Posts Tagged: "software security"

Black Hats Look for Low Hanging Fruit: Law firms are the new target for IP theft

The USPTO has also created an increasingly sophisticated cyber security defense system to protect the nation’s patents and related information. In this multi-layered system, the USPTO guards against virtually every possible type of intrusion, protecting their systems against a multitude of potential denizens, from lone wolf to suspected nation-state Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) attackers. Compared to the USPTO, or even corporations, most law firms are easy targets and the client IP on their networks is low hanging fruit that is all too easily harvested. Too many law firms still view ‘reasonable’ security as signature-based (passwords) access and malware protection, like McAfee, as good enough. Today, it is not nearly enough.

Data Security Systems and the Prevention of Identy Theft

Home Depot may be the latest and largest breach to become news, but it’s certainly not the only one and hacking activity seems to be ramping up in the past few months. Malicious software known as Backoff, responsible for the Target breach, has also been identified as a potential culprit in recent breaches at Dairy Queen, Supervalu and United Parcel Service. Law enforcement officials have theorized that an Eastern European group may be responsible for a majority of these breaches because of links to Ukraine in the malware’s code… [R]ecent data breaches at major corporations have agitated some financial technology developers to look for more secure options for conducting transactions without cash. Many are touting a new wave of debit and credit cards which have microchips that improve data security as a possible answer.

How to Respond to Cyber Attacks on Your Business

Identity theft, and the various cyber attacks undertaken to accomplish this crime, are somewhat related to infringements of intellectual properties that we cover here at IPWatchdog. The top asset that any company has is their good name, and much like a trademark that has become compromised, it’s very difficult for an individual to fix misappropriation of their identity even when it’s the fault of a malicious hacker. But as deeply troubling as it is for individuals to have their identity stolen it can be equally crippling for the businesses who allow for sensitive personal information to be taken by nefarious actors. Most businesses simply cannot afford to have their good business name associated with a cyber attack.

Intellectual Ventures Becomes Patent Troll Public Enemy #1

Intellectual Ventures unleashed three separate patent infringement litigations in the U.S. District Court of Delaware against companies in the software security; dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and Flash memory; and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) industries. While I do not begrudge any patent owner their day in court to seek redress for infringement, we really should at least notice the obvious hypocrisy of Intellectual Ventures, who for years said they were only amassing a defensive portfolio and had no interest in becoming what we all knew they could become; namely that most massive patent troll on the planet.