Speaking of Security – The RSA Blog and Podcast

Fraudsters continue to extend their global reach through geo-targeted services and crimeware strains: Country-specific malware-infection services are readily sold to bot-herders via dedicated websites, with rates ranging from $30 to $250 per 1,000 infected computers. Ready-made botnets can be purchased in the underground along with HTML injections that target the region’s largest financial institutions, enabling [...]

Most consumers know what a virus or a Trojan is, but if you threw the word “scareware” at them, you might get a look as though you were an alien from another planet.  Scareware is no different than any other malicious software that finds its way on to your computer.  But the best way to [...]

Information security professionals live in exciting times. It’s a constant battle of escalations between the new ways technology can be used to conduct business, and the new ways the bad guys can incorporate technology in their overall strategy to steal information. But make no mistake, people are the new perimeter.

The RSA Research Lab investigates and monitors a large number of malicious cybercrime servers operating in the wild. The tool of choice this time – Zeus v2.1.0.10, the most advanced variant of Zeus to date. The end result: endless logs of compromised financial data and untold numbers of wire-fraud transactions.

Since the Zeus source code was leaked, one of the predictions security researchers were convinced of was that independent code writers, wishing to enter cybercrime coder’s world, would be glad to do it by using a ready-made baseline. One such code to have surfaced in underground and hacking forums soon after the code leak was Trojan Ice IX. But is it all what it is cracked up to be?

So Ok, you think you know security. Riddle me this one… What does Jennifer Lopez and computer hackers who’ve attacked America’s defense establishment have in common? If you answered both are featured in this September’s issue of Vanity Fair magazine, you’d be right, and a true member of the all knowing security club.

In January 2010, at the turn of the decade, I wrote the following lines in my blog: “It will be an interesting decade from a cybercrime perspective. Employees are one of the weakest links in corporate security… The current defenses cannot suffice, and the industry must think of a new defense doctrine.” A lot of folks in the security space raised an eyebrow.

In this modern world where information is one of the most, if not the most important assets an organization can have, CISOs are tasked with preventing attackers from coming into their networks and stealing sensitive data. In order to do that, they arm themselves with an assortment of security tools, products and services used to secure these networks, protect information and mitigate the various threats to it. However, while these solutions grow more sophisticated, so do the challenges of the modern world CISOs face.

Word of yet another historical moment in cybercrime is quickly spreading through the fraud underground and through the legitimate web – the Zeus Trojan’s source code has been made public and is now freely available to anyone wanting a piece of the infamous old “King of Trojans.”

The question of “why” EMC has acquired NetWitness will no doubt come up (beyond the fact that they are the obvious market leader with awesome technology) and how do they fit? Over the next few months that will become increasingly clear and in fact obvious if it isn’t already, but I thought I’d start with a simple analogy that I will connect first with RSA enVision (i.e. with Security Information and Event Management or “SIEM”) and then with RSA Archer (i.e. with Governance Risk and Compliance or “GRC”).