On my previous “Starbucks” post I discussed how their recent move to free wifi for all has really helped raise awareness of surfing securely when using free wifi hotspots. In the end I encouraged the use of VPNs as the most effective countermeasure in stopping malicious snoopers. To follow up on this post, I...
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The whole Starbucks thing seems to be getting me on a role in the wifi security arena. The recent deluge of free wifi security articles reminded me of an article Brian Krebbs wrote a while back called “Wi-Fi Street Smarts, iPhone Edition” about hotspot security. One of the pieces of advice was to remove...
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LifeHacker had an excellent post entitled “How to Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi Networks” last week. This was probably the most technical security-wise from a number of articles that have come out in recent days due to Starbucks now offering free wifi. Of course this isn’t the first time free wifi has been offered....
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The Register had an interesting article the other day noting how Chase will no longer support Chrome and Opera because “creaking Internet Explorer 6 is more secure and popular than either Google’s Chrome or Opera.” Of course various versions of Firefox and Safari will be supported but the point that I can’t move past...
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I came across an article yesterday discussing the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) recent guidance allowing the government to use “persistent cookies.” For over a decade they have not been able to use such technologies to track user website visits. The new guidance, M-10-22, permits the use of “web measurement and customization technologies,...
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Written by Guest Poster Wade Woolwine The Chief Information (Security) Officer* is a top level executive who is responsible for defining and executing a plan for identifying, cataloging, and protecting information assets throughout a company or government agency. Seems like a pretty important job, right? So why is it that so many public and private...
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Two semi-recent articles about medical data being stolen caught my attention because they seemed out of place next to the headlines that decried PowerPoint and Kylin. The articles outline the massive amounts of medical data and patient records that were stolen from UC Berkeley and the Virginia Department of Health Professions last month. Though both...
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DarkReading recently published an interesting article entitled “BT Study: Most Enterprises Expect to Get Hacked This Year.” I’d say that that’s a safe assumption, since in the case of most large organizations, their electronic footprint is everywhere.  When you pair that with unmanaged parts of an organization setting up servers and machines, accounting for all...
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Somewhere, the creators of Adobe Reader are weeping. And if they’re not, it won’t be long until they do; with all of the recent vulnerabilities swirling around Adobe Reader, things are going from bad to worse. But just how bad is bad? According to CNET, at the RSA security conference earlier this month, F-Secure Chief Research Officer...
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A recent article by The Register almost makes you feel bad for social networking sites. In addition to their existing reputation for wasting time and ruining the grammatical aptitude of teenagers everywhere, social networking sites are now being accused of creating serious security threats for organizations in the form of spam, phishing, and malware...
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