May 2012 Microsoft Patch Tuesday Summary

Welcome to another edition of patch Tuesday summary blog.  Last month’s patch Tuesday involved patching 11 vulnerabilities over 6 bulletins, while this month we are patching 23 vulnerabilities over 7 bulletins.

Here is a list of the vulnerabilities fixed in today’s patches:

The much brandied "Internet of things" or the more geeky M2M conjure up a vision of myriad of connected devices all talking to each other exchanging data in real time. Just for a moment overlay that with the security lens and you will start to see what is a seemingly intractable problem - how do you secure these billions of devices ?

Today, Juniper Networks released its Trusted Mobility Index, a global survey of more than 4,000 mobile device users and IT decision-makers, which benchmarks current levels of trust in mobile technologies as well as examines how trends in mobile security and reliability influence attitudes and behaviors.

While there is a great deal of research into increasing mobile security and privacy threats – including Juniper’s own threat research conducted by its Mobile Threat Center – little attention has been given to understanding people’s current attitudes and confidence in their mobile experiences.

The total amount of known mobile malware has risen dramatically. From 2010 to 2011, Juniper Networks Mobile Threat Center identified a 155 percent increase in threats to mobile devices. However, no other category of mobile security threats is growing as quickly as Spyware.

In fact, in the first three months of 2012, Spyware targeting mobile devices has doubled. To put this in perspective, Juniper has discovered nearly the same amount of Spyware from January to March of 2012 as we have in the last eight years combined.

The recent trend toward IT “consumerization” has flooded corporate IT with a host of new apps and personal devices, forcing businesses to re-think their network access strategies.  While these apps and devices raise valid concerns about security, compliance and management complexity, do they actually put your business at risk?

The solution is a “unified policy”—a holistic approach to coordinated security for enterprise network access, regardless of who owns a given device. 

There has been a surge in smart phone adoption and Internet usage through mobile devices, according to recently released figures by Nielsen and IDC, both global providers of market intelligence.

According to Nielsen, as of February 2012, “Almost half (49.7%) of U.S. mobile subscribers now own smart phones…an increase of 38 percent over last year”, and according to IDC ,“By 2015, more U.S. Internet users will access the Internet through mobile devices than through PCs or other wireline devices”.

Many smart phone owners use these devices not just to make phones calls and/or exchange SMS messages, but also to check email, surf the Web and download and use mobile apps for information gathering, social media (e.g., Facebook) and entertainment (e.g., YouTube, playing games, etc.). Subscribers expect that when using their mobile devices, they will be able to exchange information relatively quickly and easily, play games, as well as download/upload files with a reasonable quality of service. However, what they might not realize is the mobile operator who is enabling mobile data services has made infrastructure and personnel investments for assuring subscribers an expected level of service quality as well as protecting subscribers from threats introduced to the mobile network.

In a mobile network, one of the vulnerable points is the Gi (for 3G network) or SGi (for 4G network) interface, which is the public data network/Internet facing interface that allows subscribers to use Internet-dependent features of their device (with an activated data plan or wireless service in place). This interface is subject to the same types of Internet borne threats seen in terrestrial networks and could result in loss of service to the wireless data subscriber. In order to extend a positive customer experience with high quality of service and to minimize customer churn, mobile operators should and do protect this interface. To learn about the key threats to the Gi/SGi interface and how Juniper Networks SRX security solutions can help mitigate these threats, read the White Paper.

How can you defend against a new generation of threats and attackers that are leveraging automation and outpacing alerting mechanisms and manual-access controls?

Mobile operators globally are observing significant growth in mobile data and bandwidth use. In fact, according to an article in The Hindu Business Line newspaper, just over 50% of the overall incremental wireless revenue in 2015 is expected to come from non-voice services. As such, operators need to offset the anticipated decline in voice service related revenue by offering new and innovative value-added services (VAS) to increase average revenue per user (ARPU). It is important to keep in mind that while in the past, SMS, MMS, and data access were typically considered VAS, over time those have increasingly become core services, and VAS is beginning to exclude those services.

To increase ARPU through offering VAS, operators could take one of two approaches. The first would be to partner

with a mobile content service provider to offer VAS. A recent example of this is the leading Indian mobile operator, Airtel, has collaborated with Singapore-based mobile content service provider Novosol to offer sports value added services. The second approach would be for a mobile operator to directly offer VAS. This obviously requires more effort and investment by the mobile operator, as the operator will be competing with experienced mobile content service providers for subscribers’ mindshare and ultimately, revenue share.

Value-added service providers are increasingly connecting to the mobile operator network via a messaging gateway since this gives the operator better control of the content. The operator can control subscriber access to the content, billing, etc.  The operator is also expected to protect subscribers from infected VAS servers as well as any threats to its own network -- to enable high uptime, and ultimately, keep customer satisfaction rates high and churn rates low. Juniper Networks offers solutions for mobile network operators to consolidate multiple security functions and adapt to evolving threats while monetizing new mobile services. To learn more, read the Solution Brief.

April 2012 Microsoft Patch Tuesday Summary

Welcome to another edition of patch Tuesday summary blog.  Last month’s patch Tuesday involved patching 7 vulnerabilities over 6 bulletins, while this month we are patching  11 new vulnerabilities over  6 bulletins.

Here is a list of the vulnerabilities fixed in today’s patches:

The US agency, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is committed to innovating flight technologies, enabling humans to explore beyond the Earth’s orbit, managing International Space Station operations, and reaping the benefits of Earth and space exploration for society. It is also responsible for maintaining the security of all of its systems and data to prevent malicious activity and thwart any sabotage of important assets.

Despite efforts to safeguard its systems, in 2011 alone, NASA was the victim of 47 Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), 13 of which successfully compromised agency computers, according to USA Today magazine.

An APT attack refers to a person gaining unauthorized access to a network and staying there undetected for a prolonged time period, with the intention of stealing data, and such an attack typically targets organizations in sectors with high-value information. So it doesn’t come as a complete surprise that NASA was targeted, since it houses a variety of sensitive data such as proprietary scientific research and plans.

The US agency, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is committed to innovating flight technologies, enabling humans to explore beyond the Earth’s orbit, managing International Space Station operations, and reaping the benefits of Earth and space exploration for society. It is also responsible for maintaining the security of all of its systems and data to prevent malicious activity and thwart any sabotage of important assets.

Despite efforts to safeguard its systems, in 2011 alone, NASA was the victim of 47 Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), 13 of which successfully compromised agency computers, according to USA Today magazine.

Is there reason to look at protecting the protector aka protecting the network firewalls themselves ?

Founded more than a decade ago, VMware has not only been in the server virtualization/hypervisor business a long time, but it has practically owned the space. But, will that continue? VMware’s early dominance has progressively begun to be challenged and chipped away at by the likes of Microsoft with Hyper-V, Citrix with XenServer, and, interestingly, RedHat with its Linux-based KVM hypervisor. Though Gartner projected KVM market share to reach just 2% in 2012, Red Hat has aggressively been working to attract more attention by making its product more manageable and robust, as well as by garnering some heavy-weight support from the likes of IBM, HP, Intel, and more.