Acreto Iot Security

Listen to part one of a multi-part podcast series on The Facebook Dossier. Researched, reported, and compiled by Acreto IoT Security.

Security Shaming the Security Ostrich – Let's Make It A Thing By Bob Gourely, ex-Chief Technology Officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Babak Pasdar, CEO and CTO for Acreto IoT Security We recently had a conversation with the CEO of an IoT manufacturing company to learn more about their strategy for IoT security. The conversation started with his immediate declaration, “Our IoTs are secure!” “You see” The CEO continued, “we use encrypted connections for all of our IoTs”. Given his bold tone, we waited to hear the rest - it never came. We then inquired how he controls access - validates the integrity of the communication - verifies the integrity of data - validates the exchange of functional commands - and handles privacy and identity of the devices. He responded, “You have to understand that our devices aren’t smart enough to be hacked.” It was a dumbfounding response! We asked if his IoT devices use IP. “Yes,” he replied. Are they on the Internet? Again, “Yes”. Respectfully, is it possible they a

Modern nation state hacker teams are not the moody, nocturnal teen blasting death metal and drinking energy drinks. As each country's cyber special forces team, nation state teams don't have to fear authorities. They are organized, directed, well-funded, and advanced in their operations. Here's how they work.

Russian Nation State Hackers & What We're Not Doing About It.  - By Bob Flores – former Chief Technology Officer of the CIA & Babak Pasdar CEO and CTO of Acreto IoT Security The effective use of Russian nation state hackers led to a hacked election that has resulted in a hacked America. We're still licking our wounds and not doing anything about it. In fact we are arguing if it happened at all! Cybersecurity strategy incorporates the confluence of technology, business and geopolitics with so many moving parts that to call them complex is an understatement. Strategies must span multiple geographies across a plurality of nations and continents. That is why no one can “go it alone”.  Today we need our friends more than ever – not just for geopolitics, but also for cyber defense. Collaboration is the underpinning of cybersecurity. As the largest global economy that comprises infrastructure, industry, enterprise and institutions, the US is the most technologically advanced. Many American companies span the

Blockchain, it slices, dices and juliennes, but is there a Blockchain security Function? The industry portrays that Blockchain will solve the world’s woes. Legacy companies like IBM, HP and Dell are touting Blockchain as the cure-all for anything and everything. Blockchain security seems to be the latest craze. In fact, the ‘Blockchain as a security savior’ message is so ubiquitously promoted and repeated, it has become an accepted fact. For many, Blockchain is not just secure – Blockchain IS security. We’re here to tell you its not. Here’s why: Crypto technologies and its variances such as Blockchain were designed to fulfill the following capacity as… Denomination - Blockchain functions as crypto-currency, with a specific market value. Transaction Processing - Blockchain exists as a denomination-independent way to process financial transactions, similar to a credit card. Data Validation - Blockchain validates and verifies non-financial transactions and content. Blockchain provides a decentralized way to pr

The Busted Crypto Boys present the world's first crypto country song: "Blockchain's for Business"! Feel the blues with this true Blockchain security cautionary tale.

This skit highlights the major differences between IoT and enterprise technologies to set the foundation for why IoT security has a unique set of challenges. IoTs do not singularly move the needle, but their scale is driving a pivotal change in how we compute and how we live.

Historically the term "Enterprise-Grade" meant that a technology was part of an elite list of highly robust, highly scalable and highly available technologies. However compute models have changed with the proliferation of Clouds, SaaS and IoT technologies that have crept their way into every network, yet the approaches to security have not evolved. They remain some variation of on-device and network security. This podcast discusses the major differentiation between Enterprise technologies and IoT-based plat

Blockchain and Crypto security has taken a life of its own, evolving from validated transactions to be confused with providing security for an entire platform. This is especially true for highly distributed IoT platforms. In this episode we discuss the Crypto & Blockchain Security Fallacy to outline what Blockchain is and is not.