Friday, May 30, 2014

Week 12.


Time to finish up your blog. This last assignment should be a retrospective look at your postings over the last 11 weeks. Time for a little analysis. Write up an entry that provides a summary of what you chose to write about.

I decided to right about a current event of the week. Over the last few weeks, there have been some critical articles from Apples IOS issues to a security flaw in the Xbox One.

First, you need to categorize your topics of choice. Did you write primarily on operating system issues? User errors? Viruses? Or did you write about a variety of topics? Why did you choose those topics?

I tried not to limit myself to certain items. I wanted to hit all areas for my blog. I found some extremely serious topics like the IE security flaw and some more light hearted articles like the FBI needing “Pot Heads”

Next, you need to include an analysis of where you got your material. Did you use the same source each week? A variety each week?

I usually started with Slashdot.com and then moved on from there. One week I discovered an article on the Wall Street Journal and another week I found one Cnet.com.

As the last part of this entry, include whether or not you thought this type of blog might be useful to an information security professional and provide a few lessons learned for the next group of students.

These types of blogs can be very helpful. However, my blog would not be very helpful. I do not enjoy writing, and it echoes in my blog. The posts are short and to the point. Some of my classmates are very good writers, and their blogs reflect their passion.
Lessons learned, find items that you enjoy. Do not blog on something you do not have feelings about, it will show in the final product. Always spell and grammar check your work. Finally, always preview your post before hitting Publish.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

FBI Needs Potheads


The rate of cybercrime is growing and law enforcement is struggling to keep up. The FBI is trying to add agents to their headcount, but they're running into a problem; many of the hackers applying for these jobs have a history of marijuana use. 

 FBI Director James Comey said, 'I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview.'

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Phil Zimmermann creates 'Spy-Proof' Mobile Phone

Phil Zimmermann (inventor of PGP) has designed a “Spy-Proof” mobile phone. The blackphone has a 4.7” display and features a 2 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 4i ARM Cortex-A9 quad-core processor with 60 GPU cores, 1GB RAM and 16GB storage. The OS is a customized version of Android called PrivatOS which offers encrypted calls, texts and emails that can't be unscrambled even by spy agencies. It is coming out this June, and many Fortune 50 companies have already ordered placed orders for the phone.

 
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/blackphone--why-the-the-first-%E2%80%9Csnooper-proof%E2%80%9D-mobile-is-already-a-hit-090358818.html#cgTXBwc

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Symantec Says Anti-Virus Is Dead


Symantec Senior Vice Presidents for Information Security says anti-virus is dead and that it lets through 55 percent of all attacks. While Symantec sill makes 40 percent of its revenue on the sale of antivirus software they believe the future is on prevention of data loss.

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/anti-virus-dead-or-dying-symantec-144954

Friday, May 2, 2014

Microsoft issues workaround for Internet Explorer bug


Microsoft has recently posted instructions on how to protect some versions of Internet Explorer against a security flaw. The security flaw is extremely dangerous because it affects all versions of Intern Explorer. This flaw allows Hackers to add code into an innocent website. When someone visits the infected website using Internet Explorer, hackers can gain full user rights on the victim's computer. While a patch has not yet been issued, Microsoft is working on a solution.

 http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/04/30/internet-explorer-bug-microsoft-homeland-security/8518837/