Opinions & Analysis

Yesterday saw the “opening” of the National Crime Agency that will centralise crime investigation and fighting, and tackle all types of misdemeanours. The concept was originally proposed as part of the government’s Cyber Security Strategy, announced in 2011, and with this latest move it is positive that the actions are still being completed. The plan then was for a cyber crime unit within the National Crime Agency that will build on the Metropolitan Police's eCrime Unit, giving...

This week marked the first week of the now annual ENISA cyber security month and as part of the agency for network and information security's activities, awareness of citizens is key. Speaking to IT Security Guru, head of core operations at ENISA Steve Purser, said that after the “pilot exercise” in 2012, he felt that the effort was going very well on its fourth day and after a lot of preparations and effort, there was a lot...

The big news of this week occurred due to the complaint and warrant made by the FBI for the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht, aka Silk Road founder “Dread Pirate Roberts”. The "dark" website, not hosted on the world wide web but accessible via The Onion Ring (TOR) reportedly had close to a million users and allowed registered users to dabble in art and erotica, but also in drugs, weapons and malware. The issue here, apart from...

Today marks the start of the inaugural European Cyber Security Month, a continent-wide scheme intended to raise awareness of security, privacy and information issues. Organised by the European Union agency for network and information security (ENISA), the campaign for the UK will include poster competitions, an awareness week on behaviour, ethical hacking, viruses and malware, advice on using your home computer as well as social media and email awareness campaigns. Following the various UK-based day...

The way that the industry collectively came together to offer a near $4,000 bounty for the first person to break Apple's Touch ID fingerprint scanner shows an interest in research, and how determined we are to show fallibility. In the story, the challenge to break Touch ID, introduced as part of iOS 7 last week, was launched by independent security researchers Robert Graham and Nick DePetrillo, who put their own money up in order to create a bounty that...

he method of infiltration and exfiltration may stay the same, but how sophisticatedly it is done changes. While the rise of advanced threats has seen more sophisticated techniques developed and used, in some cases less sophisticated methods and “back to basics” techniques are used. Earlier this year, Trusteer’s CTO Amit Klein blogged about two malware families, Tinba and Tilon, saying that they were examples of malware going “back to basics”. Recently, Trusteer identified a new variant of...

This week it was announced that NSA chief Keith Alexander was keen to expand the sharing of threat information in order to better protect the US government and its allies. Bearing in mind the issues the NSA has faced over the past few months: from Snowden to conference heckling, this could appear to be a good PR stunt by the agency to better repel criticism in the light of doing something positive. It’s not like the public...

Recent incidents, combined with the rise of information and profiles online, have left society with a lack of identity and anonymity. At a recent event in central London, Mike Janke, CEO and co-founder of secure communications vendor Silent Circle said that what has happened in the last six months has been “an amazing time”, and while some will want to “click their heels and go back to Kansas”, some companies will face the issue of...

I recently visited the new London office of security consultancy IOactive, a company with interesting working environments. Meeting with founder and president Joshua Pennell and chief technology officer Gunter Ollmann, I began by asking how this company operates as its employees step “in and out” of companies. Pennell explained that clients come to them as they want to work with their people and the typical client – high tech companies and large enterprises, are seeking...

When I was researching my options into which smartphone to upgrade to earlier this year, I was put on to the BlackBerry Z10 as a viable option and so far, so good. Therefore the news about the company’s financial downturn and apparent acquisition by Fairfax Financial strikes the first blow in the fast-paced world of the smartphone. It was pointed out on Twitter that the $4.7 billion (£3 billion) deal is not as valuable as Apple’s sales...