Future of Smart Phones

I found an interesting article on Digital Trends (.com) explaining how smart phones will soon be considered PC replacements over the next few years.  In June of 2010 DoCoMo launched their Toshiba T-01A which is Japan’s very fast phone using the advanced Qualcomm chip, Snapdragon.  The Snapdragon runs 30% faster, while using 30% less power as well as featuring enhanced 2D acceleration and 3D graphics core (Ricker, 2009).  Here in 2012, the new iPhone 5 can come with 64GBs of memory, GPS, digital compass, Wi-Fi, 8MP camera, Panorama, 1080P video recording, and Apple’s A6 chip (TopTenReviews.com, 2012).  These powerful phones can now multitask with the best of them, including enough data processing to actually play Blizzard’s World of Warcraft (Brandon, 2010), which is a very resource-demanding computer game.  Location awareness will begin taking effect, where 2015 phones are projected to offer to pay your bill through your phone when near a McDonald’s restaurant or Starbucks (Brandon, 2010).  Augmented reality, an emerging trend will allow a guy sitting in the nosebleed section of a game to see the live feed being streamed from the person in the second row at a game or event (Brandon, 2010).  From my personal experience, when I lose my TV remote, I can grab my smart phone and control my smart TV from the Samsung App installed on my phone.  I have an interest in cyber security, but I have a real passion for smart phone technology.  I’m very excited to see what comes next.

Cited:

Ricker, Thomas. (2009). Engadget: Qualcomm’s 1.3GHz QSD8650A Snapdragon chipset is 30% stronger, uses 30% less power. Retrieved at: http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/01/qualcomms-1-3ghz-qsd8650a-snapdragon-chipset-is-30-stronger/

Unknown. (2012). TopTenReviews: Apple iPhone 5. Retrieved at: http://cell-phones.toptenreviews.com/smartphones/apple/apple-iphone-5-review.html

Brandon, Richard. (2010). Digital Trends: The Future of Smartphones: 2010-2015 and Beyond.  Retrieved at: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/the-future-of-smartphones-2010-2015-and-beyond/

Planning For Contingencies

This week we studied the importance of contingency planning and preparing our organization or home network for as many incidents or disasters that can be planned for. The different tools we talked about for this objective were: the Incident Response Plan, the Disaster Recovery Plan, and the Business Continuity Plan.

The Incident Response Plan is a document and list of procedures to help prevent a disaster and realign the organization’s operations as quickly as possible to not lose production. It is extensive and consists of many step by step procedures that should be able to guide anyone with no training through these processes. Its main objectives include: Incident Planning, Incident Detection, Incident Reaction, and Incident Recovery.

• Incident Planning involves a great deal of brainstorming to single out the many possible incidents that may occur throughout normal operations.
• Incident Detection is the ability to notice an incident occurring before it becomes too late.
• Incident Reaction focuses on the speed at which a member of the organization will react to the incident and begin their list of actions required to contain an incident.
• Incident Recovery is the organization’s ability to bounce back to normal operations after an incident occurs.

The Disaster Recovery Plan is a list of actions to accomplish after a disaster has occurred. This could be from an incident evolving into a disaster or one that had no warning before it happened. The Disaster Recovery Plan includes: Plan for Disaster Recovery, Crisis Management, and Recovery Operations.

• The Plan for Recovery resembles the Incident Plan closely, just on a larger scale.
• The Crisis Management will focus more on the actual damage done to the systems, operations, or personnel of the organization.
• The Recovery Operations, like the Recovery Plan, resembles the Incident Recovery closely, and is just more extensive due to the difference in impact.

The Business Continuity Plan re-aligns operations to another site or system that will either keep up the prime or all the function performed within that organization. It consists of Establishing Continuity Strategies, Plans for Continuity of Operations, and Continuity Management.

• The Continuity Strategies is the point at which the organization formulates their plan to continue on with the mission or production while the disaster recovery is underway.
• The Plan for Continuity Operations is built from the strategies designed in the first planning phase.
• Continuity Management is the follow through of the plans put in place to maintain the daily operations and not lose production time within the company.

If these are all carefully planned and carried out, an organization or company would be able to experience an incident or disaster without and of their customers knowing about it. In some cases a gap of service availability may occur, but the idea here is to minimize the period in which it occurs.

The essential text used in the research of this topic was the:

Whiteman, Mattord. Management of Information Security. 3rd ed. (2010). Boston, MA: Course Technology, Cengage Learning

SecSDLC

This week I’d like to discuss the Security System Development Life Cycle (SecSDLC) as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). We’ve started learning about it in Whitman &  Mattord’s Management of Information Security, but NIST’s model differs slightly.

The NIST first points out that many different SDLC models exist, but they all should push an organization to the same goal, which is effectively developing their information system. They describe that a traditional  SDLC is a linear sequential model that assumes the system will be delivered at the end of the cycle.

Generally a SDLC includes five phases: initiation, acquisitions/ development, implementation/ assessment,  operations/ maintenance, and sunset (or disposition). They go on to say that each phase includes a minimum set of security tasks needed to effectively incorporate security in the system development process and that  including security earlier in the process will result in less expense later on.

According to the NIST, certain questions should be addressed during the security controls that the system  will require:

- How mission-critical is the system?
- What are the security objectives required by the system?
- What regulations and policies are applicable in determining what is to
be protected?
- What threats will the system experience during normal operations?

Phases and Key Tasks described by NIST are located in their System Development Life Cycle brochure  located here: http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SMA/sdlc/ documents/SDLC_brochure_Aug04.pdf

Cited:

National Institute of Standards and Technology, (2012, May 18).  Information Security in the Systems Development Life Cycle. Retrieved  from http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SMA/sdlc/index.html

Bell tolling for desktop antivirus?

Ellen Messmer's article in PCWorld discusses how analysts are have been saying that signature-based checking, which is the principle of our personal anti-virus software, can no longer keep up with the new flood of viruses. That users should adopt newer approaches, such as whitelisting or behavior-blocking, that only allows authorized applications to run.  Whitelisting products are currently available from SecureWave, Bit9, Savant, AppSense and CA.  The article continues on to say antivirus labs get more samples than they can handle on a daily basis, and that they basically single out the "big fish," trying to stop the more severe viruses. At the same time, others believe antivirus is worthwhile and not going anywhere. While antivirus programs have been compared to a "shield with holes in it," it certainly wouldn't hurt for the user to be able to decide 'which bullets are allowed to be shot at the shield.'  I think the real future is going to be a balance of both. I've already noticed my personal antivirus program prompting me to grant unknown programs access to run an operation on my computer.  While I usually know why a program would need to execute, I don't know all the programs out there, so I will certainly not be uninstalling my signature-based checking software.


 Cited:
Messmer, E. (2007). Is Desktop Antivirus Dead? PCWorld. Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/article/130455/is_desktop_antivirus_dead.html

Ransom-ware

This blog has been generated to post information pertaining information security. I welcome discussion any topics presented in these blogs. Since its my first one, I'll introduce myself further. I've worked in the communications for a while now.  I received my bachelors degree in Computer Science in North Carolina. I currently work in Nebraska and maintain computer/communication systems connected around the world.  With such a large footprint I'm  now in contact with, information security is a huge concern of mine now.  

As far as discussion on viruses that affect Windows' new operating systems. The most interesting one I've witnessed is a type of "ransom-ware."  I don't want to give the name of the program I've been finding because just researching it online on a clean computer, my personal system "contracted" it the very next day. What I would like to do it pass knowledge of symptoms and corrective action. 

While the system is booted up and running normally, a program will pop up that seems to be scanning your computer for viruses.  The name was not a commonly advertised one (i.e. Nortan or McAfee).  However, it was "finding" viruses at an alarming rate on a system I knew had virus protection already.  It is pressing you to purchase a "license" for the program that is "scanning" your computer in front of your eyes.  The "x" in the top right to close the program will not work. Alt + F4 doesn't work. Right-click, close doesn't work.  Opening the task manager and ending the process will not terminate the program.  Personally, I was quite surprised at the power of this program.  While using, the later to be known, infected computer to search the program's name on the internet, the Internet Explorer, then Firefox would stop running all together and wouldn't not allow the me to launch the programs anymore. I tried to search the computer for the program and uninstall, but it would then turn off my ability to search through my own computer!

I finally learned the only way to stop it was to open a file called R-Kill. I couldn't search for it on the internet because it was again, blocked by this ransom-ware. I had to download the file from the internet using another computer and then insert it into the infected computer by USB, etc. By running R-Kill, it terminates ALL programs currently running that isn't the bare minimum operating system. At this point I could finally uninstall the program, and then re-activate my anti-virus. 

Hope you enjoyed the read. I really wanted to pull my hair out when I was helping my friend out with it. 

Cheers, 

Kyle