Info Sec News: Nov 18, 2008

BBC Click on Biometrics

A few weeks ago BBC News Click published How biometrics could change security. The week after, they then published, “The pitfalls of biometric systems“.

Since its somewhat related to physical security, A UK fingerprint developer can read a letter from its envelope.

More news about the keyboard electromagnetic sniffing that was making the news last month:

From The Register Swiss boffins sniff passwords from (wired) keyboards 65 feet away

From BBC Keyboard sniffers to steal data

Video on keyboard sniffing from the very people that did the experiment can be found at COMPROMISING ELECTROMAGNETIC EMANATIONS OF WIRED KEYBOARDS.

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The Register gives a tutorial on encrypting e-mails in, “Still sending naked email? Get your protection here“.

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Pretty sad that a UK Anti-Fraud site has crashed due to DDOS attack.

The popular and free AVG Anti-virus has once again identified a trojan that isn’t one.

A Vulnerability has also been discovered in the SSH Specification.

The New York Times reports that Privacy Laws Trip Up Google’s Expansion in Parts of Europe

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Secrecy blog, reports that terrorists can presumably use twitter, instant messaging, etc. The article Spy Fears: Twitter Terrorists, Cell Phone Jihadists by Noah Shachtman on Wired talks about it more.

If you’re interested on the pdf exploit (also see below in other news), Didier Steven’s Blog, talks about Shoulder Surfing a Malicious PDF Author.

Other News:

Email ruse uses Federal Reserve Bank name to drop PDF exploit

Cybercrime expected to ramp during holiday season

New attack targeting Windows Mobile phones

Apple issues 11 security updates for Safari browser

How Outsourced Call Centers Are Costing Millions In Identity Theft

Although somewhat unrelated, InfoSec Professionals might also be interested in this article on airport security, The Things He Carried

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White paper on Designing and implementing malicious hardware presented at the LEET ’08

White Hat World Webinar on 10 Reasons your Existing SIEM Sucks! This will be held on Thursday, November 20, 2008 4:00 am Philippine time.

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Recently found Whitepapers and Presentations

Joshua Beeman (University of Pennsylvania) and Kathy Bergsma (University of Florida) gave presentations at the Security Professionals Conference in April 2007 on Incident Tracking and Reporting.

Abstract regarding their presentation is as follows:
“The University of Florida and the University of Pennsylvania both regularly generate summary reports of computer incidents for information security managers. The reports help identify units that need improvement, assist with planning and risk assessment, and have contributed to an improvement in the security posture of both universities.”

Matt Tolbert (University of Pittsburgh) from the same conference presented on Effective Security Metrics.

Abstract is as follows:
“This presentation will show how the University of Pittsburgh successfully uses incident, operational, and compliance metrics to demonstrate the effectiveness of its security controls, as well as to substantiate funding for implementing and sustaining them.”

Both of the above links are from Educause Connect.