Security Blog Category

Got internet? Then you will probably have read about the Jeep Cherokee hack performed by Charlie Miller (Security Engineer, Twitter) and Chris Valasek (Director of Vehicle Safety Research, IOActive) while Andy Greenberg (Senior Writer, Wired) was driving. If not watch the video below! The two hackers have been able to access the car wirelessly and to perform highly dangerous tasks like disabling the brakes and cutting off the engine. Even more concerning, Miller and Valasek claim that it would easily be possible to hack nearly any other 2014/2015 Chrysler model equippedRead More

Here is what everyone tells you: Security in the Internet of Things (IoT) is vitally important. Wonder why exactly you should personally be interested in companies implementing security in new devices and applications? The infographic below gives a pretty straight forward explanation. Source: ComputerScienceZone.orgRead More

A crypto system should be secure even if everything about the system, except the key, is public knowledge – Kerckhoff’s law (from the 19th century). There are two basic ways of security systems: symmetric and asymmetric.  Both rely on Kerhoff’s law using secret keys to ensure security. Symmetric systems use the same key on host and client side and offer fast and high throughput as well as efficient security implementation. At the same time symmetric security comes with the trade-off that once a key becomes public the system is not safeRead More

Two weeks ago we defined several questions to find out if your application needs security. Now it’s time to think about what to consider when protecting a system. We created an infographic examining the 6 most important questions. The key to security is defining the perfect mixture of hardware and software security measures in order to keep the system safe and to minimise the expenses for protection. To do so you need to implement security into your design from the beginning and think of possible attacks and vulnerabilities of yourRead More

The Internet of Things (IoT) was at the peak of Gartner’s Hype Cycle 2014 – just a couple months later it feels like it has fully arrived. More and more devices and applications get connected via Bluetooth, WiFi, NFC and other technologies in order to enhance functionality and usability. Gartner’s Hype Cycle 2014 (image: Gartner) Every new connection is a possible entry point for hackers and has to be secured in some way. Many companies face the challenge of choosing and implementing the adequate security technology for their products and therefore we have collectedRead More

Israel-based mobile security company Skycure discovered an iOS vulnerability which could enable hackers to crash nearby devices and to put them in an unusable state. In order to perform the hack one would need to set up a router with a specific configuration. Apps on iOS devices which connect to it will crash with only a few exceptions. “Basically, by generating a specially crafted SSL certificate, attackers can regenerate a bug and cause apps that perform SSL communication to crash at will.” writes Yair Amit, CTO & co-founder at SkycureRead More

Just a couple weeks ago BMW made headlines when a security research group of the German automobile club ADAC discovered a major security gap in the ConnectedDrive feature. The optional system builds your favourite apps and services into the dashboard of your vehicle and offers additional features like social media integration, Google information for navigation and remote control enabling you to unlock/lock your car or to switch on heating/AC in the vehicle. Facebook App in the BMW ConnectedDrive (image: BMW) The researchers from ADAC reportedly created a fake mobile phone network and tricked nearby cars toRead More

By the end of last year complex spying malware arrived via an USB stick to the work computer of the unit head in the Department for European Policy, where virus-scanning software picked it up. How could this happen? After all, comprehensive security technology should have prevented such an event. Later it turned out that a staff member who works in close contact with German Chancellor Angela Merkel used a private USB stick and a private computer to work on a speech, which made it easy for the malware to accessRead More