, its sad but true. So profiles lie, they might say they went to your college or high school. They might be interested in your groups, so dont take anyone at their word.

Restrict your privacy - There are a some configuratin setting in all the social media applications that can allow you to turn on some restrictions on your privcay. Take a minute to actually look at them. One easy example is in Facebook you can creat groups that you can place friend in, you don't want business people seeing what your friends are posting.

Password management - An oldie but a goodie, always use a strong password and don't share it. And change it periodically.

Layers of protection - You should be running a personal firewall and antivirus software on the machine you are viewing social networks. This will help if a malicious piece of software tries to download something to your machine. Keep your protection software up to date as well and run the patch management software on your machine, this is especially important for you Windows users.

Child protection software - You should have some kind of child protection software running on machines where children under 13 are using. This will help with all that shady software that is out there.

Gary Bahadur

http://www.kraasecurity.com/

http://blog.kraasecurity.com/

http://twitter.com/kraasecurity

Address: 200 Se 1st St #601 Miami FL 33131

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Related articles by Zemanta

• Half of Online Adults Use Social Networks at Least Monthly (seekingalpha.com)
• Firms worry about social networks, but don't block access (arstechnica.com)
• Google Buzz proves problems with single online identities (thewayoftheweb.net)
• Are Consumers Becoming More Suspicious of Social Networks? (marketingvox.com)

What is the cost of a Data Breach?

SC magazine just reported that the Ponemon Institute has determined the cost of a data breach is $204 per record. "Data breaches last year cost organizations $204 per exposed record on average, which represents an almost two percent increase over 2008, according to the fifth annual "Cost of Data Breach" study released on Monday by the Ponemon Institute... The study, which examined the experiences of 45 U.S. companies that suffered breaches last year, also found that the number of data breaches that were caused by malicious attacks and botnets doubled from 12 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2009. In addition, data breaches caused by malicious attacks cost organizations 30 to 40 percent more on average than those caused by human negligence or by IT system glitches." There are a number of ways to protect your data in transit such as PGP Encryption but when the companies looses data, there isnt much the end user can do to protect themselves.

Thats a lot of money. If we look at the data breach of Heartland, which was over 100 million records, that, well let me do the math, may take a minute. Its $20,400,000,000. Thats a lot of money. Condidering I was a shopper mostlikely of Heartland, I do not recall getting a check from anyone for $204. I will not hold my breath for that. We all asked if the retailers like Heartland and TJ Max had a PCI Audit done. Would this have protected our information?

So far, I am pretty sure I recieved a letter offering me free 2 year credit monitoring from Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Countrywide because thet lost my records. I am waiting for my check for $204 from each of those companies. Also, over the past few years I have had to have my credit cards replaced with Chase, American Express, and several Visa versions. So I am still waiting for those $204 checks. Maybe in total I am owed about 9x$204=$1,836. That will be a nice check when I get it.

Security Requirements

So what can a company do to help reduce these data breaches? The easy answers, yet not implemented, include:
1) Encryption of back-up data and tapes
2) Conduct yearly Vulnerability Assessments
3) Conduct Quarterly or Monthly Vulnerability Scanning
4) Implement a Data loss prevention solution
5) Go through a PCI Audit or HIPAA Security Assessment yearly

Related articles by Zemanta

• Data breach costs continue to rise (v3.co.uk)
• Survey: Data breaches from malicious attacks doubled last year (news.cnet.com)
• Breach numbers fall while costs rise Ponemon study finds (v3.co.uk)

Regards
Gary Bahadur

http://www.kraasecurity.com

http://blog.kraasecurity.com

http://twitter.com/kraasecurity
Managed Firewall
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Ponemon Institute Cyber Mega Trends

Ponemon Institute recently released their Cyber megratrends as listed below. While I agree with these I think there were a couple that could easily be added to the list. First I would either add or modify Web 2.0 into Web 3.0. Lets look to what is going to happening versus what is happening and just changing. Secondly, I suggest adding Vendor Risk Management. The vendor does not have to be offshore to pose a problem. Vendors are so integrated into companies and business processes that they are like an employee but are not subjected to the same network security assessment requirements in many cases.

Regards
Gary Bahadur

baha@kraasecurity.com

http://www.kraasecurity.com

http://blog.kraasecurity.com

http://twitter.com/kraasecurity
Managed Security Services
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cyber Security Mega Trends Study
Prepared by Dr. Larry Ponemon, November 18, 2009

The Cyber Security Mega Trends Study was conducted by Ponemon Institute and sponsored by CA to better understand if certain publicized IT security risks are, or should be, more or less of a concern for organizations in the federal sector. We believe the results of our study will be helpful to organizations struggling to understand how they should allocate resources to help ensure their information systems are adequately protected.

Based upon in-depth interviews with IT security experts of Application security risk assessment and prior Institute research, we focus on 10 cyber security mega trends in this study. Each mega trend is believed to affect significantly an organization’s security ecosystem.

Cloud computing – refers to distributed computing solutions that can be owned by thirdparties on data center locations outside the organization’s IT infrastructure.

Virtualization – refers to enabling technologies that allows end-users to access multiple secure networks from a single computer, wherein the PC or laptop essentially acts as the authenticating device.

Mobility – refers to a workforce with access to information no matter where they work or travel and wherein employees can use mobile devices when they travel or work at home: laptops, smart phones, PDAs, memory sticks and more.

Cyber crime – usually describes criminal activity in which the computer or network is an essential part of the illegal criminal activity. This term also is used to include attacks in which computers or botnets are used to enable illicit activity such as data theft or denial of service attacks.

Cyber terrorism – is a specific form of cyber crime in which the end goal is to disrupt or harm a targeted country or region of the world. This term also is used to describe attacks that attempt to steal national secrets including information that minimizes a nation’s defense or economic posture.

Open source – is computer software for which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that is in the public domain. This permits users to change, improve the software, and redistribute software in modified or unmodified forms.

Data breach – is defined as the loss or theft of information about people and households. A majority of U.S. states now require organizations to notify individuals when their information is lost or stolen.

Unstructured data – is electronic information on file servers and other storage devices that are not stored in a database or other structured formats, usually resulting from workplace collaboration tools such as SharePoint.

Outsourcing – usually pertains to the transfer of sensitive and confidential information to third parties for data processing or other activities. Outsourcing is done to reduce processing costs and improve operating efficiencies.

Web 2.0 – refers to a plethora of Internet tools that enhance information sharing and collaboration among individuals. These concepts have led to the evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social networking, social messaging, wikis and blogs.

HIPAA Vendor Compromised Healthcare Records

This is story that is several months old, but as I came across it, i thought it would make a good point. A vendor handling healthcare records has lost social security numbers of people in March of 2009. In this case, Health insurer Aetna, Inc., is reportedly providing 65,000 individuals with free credit monitoring for a year after its job application Web site was breached, the Associated Press has reported.

The Web site, which was maintained by an outside vendor, had Social security numbers of current and past employees and individuals who received job offers from the insurer, the AP reported.

The site reportedly held e-mail addresses for about 450,000 individuals who had applied for jobs or submitted resumes to the company and were waiting to be notified about job openings. Spokeswoman Cynthia Michener said Aetna doesn't know how many were copied, but the site has been disabled and is undergoing a "thorough forensic review" or you can say network security audit by an outside company.

So here we have a health insurer compromising personal data. People already recieve so much spam email that their real email is suspect. If your provider Aeata seems to be sending ligitimate emails to you, that can get confusing.

As noted in the article "This is not the first time the Hartford, Conn.-based insurer has had to provide free credit monitoring services. In April 2006, Aetna notified approximately 38,000 members that an employee's laptop computer containing certain personal member information was stolen from a car in a public parking lot."

If a compromise occurs once, you would think that a lot of new HIPAA data security protections would be put in place. But as we see in almost all industries, its very hard for a company to learn from its mistakes. Maybe there will not be a third time after this second breach.

Gary Bahadur
baha@kraasecurity.com
http://www.kraasecurity.com

http://blog.kraasecurity.com

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Managed Security Services
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Ways to Maintain Website Security

With the advancement in technology comes the heavy responsibility of monitoring an organization's sensitive and valuable information. The use of the Internet has become a necessity in organizations to exchange their data and various other business details with their business partners, vendors and clients. In many cases, during transmission of datahackers compromise a network or transmission medium and illegally gain the data. It maligns not only the market value of the company but also the number of clients that place trust in the company and the company’s infrastructure or website.

There are preventive measures that every company can adopt to maintain the value of the company as well as the client base. It is very important for any company to maintain the data securityase and safeguard the internal information of the company. The clients and business partners share their data only after confirming that the partner company will keep it safe and intact under the safety norms of the company.

By taking a few cautionary measures, one can easily secure the sensitive information of the company. Installing a firewall in the network system keeps the security intact and safe. Earlier, this was a bit expensive for companies but with the advent of technology, this has become an easily accessible tool for the organization. Affordable monthly subscriptiuons are available for firewalls, Intrusion detection systems and host intrusion prevention systems . hey need not spend a lot of money in availing these services now.

A firewall is the main defense. A firewall carries out routine security checks and blocking techniques at particular time intervals and this helps stop attacks. It will sound an alert in case of any threat posed to the data and will automatically start blocking and reporting. on it. It never compromises on your company's security and safety and always keeps the information safe. Firewall protection can be easily availed from various online sources at quite reasonable rates but one must always cross-check the credentials of the source company as well and only then purchase it from experts in the field.

Other than installing these tools to maintain web security, companies are also hiring third parties to review the policies and procedures of the organization and also to keep track of the online process of distribution of data of the company. These third parties install web applications that thoroughly review the codes installed in the process and provide valuable feedback to update and upgrade the quality of network systems. hough it is somewhat expensive to employ third-parties but they really keep a detailed track of the security system of their clients' information.

Many network systems of very renowned companies are getting hacked and misused these days by the hackers. It is high time that the companies take proper action against such activities and thefts as the number of incidents are growing day-by-day. Otherwise, people will start losing their trust in sharing their personal information through web sites.

A web security expert with the skills of application security risk assessment has written this article.

Gary Bahadur
baha@kraasecurity.com
http://www.kraasecurity.com

http://blog.kraasecurity.com

http://twitter.com/kraasecurity
Managed Security Services
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HIPAA Compliance Data Breach with a Foreign Supplier

Recently, the Economic Times Report in India discussed a successful “Sting operation by a UK agency in which some health related data was bought from a medical transcription company” . What this means is all that perosnal and HIPAA confidential data that was being transfered for transcription got stolen in the most likely scenario. There have been few stories of this type of Data Breach so far. The Suppliers to US companies have not made the headlines but this might be just the begining fo that wave. The two components of HIPAA Security are Logical and Physical Security. Remote partners can easily breach your logical security controls.

Is there any real view that the US can export the security laws such as HIPAA Security to all parts of the world that handle US customer data? How do you monitor the activities of your suppliers once the data has left yoru network? In the US, a company can control all the security devices such as Firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems, Antivirus on Servers and Patch Management of servers hosting confidenial data. There are all parts of most security regulations including PCI, SOX, GLBA and more. But the endpoint of security has left these shores and resides in India, China, South America, Vietname and anywhere else you have a supplier.

As your data now resides in a foreign country, what are the reporting requirements of a breach? HIPAA security policy has timeframes, reporting requirements and penalties. The only real penalty a company oversea may face is loss of the contract. Few governments are upt o enforcing security rules outside of actual hacker activity.

So what are some steps you can take to implement Supplier Security?
1) Conduct a Vulnerability Assessment of your connectivity to your Suppliers’ networks
2) Define process and policy controls that the Supplier has to have in place in order to hold your data
3) Assign risk ratings to all data the Supplier handles
4) Conduct an risk assessement of the impact of losing the data
5) Develop a Incident Response plan for the Supplier losing your data
6) Asses the supplier security procedures on a yearly basis

IPhone Apps Every Road Warrior Entrepreneur Needs

The Blackberry has been the mainstay of the business world for years. But as we know, the IPhone is eating away at market share. There are over 75,000 apps for the IPhone now and growing steadily. For those who have Blackberry Thumb, you can probably look forward to IPhone Index Finger at some point in the future as you switch away from the Blackberry.

Why should you switch from the Blackberry? Well there may not be a good reason. The Blackberry has a number of apps and it is secure, it has encryption and has been beaten up on the security front like network security assessment and application security testing. It’s ingrained in businesses and Blackberry Enterprise Server is well known to many IT administrators.

The Entrepreneur can use both devices. Let’s assume there are at least some people using the IPhone, what apps should they have in their toolkit? Of the thousands of apps, how can you pick a few that would be beneficial to the Entrepreneur Road Warrior? Well the way I picked them is through word of mouth , that are of benefit to me and comes with network security assessment tools. I travel, work in my car, have meetings at all times of day, I am away from the office for days or weeks.

Take these with a grain of salt and do not send any flame emails. But please send in the apps that you think should be shared with the world or at least readers of this Blog.

Urban Spoon

First up is Urban Spoon. You are thinking, well that’s not some kind of spreadsheet or financial app. What is the business purpose? The lifeblood of the Entrepreneur is networking , managed security services, application security risk assessment and deal making. Where deal making most of the time involves some kind of meal. Urban Spoon can find you restaurants by cuisine, by neighborhood, by cost, by distance. Everything you need for a meeting is the most random city.

AroundMe

In the same vein as Urban Spoon, is AroundMe . Say you are on your way to an important lunch you have setup with a restaurant you found on Urban Spoon but you are almost out of gas. Use AroundMe to find the closed gas station. Or if you need cash to pay for that gas because your Amex Card has been cancelled, find the closest bank.

GoogleMaps

Well this is pretty obvious. But when you are traveling and maybe forgot to bring your Garmin GPS and do not feel like paying the rental company an extra $11.99 a day to rent their GPS , this is just as good.

ReQall

This is a pretty useful app. The developers were one of the www.TiE.org Top 50 companies this year at TiECon. The app captures your voice, translates it to text, organizes your calendar based on your voice messages, integrates into Outlook or Google Calendar and provides memory assistance. It’s great when you have no pen or driving in a car or need a memory reminder.

FlightAware

For the true Road Warrior, there is no road, there is the sky. So when you are rushing to the airport or think you need to rush to the airport, track down what is going on with your flight. Check out FlightAware to get an update and help you plan that trip to the airport.

TweetDeck

Social Media, the latest buzz word, actually has some teeth. Small companies and the Entrepreneur have to be connected to the work whether you like it or not. Twitter is a way of life these days even if people seem to be twittering their lives away. How do you tell your followers that you are stuck in an airport in Baltimore? Try using TweetDeck.

These Apps don’t seem very business-like, but the Entrepreneur is practical, cheap, requires network security audit tools and has to get things done today . These help you achieve your million tasks on a timely basis.

Gary Bahadur

http://www.kraasecurity.com/

http://blog.kraasecurity.com/

http://twitter.com/kraasecurity

*Managed Security Services

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This Time Its Network Solutions Reporting a Data Breach

For a long time, various well known companies have been the target of hackers. This has resulted in huge data losses for the company as well as the client's that are associated with the company. Many companies have faced several financial charges by the government or by business partners to satisfy penalty fees.

Network Solutions, which specializes in the domain name registration industry, has recently reported an incident of a breach of data. The breach occurred during March 12 to June 8 2009 and was detected in a check carried out by the company. Though this breach was detected in June, the company took around a month's time to decipher the code that was used in hacking the domain. By that time the hackers had hacked their e-commerce services and had already diverted the transaction details of more than 500,000 registered companies. This shows that industries are still lacking in security measures to prevent the loss of important data.

Network Solutions company issued a statement saying that till now no incidence reporting misuse of information has been reported by any merchant company. The company is now enlisting all those merchant clients' who had made any transaction in between that period. These clients will in turn notify their customers who will then inform their banks to block the credit cards to avoid any misuse.

Network Solutions has offered to bear all the expenses that the customers have suffered. But isn't it more correct to take a few precautionary measures beforehand than facing such incidents? Data loss prevention and a network security assessment are the best tools available for the security assessment of any website and it also helps in avoiding such incidents.

There have been many such companies reporting breaches in the past that have resulted in the bad reputation of those companies. Heartland Payment Systems and RBS WorldPay are a few examples of such breaches. Both these companies had been removed from the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI Audit) services' list. The loss of clients and market value was an additional issue.

These incidents indicate that various other similar companies are exposed to such risks. But if they take certain measures to keep their network system in check, they can surely avoid experiencing these kinds of losses. This also ensures the goodwill of the company in the market thereby attracting more clients.

An expert with knowledge of Information Security Risk Assessment has written this article.


Gary Bahadur
http://www.kraasecurity.com
http://blog.kraasecurity.com
*Managed Security Services
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Web Security Testing has come of age

Website security is the one of the most dangerous places for a company. If you look at a layered security approach, we start out with the internal network. There we have host security, patch management, host IDS and other server based technologies. Next we have the network security layers, network intrusion detection, network monitoring and firewall protection. So if we have the internal servers secured, the network protection place, what is left is the only wany an attacker can possible get into a secure environment.

The website is the open frontdor to many companies. Security education for both the developers of website applications and the users of web sites is sadly lacking. If we look at most of the compliance regulations such as HIPAA or PCI, there is a component of education required, but most companies do not spend the time to provide more than a written manual that no one reads. In those same regulations, there are requirements for a Secure Development Lifecycle strategy, but how many web application developers actually follow a strict methodology?

So on Linkedin, I asked the quesion of what are the Web security tools that are favored by the security community (www.linkedin.com/gbaha). These can provide some help and insight for those looking to conduct some security testing. Some are paid and some are free. Here is the list in no particular order.

1) Foundstone http://www.foundstone.com
2) Acunetix WVS http://www.acunetix.com
3) Scrawlr https://h30406.www3.hp.com/
4) N-Stalker http://www.nstalker.com/
5) Nikto http://cirt.net/nikto2
6) Scarab http://www.owasp.org
7) WebInspect http://www.hp.com
Fiddler - http://www.fiddlertool.com
9) Samurai Web Testing Framework – http://samurai.inguardians.com/
10) FireCAT - http://www.security-database.com
11) W3af http://w3af.sourceforge.net/
12) CORE Impact http://www.coresecurity.com/content/web-app-pro
13) Appscan http://www-01.ibm.com/software/awdtools/appscan/

Having listed these and of course there a re a number of other tools. (Please send me any comments on other tools you like). Running a tools is a first and easy step you can take to close that open web door (Webdoor, i am going to try and coin that phrase). If you can target tactical prablems, get them fixed quickly, you can then tackle the strategic problems that led to your web vulnerabilities.

The basic steps you want to take in website security are:
1) Vulnerability testing
2) Secure Code Review
3) Architecture review
4) Monitoring and Logging
5) Consistent Testing (monthly) and Validation of Controls

Do not get lax when it comes to Web security. Its a bit black magic and a lot of hard work but as its the “webdoor” try and keep it closed.

Gary Bahadur
baha@kraasecurity.com
http://www.kraasecurity.com
http://blog.kraasecurity.com
http://twitter.com/kraasecurity

HIPAA Assessments are the next wave

In February, CVS was ordered to pay a fine of 2.5million dollars by the FTC. This fine was because their employees threw out personal information about patients. Who knew poor recycling programs could cost so much? HIPAA has been around for a number of years but not until recently did we see that it has teeth and companies are going to be held accountable. CVS has to have an assessment every other year now for 20 years. And assessments are not cheap! Assessments based on the Security Rule cover many areas of technology controls such as Firewall protection, Antivirus, Encryption, Vulnerability Scanning and much more. I am sure conducting an assessment rather than getting fines would have been much cheaper for CVS.

The definition of a Covered Entity for HIPAA compliance really reaches out to more companies than just hospitals and doctors offices. Not only companies like CVS will get fined but business partners of hopsitals and doctors offices storing patient data will be in trouble if they do not conduct Risk Assessments.

There are a number of ways to conduct these assessments, make them practical and stay out of trouble with “The Man”. One company that is pretty helpful in this regard is RiskWatch, http://www.riskwatch.com Their software allows you to conduct HIPAA, PCI, Red Flag Rule and other types of assessments.

For security professional, these regululations provide a strong insentive for companies to get their act together regarding privacy and security of data. Its unfortunate they have to be fined first to get them to the ball rolling. But hopefully, more will take a proactive stance for compliance but also to get an ongoing security program in place.

Regards
Gary Bahadur
http://www.kraasecurity.com
http://blog.kraasecurity.com
http://twitter.com/kraasecurity
*Managed Security Services
*Vulnerability Management
*Compliance & Policy Development
*PGP Security
*FREE Website Security Test
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