As municipal Wi-Fi networks begin to roll out, I've begun to notice a trend that isn't surprising, but is still a bit worrisome. Business users are beginning to use the muni Wi-Fi in the office. While the signal doesn't often penetrate too deeply into buildings, conference rooms and window offices seem to get a sufficient signal in many cases. The problem is that I see people using the muni Wi-Fi signal instead of the office IT-supported network. Sometimes they just use it because it's more convenient. The office IT network is "secure" and requires extra work, such as entering keys or using a VPN. Sometimes they do it because they explicitly want to avoid the local IT policy controls (access to restricted sites, use of restricted applications, etc.)

So, why is this a problem? First, it exposes the user’s computer to the Internet without the normal protection of the office IT security safeguards (like a firewall). While it's quite possible to...

Greetings and welcome to my first blog posting. Back when Tim Newsham and I wrote Windows Vista Network Attack Surface Analysis: A Broad Overview, we expressed concern about Teredo's security implications, although we hadn't yet had the opportunity to investigate it. Subsequently, I had a chance to dig into the protocol and found that our concerns were justified: Teredo can have an important and negative impact on your host and network security. With that said, let me announce our new research paper: The Teredo Protocol: Tunneling Past Network Security and Other Security Implications.

Teredo is a timely protocol to look into since it is included in Windows Vista and is enabled by default. So, Vista hosts will be using it unless it is explicitly disabled or blocked (...

Here at Symantec, one of our beliefs isthat keeping people safe online requires more than just a knowledge oftechnology. It requires a knowledge of how people - both good guys andbad guys - actually use technology. It also requires an understandingof how people view technology and safety. It requires the ability tocommunicate different types of ideas to a wide variety of people; fromteenaged users to the CFO, from the college educator to the data entryoperator. It's a huge job and I was just reflecting today on how veryfortunate I am to be working within a group that not only sees thevalue of the multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches, butone that actively supports and encourages it.

I recently spent a week at the Santa Fe Institute,learning about scientific advances in everything from the communicationpatterns of...

We have recently seen an increase in the number of zero-day exploits, which indicates that attackers are being more methodical in their discovery and use of software vulnerabilities. A zero-day exploit occurs when a software flaw is only discovered after it is already being exploited in the wild (and there isn’t a patch available from the vendor).

The “window of exposure” is the time frame during which users of vulnerable software will be at risk. This is calculated as the difference in time between when a vulnerability is exploited and when a patch is made available. The average window of exposure from the first six months of 2006 was 28 days – a dangerously large window in which systems and users are at risk. Average time to develop a patch – Time to develop exploit code = window of exposure (31 – 3 = 28 days).
While vendors continue to make strides and reduce the amount of time it takes to release a patch, attackers seem to be staying one...