Consider the following scenarios:
» You’re sitting in a café sipping a beverage, munching a sandwich, reading something on the net, and listening to iTunes. A stranger approaches. But not a complete stranger: he knows your name, and after a few minutes’ conversation, it’s clear he knows your family. You invite him to sit down…
» You try to log into your webmail account, but fi nd you can’t: the system keeps rejecting your password, no matter how carefully you type it. Later, you discover that you can’t access your Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter accounts. Then, you soon discover your online banking and credit card accounts have been compromised. When you visit an ATM, you fi nd your account has been drained…
» You are in church on a Sunday. After the service, someone approaches you. You don’t know them, but they seem to
work for your company: they name their department, and mention a few other familiar names. Later, they send you an email with an attached spreadsheet. You know them, and they work for your company. You click to open it…
The third of these cases is the most obvious: opening the spreadsheet infects your computer with malware that opens a hole into your company’s network. That was how RSA’s SecureID was compromised last year. The meeting at church is also real, spotted in the news by Trend Micro EMEA CTO Andy Dancer. On this occasion, the attempt was too clunky to fool the target, an Australian McAfee employee. The more sophisticated approaches of the future won’t be so easily spotted.
Stalking Made Easy The fi rst scenario comes from the Vermont lawyer Frederick S. Lane, author of
Cybertraps for the Young, who observes that most people use their own names for their iTunes library, and these pop up when sharing is turned on. “I was sitting in a café using iTunes with the library sharing feature turned on”, says Lane, “and I saw the names of four different women in the café at the same time”. In a few minutes online, he could fi nd photos to match and other details. “It’s amazing how much information you can gather in about ten minutes – and I could have had a conversation that made it sound like I’d known their family for years.” This scenario is what really scares Richard Hollis, CEO of the security consultancy Orthus. “My fear is of physical violence”, he says. “Social media provides a platform for just about anybody who wants to fi nd out where you are and get in contact with you.” Working on last year’s Parliamentary inquiry into cyberstalking in the UK, the discovery that startled Hollis most was that more than 50% of stalkers were someone
NEW RISKS REQUIRE A NEW APPROACH
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Information security risks don’t stand still and neither do we. Receive a free information security poster when you register to see our new programme. Call +44 (0)1926 523149, email
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www.saiglobal.com/compliance www.infosecurity-magazine.com /// 35
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