Talking Computer Security
I was interviewed today on the Mooney show on RTE Radio 1. The topic was about cyber crime and its impact on Ireland. During the show we talked about the attacks on the CAO website, which I discussed previously, and also on the types of attacks that we see at IRISS-CERT. I also mentioned that […]
FUD for Thought
I recently wote an article for Silicon Republic on how to engage with senior management in your organisation so that they will buy into your information security program. The key is communicating with the key players in a language that they understand and in a way that you can appreciate the challenges and needs of […]
Malicious Attack Against CAO Website
Monday the 23rd of August was a big day for many Irish students as their anxious wait to see if they had been accepted into their preferred third level college was finally over. Many logged onto their computers and nervously accessed the CAO website. However, many were ùnable to access the site as the CAO […]
Brian Honan Meets InfosecCynic
I had the pleasure of finally meeting Javvad Malik, otherwise known as the infoseccynic, at the recent Infosec show in London. Javvad takes a refreshing look at the issues we face in the information security profession and you should visit his site or follow him on twitter to get his view on things. Javvad kindly took the […]
Google WiFi Sniffing SNAFU
Recent investigations by German authorities discovered that the Google street car was recording information about Wireless Access Points it detected during its journeys. More seriously it was revealed that the system recording that data was also gathering any data being transmitted over any unsecured wireless networks it detected. Google claims that this was a mistake and […]
Issue With McAfee VirusScan Update 5958 DAT
An issue with the DAT 5958 update to the McAfee VirusScan Enterprise product causes PCs running Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 to crash. The DAT 5958 update incorrectly identifies the system file svchost.exe as containing malicious code belonging to w32/wecorl.a. When the McAfee software tries to clean the mistakenly identified malicious code from the […]
Irish Business Targeted by Online Criminals
The SiliconRepublic.Com and RTE both report today that the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation is investigating a number of incidents where businesses in the west and midlands of Ireland have been targeted by online criminals. Apparently the criminals have accessed the computer systems of the affected businesses and encrypted important business information belonging to those businesses thereby making […]
Lessons In Cloud Security
The bunker scene in the movie Downfall has been adopted by many to spoof many modern events. Recently a spoof video based on the same meme has been produced by Marcus Ranum and Gunnar Petersonon Cloud Security. It is a very good and humorous spoof highlighting a number of security issues and misconceptions with moving your data/systems to […]
Securing Your VPN
The Sunday Business Post ran an article in their Computers In Business magazine last Sunday. I am quoted in the article giving some recommendations on how businesses should approach securing their VPN access. The full article is available on the Sunday Business Post site.
Boards.ie Hacked
On Thursday the 21st of January Boards.ie announced that they were the victims of an external attackwhich may have led to the compromise of their user database. As that database contained more than 280,000 users it was potentially a major issue. Details of what happened are available on Boards.ie’s website where they give a good […]