The security environment is so dynamic these days, it is certainly interesting to see how things change all the time, vulnerabilities are found almost every day, exploits are being developed at a whopping pace and even for professionals, just keeping up with it all is very challenging.
Wi-Fi is everywhere, everything is on Wi-Fi now, phones, tablets, laptops, even home PCs, game consoles, smart devices (IoT), sensors etc. The security of WiFI is imperative, and has been entrusted to the WPA2 protocol.
As you probably know the Equifax (one of the three big credit bureaus in North America and UK) announced it was breached (discovered unauthorized access) on the 29th of July. So far, the predictions are that this leak of sensitive personal data impacts over 143 Million American, Canadian and British citizens.
A new malware Nyetya (combination of words from Nye Petya, meaning NOT Petya), also known as Petrwrap and GoldenEye has been spreading globally over the last 24 hours.
Cisco currently has multiple endpoint security solutions in place – CWS (Cloud Web Security / Scansafe), Umbrella (OpenDNS) and AMP for endpoints are prime examples. AMP is a different breed of endpoint protection, it relies heavily on detection based on heuristics and cloud sandboxing, where as CWS and OpenDNS both concentrate very strongly on making sure your Internet browsing is secure and save.
As you might be aware this Friday (12th of May 2017) there was a massive outbreak of a new type of crypto virus dubbed WannaCrypto aka WannaCry. The UK was hit the hardest, especially in the Health Sector, with Spanish Telecom – Telefonica, along with Portuguese & Argentinian telecoms and Russia.
Virtual Private Networks constitute a hot topic in networking because they provide low cost and secure communications between sites (site-to-site VPNs) whilst improving productivity by extending corporate networks to remote users (remote access VPNs). Naturally the VPN technology is widely deployed on all internet edge devices and most ASAs.
Cisco has finally decided to merge its two major network security products – the ASA and FirePOWER. These two have been living on the same hardware (5500X) model for years now but they required separate management which increased the deployment and operational costs for a Cisco FirePOWER implementation.
SHA-1 is dead, from a security point of view, but has been a long time coming. A combined research collaboration between CWI and Google, published a paper on 23th of February 2017 that proved deliberate collisions can be created for SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm -1).
We are experiencing a new phase in our vision of network security. There is currently no quick fix solution, no 100% proof network security protection/prevention tool or product.
There is not a single industry anywhere in the world who are immune from the threat of some form of cyber-attack.
The traditional legacy ASA Firewalls (5505, 5510, 5520, 5540, 5580) are End of Life (EOL) and soon will be End of Support (EOS).
