Tag Archive for Trend Micro

RB | October 18, 2011
One comment

Staff End Runs Security

Social networkingWhen I in my remote Bach Seat, contemplating sharing tech services, I am constantly facing the consumerization of IT. The iPads have made an official beachhead and Skype has made it inside the perimeter. So I should not feel alone according to recent reports from Trend Micro and Cisco (CSCO).

Facebook Help Net Security reports that despite more workplaces regulating social networking site access, employees bypass security roadblocks to engage in social networking. The research by Trend Micro says that employees are finding ways around security roadblocks, making social networking a way of office-life around the world. Trend Micro’s 2010 corporate end-user survey, found that globally, social networking at the workplace steadily rose from 19 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2010.

The survey also found that laptop users are much more likely than desktop users to visit social networking sites. Globally, social networking usage via laptops went up by 8 percent from 2008 to 2010. In the U.S., it increased by 10 percent In 2010, 29 percent of laptop users versus 18 percent of desktop users surveyed said they frequented these sites at work.

MalwareThe survey also found that laptop users who can connect to the Internet outside of company network are more likely to share confidential information via instant messenger, Web mail and social media applications than those who are always connected to a company’s network.

A 2010 Cisco survey, which looked at the security impact of personal gadgets and social networking in the workplace, found that employees are consistently (Cisco’s words) finding ways around security policies. 68 percent of those surveyed by Cisco said that employees use unsupported social networking applications.  Heavy use of unsupported collaboration, P2P and cloud applications were also reported. More than half said social networking is one of their organization’s three greatest security risks. More than a third reported that their company lost data or experienced a breach because of employees using unsupported devices.

rb-

So why is Facebook such a problem for enterprises? For one, it is a huge time waster.  Datacenter Knowledge reports that Facebook users spend a total of more than 16 billion minutes on social networking site Facebook per day. Facebook VP of Technical Operations Jonathan Heiliger stated that 3 billion photos are uploaded to Facebook each month and users view more than 1 million photos every second during a presentation at the Velocity 2010 conference

The more popular the social network, the more effective social networks become as malware distribution platforms. KOOBFACE, the “largest Web 2.0 botnet,” controls and commands compromised machines globally. This demonstrates the scale of the threat, and emphasizes the need to educate users and implement strong policies.

Trend Micro says that trying to just prevent users accessing social networks from work could potentially increase the risk to an organization as users look for ways around computer security possibly increasing the chance of exposure to security threats. The lesson, in Cisco’s view, is that you better find the technologies–and resources–to support personal devices and applications because they will be used regardless. “The best strategic approach is to focus less on restricting usage and more on effective solutions to ensure highly secure, responsible use,” said Fred Kost, Cisco’s director of security solutions.

Call me old-school but  it seems that employees have always learned to work within reasonable company boundaries. Another option for those organizations that need web 2.0 in the organization should tale a look at Palo Alto Networks who have developed a firewall that can block the wasteful parts of social media and leave some parts of the web 2.0 app accessible.

Consumer technologies evolve faster than the IT department budget, and it could be a constant game of catch-up trying to accommodate the latest rogue gadgets and widgets. Ultimately, rogue IT use is not so much a failure of technology, but a failure of policy and policy enforcement.

Related articles
Category: Security, Social Networking | Tags: , , , , , ,
RB | February 26, 2010
No comments

IPv6 Malware

Trend Micro, in a December 2009 report, The Future of Threats and Threat Technologies: How the Landscape Is Changing (PDF) predicts that changes to the Internet infrastructure will widen the playing field for cybercriminals. One of the changes Trend Micro predicts is the IPv6 Malware Experimentation Stage. The anti-virus firm points out that many weaknesses were discovered in IPv4 during the mid- to late-1990′s as the Internet came into its own. The vendor predicts IPv6 will have a similar pattern of growth.

As the IPv6 user base expands, weaknesses will be discovered in the IPv6 protocol and it’s implementation. The anti-virus firm believes that the current low IPv6 adoption rate and the increased awareness of IPv4 exhaustion, will delay any wide-scale IPv6 malware beyond 2010. However, as users start to explore IPv6, so will the cybercriminals. The vendor says that users can expect to find some proof-of-concept elements in IPv6 during 2010. Possible IPv6 abuse includes new covert channels or Command and Control (C&C) for botnets.

IPv6One attack vector that will open up as users start experimenting with IPv6, are  tunneling protocols according to Ben April  an Advanced Threat Researcher at Trend Micro. April points out on the Trend Micro Malware Blog that the 6to4 (RFC 3056) and Teredo (RFC 4380) tunneling protocols pose threats to networks  as they transition to IPv6. April says that neither protocol claims to offer any significant security protection. According to the blog, 6to4 tunneling requires that the user endpoint exist in a publicly routable IP space and be directly reachable by any 6to4 serving device with the risk of having to trust traffic coming from any address claiming to support the protocol for full functionality. 6to4 can also support routes to networks behind the endpoint. Endpoints have an IPv6 address which includes the IPv4 address of the endpoint converted to hex. According to April, a server on the IPv6 Internet  should also be fortified against both IPv4 and IPv6 threats. 6to4 comes with an entire RFC (RFC 396) devoted to security considerations.

The Teredo RFC goes so far as to call itself the IPv6 Provider of Last Resort. The blog says this label comes primarily from the crazy stunts required to successfully traverse multiple NAT gateways. Unlike 6to4, however, only one host can exist behind the endpoint. April points out the risks that Teredo creates by tunneling from the public Internet to a host inside a NATed environment. This creates the need for a well-protected host. This protocol also allows endpoint address leakage which would aid an attacker. Teredo encodes the IPv4 exit point of the NAT gateway, the UDP port used by the external NAT session, and the IPv4 address of the tunnel endpoint used by the client in a well-known slightly obfuscated way.

Fortinet logoOne answer to the IPv6 security issues could come from network security and unified threat management (UTM) provider Fortinet. In December 2009, the vendor announced that it had achieved 56 Gbps of IPv6 throughput on its FortiGate’-5140 multi-threat chassis-based system.  The 56 Gbps for IPv6 throughput based on its proprietary FortiASIC technologies that accelerate security processing of the FortiGate-5000 Series blades and modules. The  FortiASIC processors are security processors that accelerate the processing of network traffic focusing on security enforcement including firewall policies and other content inspection requirements.

The IPv6 performance of the equipment was benchmarked and validated with a BreakingPoint Elite resiliency testing chassis with multiple 10 GbE interfaces . Fortinet’s FortiOS  firmware has  fulfilled all requirements for IPv6 Phase-2 Core Support as a router product. This certification, awarded by the IPv6 Ready Logo Program.

As Trend Micro’s April says, ” IPv4 firewall rules don’t do anything to IPv6 traffic.”

Category: IPv6, Malware | Tags: ,
 

Switch to our mobile site