Deep packet inspection is a methodology that network security professionals have been doing for many years.  It involves looking at the data going over the network and determining if anything malicious is going on based on what's in those packets.

My last post on Ransomware was in 2013 when we were being hit by Cryptolocker.  I mentioned that in around 2010 Data Doctor 2010 was the ransomware in the news.  According to Wikipedia, the first "ransomware" was called the "AIDS Trojan" in 1989, which didn't encrypt your files, but merely hid their data by encrypting the filenames.

Poodle and the Beast, this isn't a love story

Three years ago, Thai Duong and Juliano Rizzo demonstrated ^[1] an attack against one of the methods used in securing Internet traffic. 

Shellshock, a Bash Code Injection Vulnerability

In late September, 2014, a bug was released to the public in the popular Linux/Mac shell called bash.  For those that aren't familiar, the shell is the black box that some computer folks seem to spend a lot of time in typing archane commands to magically fix the computer.

Short Story

Heartbleed vulnerability

A flurry of information is coming out about the Heartbleed vulnerability that is affecting Internet websites everywhere.  As the Information Security Officer at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), I worked closely with the Computing Groups across our campus to secure our services.

Martin Lee, the Threat Intelligence Technical Lead over at Cisco, posted a fascinating article about the dangers of clicking on links when tired.  There has recently been a campaign telling people that driving tired is as bad or worse than driving drunk, and now it seems that clicking tired is also on the track of bad things to do.

It has been a common thread in security talks since the inception of spam that it is a bad idea to give any type of response indicating that a human is reading the spam.  For example, by clicking on the "unsubscribe" link in a spam, all you are doing is asking to be put on more lists.

This interesting article by Laura Atkins from Word to the Wise (an anti-spam consultancy and software firm), debunks this setiment, and calls it a myth.

Cryptolocker is a new piece of malicious software that has started circling the globe in the last half of 2013.  Deemed "rasomware" by security professionals, Cryptolocker encrypts your files and demands payment to receive the key to decrypt them.  The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) drafted a briefing about this software, how to protect yourself, and what to do if you are infected.

https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA13-309A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srh_TV_J144

Ellen did a great skit on the real world infomercial for the Password Minder.  It is a good watch, especially if you are a fan of hers.

For some good tips on creating security, easy to remember passwords, check out this blog post.

https://security.ias.edu/complex-passwords-are-easy-remember

Phishing is a term used to describe a scam, a malicious attempt aimed at trying to trick you into divulging sensitive information via electronic communication.  One recent avenue for this type of attack is through emails appearing to come from your IT helpdesk requesting information, such as your username and password.