Category Archives: Security

Original Article, NetworkWorld.com, Tim Greene

FBI probe of whether Chris Roberts hacked an airliner in flight points to a gap between the good hackers do vs a false sense of safety

Tim Greene By Tim Greene Follow

Network World | May 19, 2015 10:04 AM PT
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Security

The purported veering of a jetliner caused by an onboard hacker points up a larger problem, experts say – airlines and other providers of services may be blind to the value such security researchers can offer in the name of public safety.

While it’s far from clear that security researcher Chris Roberts actually did commandeer the avionics system of an airplane and force it to steer to one side, the story is prompting other security experts to call for better cooperation between white-hat hackers and industries whose infrastructures they probe.

Airlines have to get used to the idea that this type of hacking can be useful and ought to make test environments that simulate aircraft systems available for researchers to hack against, says Jeremiah Grossman, the founder of White Hat Security.
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Original Article: Penn State College of Engineering May 15, 2015

Plans in place to allow teaching, research in the college to continue as University moves to recover.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State College of Engineering has been the target of two sophisticated cyberattacks conducted by so-called “advanced persistent threat” actors, University officials announced today. The FireEye cybersecurity forensic unit Mandiant, which was hired by Penn State after the breach was discovered, has confirmed that at least one of the two attacks was carried out by a threat actor based in China, using advanced malware to attack systems in the college.

In a coordinated and deliberate response by Penn State, the College of Engineering’s computer network has been disconnected from the Internet and a large-scale operation to securely recover all systems is underway. Contingency plans are in place to allow engineering faculty, staff and students to continue in as much of their work as possible while significant steps are taken to upgrade affected computer hardware and fortify the network against future attack. The outage is expected to last for several days, and the effects of the recovery will largely be limited to the College of Engineering.

To learn more about the incident, including information for affected faculty, staff and students, visit http://SecurePennState.psu.edu/.

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