A culture of surveillance?

snoopThe debate as to how much information the Government and security services should hold on us as citizens is an ever contentious one.  Our ability to ‘communicate’ has never been more powerful and pervasive. Advances in technology have enabled it.  Modern day communications, be they telephone or internet based, do leave a ‘log’ of what happened . The debate is twofold: the philosophical one as to the right to access this information, then the practical, just how much of this information should be disclosed or examined?

The UK is somewhat characterised as one of the countries wherein, its citizens are extensively monitored. It is a sobriquet derived from the early and extensive adoption of CCTV. The UK Government had been set to try to implement a database that would have recorded all internet activity for the use of the security services. This has now been scrapped, according to the BBC.

The Home Office will instead ask communications companies – from internet service providers to mobile phone networks – to extend the range of information they currently hold on their subscribers and organise it so that it can be better used by the police, MI5 and other public bodies investigating crime and terrorism.

There is an interesting analogy that could be used here and it is with respect to the modern day telephone. We are all aware and have become accustomed to seeing our telephone activity being logged. Every month, we receive our statements and we can see that someone has been logging all the call we made, to what number, at what time and for how long. By implication we acknowledge that this is happening and we are comfortable with it, as it does not go to the next step of reporting the content of the call. Furthermore, we are all aware that law enforcement can now routinely uses telephone records to help with criminal investigations.

So, there is practical and legal precedent. It will be interesting to see if this can and will be extended to the internet. The Government is now engaged in another round of consultation. It will be interesting how this round of discussion and debate pans out.

April 28, 2009 | Filed Under Regulation, Security, Technology | Leave a Comment 

The story of the take down of ‘Dark Market’

fbiThe question of just how capable law enforcement is in the face of cyber-criminals comes up regularly.  Unfortunately, tracking down the true perpetrators is a complex and time consuming process. Many times it requires a detailed technical knowledge and understanding, which then needs to be coupled with potentially cross jurisdictional cooperation and coordination. I told you that it was difficult!

At RSA this week, the FBI provided an insight into how they went about ‘Dark Market’ bust. The man who led the operation outlined just how they went about it. What is also interesting is the insight to the structure and operation of ‘Dark Market’. A link to the story is here.

In the end, 60 people were ultimately arrested and an estimated $70M of fraud averted. It is good to see that law enforcement can be effective and cyber-criminals can be brought to account. However, the victory is short-lived given the dynamic and growing nature of the under-ground economy and the cyber-criminals who frequent it.

April 23, 2009 | Filed Under Security, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

Beware the green-eyed monster

Socially engineered scams and related attacks still remain a potent weapon in the armoury of the cyber-criminals.  If you can stir the human emotion to react you are nearly home and done in terms of being able to launch a successful scam. If you can plug into powerful emotions such as fear, jealousy and suspicion, so more the better. Symantec Security Response have posted a blog about spam claiming that a piece of software can be used to snoop around the SMS messages of your partner, or for general SMS spying, and a URL is provided for a download of a 30-day free trial of the software.

What you end up downloading is W23.Waledac which ultimately can turn your machine into a Bot. So, it is not a case you doing the ‘spying’, rather, you could be the one being spied upon and manipulated.

Full details on this can be found here.

April 22, 2009 | Filed Under Security | Leave a Comment 

Do you believe in Ghosts?

computer_networkThere has been quite a bit of coverage in the past week or so about ’Ghostnet’.  This is a  Botnet that has infiltrated a large number of computers located in various government agencies around the world. The supposition that it has infected government agencies around the world, is the angle that has created, in equal measure, both interest and worry.

Symantec security response have written an interesting Blog about Ghostnet. What in really telling with  Ghostnet, is the provision of a toolkit that allows for the creation of a backdoor that then can be used by the Ghostnet botnet. The toolkit to create the backdoor is really easy to use and feature rich. Symantec security response have posted a video on YouTube demonstrating just how simple it is to create the backdoor. They then go onto provide examples of just what can be done once the backdoor is deployed onto a ‘compromised’ PC. The ability to take control and monitor everything that is happening on the PC is scary.  Furthermore, there is also video, that was released by the group behind Ghostnet, showing real live examples of PCs they have compromised and just what they can and are doing with them. All very brazen self-congratulatory stuff.  The good news is that we have detection in place for Ghostnet, so as long as you have an up to date security product, you should not have any ‘nightmares’.

April 8, 2009 | Filed Under Security | Leave a Comment