It seems that every year the news is filled with new challenges for security, but one of the most interesting of them is the new challenge to secure the internet of things. This is a term that is used for a system of securing devices, which would include home automation devices and also other connected devices. This type of attack, cryptocurrency attacks, is one of the biggest vulnerabilities of the internet because it allows attackers to steal personal information from users who have weak password.
The way this works is simple. Attackers create malware or fake applications that are designed to trick users into thinking that they are downloading a legitimate application. In the real world, the application that they download is infected with a keylogger. When users open these malicious applications they often transmit data to the hackers who can use this data to gain access to systems.
Most of the time, cyber attacks on the internet rely on phishing scams. An attacker will create a website that looks legitimate and then uses secret code to extract login information from the users. Once the user types in their username and password the hackers then access their financial accounts and transfers funds to remote locations. While there are many ways that these attacks can be executed, two years ago an unknown source posted 2 years ago stated that they were going to release a tool that can be used to hack the internet’s most popular platforms.
With the announcement of this tool hackers quickly took advantage of the opportunity. Within hours of the blog being published, thousands of accounts were hacked and personal information was stolen. As quickly as the attacks happened, the cyber security team at Apple recognized the problem and quickly made changes to stop the attacks. However, many of these hackers are still at it, and trying to break into the networks of corporate companies. In fact, last week they were seen trying to gain access to the networks of the United States Department of Defense.
One interesting twist to this story is that one of the biggest challenges they face, is trying to secure the cloud. The reason that the Department of Defense needed to take action is because of the way in which they store and disperse sensitive information across the public internet. If an attacker was able to gain access to these networks they could then use vulnerability based attacks to upload viruses into the cloud, leaving valuable information at risk of being stolen.
One of the new challenges for cybersecurity professionals is how to secure cloud services such as Salesforce, Oracle and others. These are incredibly valuable data centers that represent billions of dollars of revenue for these companies each year. In fact, recently the CEOs of Yahoo and Google were asked what they would do if the company had its information stolen by an external party. They decided to invest in better biometric authentication technology that is now in beta testing.
The larger question here is, how will cloud security solutions such as biometric access control work? The answer is that it will be easier for authorized users to gain access to sensitive data by utilizing fingerprints, iris scans or other biometric authentication mechanisms. Additionally, there will be more identification of individuals by their metadata such as location, language and browser settings. All of this will be logged and available for review. If an intruder is allowed through the barrier of a password, they won’t be able to gain access to any of the company’s cloud services, such as customer databases, financial data or sales data.
These are just some of the new challenges that companies face due to the vulnerabilities of connected devices. It is clear that there is a need for cyber experts who can focus their attention on identifying and addressing vulnerabilities. By taking the time to properly secure the Internet of things, the advances we make as a nation will be stronger and more profitable for all of us.
