The week in security: Turns out they really are watching you

IPv6 has been in and out of the news, but more in recently than out as the online world gears up for the protocol’s big debut in June. Network engineers contemplating their own deployments may want to consider their security practices and rolling the protocol in from the edge of the network.

Considered caution is important, particularly as it turns out IPv6 networks are being targeted by DDoS attacks. IPv6 or no, a small group of Australians is dealing with the effects of what Greens senator Scott Ludlam called “censorship” after it was revealed Parliamentarians had been blocked from accessing .info domains.

On a similar note, it turns out US government bodies such as the Department of Homeland Security are monitoring — and want help from ordinary citizens to monitor — social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for all sorts of bad behaviour.

Yet, even that was nothing compared to the irony of Microsoft’s Security Essentials service, which was updated and inadvertently (we assume) w arned users off accessing what it says is a dangerous malware site. The URL: google.com. Malware hysteria has become a common thread in the security industry, particularly with new paradigms like cloud computing forcing rethinks of security practices — but Blue Coat’s latest security survey suggested the baddies are getting very good at their new tricks — and fast.

Not to mention new threats from old favourites like Waledac, which is back to make another run at your login credentials. Ditto Skylock, another malware attack designed to pilfer in light of its return, it may be worth boning up on your ant -fraud knowledge (this might not be a bad idea for RSA, either, since they were quick to dismiss researchers’ findings that their RSA algorithm is flawed; researchers naturally have other opinions

Just to keep some perspective, CSO offered a rundown of the top 13 myths about security, as well as profiling the 15 worst security breaches of the 21st century (so far) . Given the rise of mobile commerce, however, there’s no telling how these will compare to what’s yet to come; mobile security is, one analyst has warned, already a “game-changer” for Australian telcos facing revenue challenges in other parts of the already well-serviced market.

CSO spoke with Cisco Systems’ chief security officer about what enterprises can do to fight back against the surge of malware and found that semantics may be compromising protective efforts, while hackers warned that even mobile networks may be part of the problem as it turns out they are “leaky” when it comes to personal data.

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