We all know that cloud computing can save time, money, and apparently all but does your laundry for you, but what are its real-use applications?
In her session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Victoria Kouyoumjian, Senior Business and Technology Strategist at Esri, will showcase multiple use cases of geospatial solutions that leverage the cloud computing deployment models to provide better government transparency, stakeholder engagement, and save lives … (really). Based on professional ex...| By Gorka Sadowski | Article Rating: |
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| March 12, 2010 09:15 PM EST | Reads: |
4,706 |
Another hack attack hits the headlines http://tinyurl.com/yebvj8p
Big deal. This stuff happens every day now right? Wrong. Not on this scale it doesn’t. The Kneber Bot has penetrated 75,000 systems, 2,500 companies across in 196 countries. This is not a straightforward Trojan - a simple smash and grab. This one’s a game changer.
Systems compromised by this botnet provide the attackers with not only user credentials and confidential information, but remote access inside the compromised network. Just some of the data stolen includes:
- 68,000 corporate log-in credentials
- Access to e-mail systems, online banking sites, Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail and other social networking credentials
- 2,000 SSL certificate files
- Dossier-level data sets on individuals, including complete dumps of entire identities from victims' machines.
Penetration of this scale and amongst such an esteemed group of public and private organizations - Merck & Co, Cardinal Health, 10 US Government Agencies - makes it is clear that no-one is untouchable to an ambitious, determined and organized group of hackers. But what’s most startling is the lack of visibility about this particular bot.
Firstly we don’t yet know where it came from. Fingers have been pointed at China but there appears to be very little hard evidence. Next, we don’t actually know the extent of the damage. This apparently is still being assessed, and affected companies notified. Moreover it isn't clear to what extent the attack has been contained.
What we do know is that it started in late 2008 in Germany. But that in itself begs another unanswered question. How can an attack using a spyware freely available in the Internet penetrate 75,000 systems worldwide – and still go unnoticed for more than a year?
What is becoming ever more clear is that conventional malware and signature-based detection systems are fast becoming inadequate for addressing the increasing sophistication of cyber attacks like the Kneber Bot.
How can companies improve their visibility and protect themselves against these increasingly sophisticated attacks going forward? Regardless of the sophistication of the attack all computers natively generate electronic fingerprints. For every event that takes place in a computer or a network or a security system, or applications, databases or OS, etc., a small record of that event is kept; it’s called a log.
This is your electronic fingerprint. Just like a fingerprint, properly managed logs enable us to carry out forensics, and get us the visibility required to know exactly what happened, who did what, how the attack originated, how it spread, where are the attackers, what has been compromised.
Could the key to solving and preventing IT crime lie in properly managed logs? Could it be that log management could be of some use?
Yes, certainly. But the trouble is that with the explosion of corporate systems the number of logs has exploded to a difficult-to-manage number and few companies are truly geared up to manage them all – meaning that things inevitably slip through the net. Only companies using the most sophisticated log management systems such as LogLogic’s Open Log Management Platform which - with our new Quad-core hardware can monitor up to 250,000 records per second – can really hope to identify and act upon these new subtle, sophisticated and well-disguised attacks on their infrastructure.
The hackers’ game has moved on. We all need to be prepared to respond to this.
Published March 12, 2010 Reads 4,706
Copyright © 2010 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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More Stories By Gorka Sadowski
Gorka is a natural born entrepreneur with a deep understanding of Technology, IT Security and how these create value in the Marketplace. He is today offering innovative European startups the opportunity to benefit from the Silicon Valley ecosystem accelerators. Gorka spent the last 20 years initiating, building and growing businesses that provide technology solutions to the Industry. From General Manager Spain, Italy and Portugal for LogLogic, defining Next Generation Log Management and Security Forensics, to Director Unisys France, bringing Cloud Security service offerings to the market, from Director of Emerging Technologies at NetScreen, defining Next Generation Firewall, to Director of Performance Engineering at INS, removing WAN and Internet bottlenecks, Gorka has always been involved in innovative Technology and IT Security solutions, creating successful Business Units within established Groups and helping launch breakthrough startups such as KOLA Kids OnLine America, a social network for safe computing for children, SourceFire, a leading network security solution provider, or Ibixis, a boutique European business accelerator.
We all know that cloud computing can save time, money, and apparently all but does your laundry for you, but what are its real-use applications?
In her session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Victoria Kouyoumjian, Senior Business and Technology Strategist at Esri, will showcase multiple use cases of geospatial solutions that leverage the cloud computing deployment models to provide better government transparency, stakeholder engagement, and save lives … (really). Based on professional ex...Jun. 3, 2012 12:15 PM EDT Reads: 2,307 |
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Very few trends in IT have generated as much buzz as cloud computing. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Mark Hinkle, Director, Cloud Computing Community at Citrix, will cut through the hype and quickly clarify the ontology for cloud computing. The bulk of the conversation will focus on the open source software that can be used to build compute clouds (infrastructure-as-a-service) and the complementary open source management tools that can be combined to automate the management...
Many organizations have embraced, or are considering, the benefits of cloud computing – speed, flexibility, increased expertise, shared workload, reduced costs, etc. The benefits are many – but so are the risks. What are the threats to cloud security? Which parties assume responsibility for securing the environment? What about the data? Which type of cloud deployment offers superior security benefits?
The latest generation of cloud computing is now capable of addressing the needs of the enterprise mission-critical applications. These applications require computing infrastructure that is secure, optimizes performance, and is highly resilient.
In his Opening Keynote at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Henry Fastert, Chief Technologist and Managing Partner at SHI, will highlight how the latest cloud computing designs have evolved in terms of security, availability, and overall service qualit...
Cloud computing has gained momentum and is increasingly being embraced by enterprises of all sizes. But the cloud itself is often its own worst enemy as performance, reliability, and the lack of enterprise-level capabilities have led to obstacles in growth and adoption of this still promising infrastructure methodology. This is only exacerbated by an increasingly mobile and global world, one that is plagued with security concerns.
In his Lunchtime Focus Keynote at the 10th International Cloud ...
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) now less than ten days away, what better time to remind you in greater detail of the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference...
We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from June 11 through June 14 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what else have t...
Cut through the cloud Computing clutter and make business sense of Big Data. Join us in New York in 8 days' time and attend the largest Cloud Computing and Big Data event in the world - the 10th International Cloud Expo at the Jacob Javits Center on June 11-14, 2012.
As the volume of digital content grows to 2.7 ZB‚ up 48% from 2011, Cloud Expo has been extended to focus additionally on Big Data. There are also Special Events galore, from Cloud Computing Bootcamp (all 4 days) and "Cloud Essent...
I am the track chair of the CloudExpo Bootcamp this year at Jacob Javits Center in NYC from June 11-14. You can check the agenda here.
As an invitee of the track chair, you can register for free (with the bootcamp option) at www.cloudcomputingexpo.com with "robustcloud" as the promotion code.
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) now less than ten days away, what better time to remind you in greater detail of the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference...?
Users and administrators alike have come to rely on standard NAS functions to create, manage, share and protect file-based data throughout its lifetime. However, this functionality is limited to a single site. Globally distributed enterprises must deploy islands of storage across sites, inhibiting optimization, centralized management, and load balancing. Ideally, administrators should be able to install a single cloud-integrated, file-based storage system that grants visibility of all files to a...
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