Fast, intelligent and adaptive, online piracy is a growing threat facing pay media operators and content rights holders globally. But with smarter security, we are putting up a fight. Irdeto recently joined Akamai, the well-known global CDN provider, at their security...
As a cybersecurity professional and a hobbyist painter, I recently revisited one of my past works, ‘Cyberattack’, and started to think about IoT security and the power of visuals a bit differently…
For the average consumer, hopping online to shop is as commonplace as physically going to the mall. No one thinks for a moment about how relatively unsafe it is to conduct business on the web. But in spite of our years’ long dependence on the web for commerce, it’s still astonishingly easy for cybercriminals to hack web-based transactions.
The reason? Web browsers. The fundamental insecurity of web browsers is arguably the weakest link in cyber security today.
Sci-fi often portrays artificial intelligence (AI) like this: a computer watches people for a while, blinks darkly and decides the solution to the world’s problems is to kill off the human race. Thankfully we are far away from that. But what AI is capable of today is simulating a specific human brain function – such as pattern recognition. And that’s very exciting for security.
AI makes security practical in the open world
The world is now open, causing disruption in many industries and changing the demands on security.
Picture Bob. He thinks he’s figured out how to avoid paying for cable TV by watching programs streamed from pirate websites. One day, he’s watching a live football broadcast and ten minutes into the game, he loses all access. His screen goes blank. Is ruining the user experience on pirated sites a new combat strategy?
Seeing it differently
Degrading user experience may not be the first thing that comes to mind when considering how to combat cybercrime.
We live in a very different world today than we did 10-20 years ago. We’ve never been more connected. So, it’s surprising that software security practices remain in the realm of “We’ve always done it this way before”. Can they really expect to solve today’s security problems with an old way of thinking?
Traditional thinking
Traditional thinking typically starts with the premise that honest parties control the computer devices and any cryptographic operations are performed free from interference from would-be attackers. Given this, it’s probably understandable
Cryptography is no longer limited to the military and spies. This ancient art underpins modern life. It’s about encoding intelligible data, e.g. numbers, text and transforming them into something unreadable to anyone other than who the information is meant for. The question is, does it need an upgrade for today’s always connected world?
How secure is your house?
Hundreds of times a day we use cryptography in our everyday life. From the lock on the website that you’re browsing, remotely unlocking your car with the key fob to using all kinds of devices.
Statistically every person in the world between 15 to 64 years old has a smartphone or tablet today. In the next 5 years for every baby born 10 smartphones will be sold1. Smartphones have literally changed our lives, from playing, working to everyday living. But what can we learn from app developers, who’ve made mobile devices so powerful?
Learning from app developers
With 102 billion mobile app downloads to date – averaging 22 apps per device2 – it’s clear that software developers know what they are doing.
On a recent flight, I was sat next to a security auditor. He asked “can someone steal keys used to encrypt credit cards from the server memory?” It depends, was my reply. But his question left me wondering. Why hasn’t anyone built a server side white box implementation?
Why does it depend?
Like any implementation, some are more secure than others. If the server side code was using ‘standard cryptographic APIs’ and they were black box implementations then
Browser security isn’t a new problem. Apple, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla have put a huge amount of effort into enabling consumers to have a secure browsing experience. But who’s thinking about the web site operators and their secure browsing experience?
Trust online
Internet trust is dependent on certification authorities; with TLS/SSL being the most commonly used technology for securing electronic commerce transactions online. It’s all about enabling the consumer to access web services and be reasonably confident they know who they are talking to.