Alternative to classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy is chosen increasingly for the IoT. This technology, also known as the abbreviation BLE, is establishing itself for connected devices, as it is ideal to send small amounts of data between devices and to preserve the battery; which matches the IoT’s needs perfectly. Classic Bluetooth, on its side, is used to send large amounts of data between a device and a user (wireless headphones and speakers are using Bluetooth for example).
When we talk about cyberattacks, we often think of malicious activities coming from external attackers, while internal attacks are on the rise. In the Insider Threat Report 2019, it is reported that 59% of the companies surveyed had suffered such an attack in the past year.
Protecting yourself from the inside against these attacks is therefore just as important as defending yourself from the outside.
USB devices are so convenient. Whenever we need to store small amounts of data, we use a USB stick. Everyone owns one and we generally trust it to be safe. USB keys are one of the main ways to do industrial espionage, but attacks against random civilians and companies are also common.
The 2018 Honeywell report on USB threat to industrial operators analyzed a sample of 50 locations. Energy, chemical manufacturing, pulp & paper, oil & gas and other industrial facilities were concerned by the study. Among the locations targeted, 44% blocked a suspicious file originating from USB ports and 15% of the threats detected and blocked were high-profile threats, like Stuxnet, Wannacry and Mirai.
Internet of Things security is a current topic, however penetration testing on connected devices are far from being a widespread practice. Most manufacturers prioritize product functionalities and design first. However, even with a “security by design” approach, pentesting remains essential to know the real security risks, and then to take the necessary measures.
We are regularly conducting social engineering penetration tests for our clients.
Our pentesters (security experts) tried various techniques, scenarios and pretexts.
We have learned lessons from our experience, and our clients shared with us what they learned too. We are sharing them now with you.
The first one and the second are said to be the best allies of CISO (and in general people in charge of IT security). There are though two different tools in a security strategy. What are the different characteristics of a penetration test (pentest) and a vulnerability scanner?
It is a question that we often hear. Unfortunately Sorry, we don’t have a ready made formula to reveal. The return on investment of a pentest is complex to measure. However, we are giving you 4 keys to demonstrate the financial benefits of a penetration test. Security is not only useful to avoid potential problems, it mostly creates value to facilitate sales and strengthen the trust of your customers.
The CSRF is an attack that forces an end user to perform unwanted actions and without noticing on a web application he/she is currently authenticated.
CSRF attacks specifically target requests that make modifications, not data theft, because the attacker has no way of seeing the response of the falsified request. The outcome of the actions is what interests the attacker.
This type of attack is based on the fact that when a user is authenticated on an application, it will usually provide a session ID that its browser stores in a cookie.
Each time the user sends a request to the server, the browser will also automatically send this session cookie. You can find in linked article more information about CSRF attacks.
Keep in mind that a CSRF attack only needs that the user stays connected (without having an open page or tab of the website) to be working.
Administration interface, back-office, dashboard, admin panel… several names for the same thing: the place where organizations manage their data, supervise the activity of a web platform, handle customer requests, activate user accounts, configure articles within an e-commerce platform…
When thinking about the security of web platform, the back-office is not necessarily the priority, for several reasons:
The access to that kind of application is usually restricted, to internal services of the organization, and sometimes to third parties, supposed to be trustworthy.
We often think that a firewall restrictive enough protects the access to non-open services. We also believe that only a compromise machine can give access to the internal network. We are indeed wrong, and that’s what we are going to see with a web application vulnerability: The Server-Side Request Forgery, or SSRF.
From a vulnerable web application, an SSRF makes possible to interact with the server, in order to extract files and to find its other active services. But there is more. It is also possible to scan the internal network to cartography IP and open ports.
Security is essential, and you agree with that. You want indeed to do
a penetration test (or pentest) on your solution soon… Here are 7 questions to help you get the most out of a penetration test.
Running a penetration test on your production environment has a sure advantage: the audit is conducted under actual conditions of use of your website, web application, API… with the last developments set up.
“All the success of an operation lies in its preparation”, Sun Tzu. Already true in the 6th century BC, this maxim remains true in the 21st century. And malicious attackers have well integrated it to their strategy.
Before launching their attack, attackers list all information available on the internet about their target. Digital transformation brings advantages to organisations, but it also makes a lot of information visible from the outside to who knows where to search, or even just where to look. This information helps then malicious attackers to adapt their attack to the target.
Luckily, this situation is no fatality. Each company can cartography its digital footprint, in order to then control and limit visible information. This is what a recon audit is all about.
Updated Dec 1. 2020
More than 2 years after the GDPR came into force (May 25, 2018), sanctions have been pronounced by several data protection authorities. These sanctions have important consequences, economic but above all for the reputation of the companies concerned, as they are publicly communicated.
While the essential principles of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) are generally known, the main technical measures to put in place to secure a website or an information system are sometimes still not so clear. To remedy this, we detail in this article the technical security aspects of the GDPR.