For a security researcher and analyst, references to this position include a “white hat hacker” or an “ethical hacker,” but more commonly and probably more preferred would be a “penetration tester.” I am going to go with a security researcher title. Nowadays, the term ‘hacker’ has negative connotations to it, rightfully so I might add, but, to me, I don’t think that it should … [Read more...]
Medical Device Security – What’s the Industry Doing About It
In a previous post I wrote about the poor security of medical devices, and used this Bloomberg article from November 2015 to highlight the severity of the situation, and the need for the industry to fix this problem to protect patient safety and privacy. While my intent was to provide a “then and now” perspective, it was rightly pointed out by a reader that I leaned-in too much … [Read more...]
libssh Vulnerability: Is WatchGuard Affected?
When users hear or read “SSH” (the acronym stands for Secure SHell) they expect it to be just that – a secure shell from your physical location to wherever the destination computer may be; and “secured” in terms of requiring authentication and verification of messages. The programming libraries that support SSH include OpenSSH and libssh among others. In recent news, the … [Read more...]
Everything Your Need to Know About SIM-Jacking
Over the past year, we’ve seen reports of SIM-jacking, a particularly malicious attack hackers are using to assume control of victims’ digital and financial lives. What is SIM-jacking and how exactly does it happen? These attacks allow hackers to take over a person’s cell phone number and usually their digital life along with it. Threat actors typically start by social … [Read more...]
From Binary to Character Representations
At the core of every computer system in the world is a CPU which accepts and acts upon streams of 0’s and 1’s. A “0” value is considered off and a “1” value is considered on. Why is this though, why do computers break everything down to these values? Further, how does binary translate from English-speaking countries to non-English speaking countries, or vice versa? Without … [Read more...]
