The Web: Mobsters extinguish firewalls

UPI ^ | UPI

[2Jim_Brown]

CHICAGO, May 3 (UPI) -- Firewall? Forgetaboutit. Cyber-criminals, including the mafia, are now so savvy they can penetrate past these supposedly sturdy security measures and hack your computer network, whether you work at a university, Fortune 500 company or smaller firm, experts tell UPI's The Web.

"The firewall and the network perimeter are dead," Ted Demopoulos, author of the best-selling book, "Blogging for Business" (Kaplan, 2006), and IT expert based in Durham, N.H., tells The Web. "Firewalls offer less protection than before." By Gene Koprowski

[2Jim_Brown]

Cyber-criminals can penetrate past security measures such as firewalls.

[goodnesswins]

what about a "hard wired" firewall?

[pikachu]

Firewalls are a tool and more dependant on using & maintaining it properly than just having one sitting. For example, Ted Kennedy has a brain but there does not appear to be any documented uses of it.

[taxcontrol]

So...?

This is nothing new in the computer industry. Firewalls have been breached for years. What is NEW, is a growing trend by cyber criminals to use extortion and bribery to get someone on the inside of the company to place a rouge computer / device on the inside network. This then creates an outbound connection that can be used to gain access behind the firewall. Viruses and worms are also used for similar purpose.

Understand that I work in this field. I'm the guy at IBM that runs the threat mitigation competency that gets called in to protect people's networks and data. What we are seeing is that more and more people are realizing that firewalls alone are not the answer. What is required is what we have been saying for years -- defense in depth. Know all the traffic on your network, treat all unapproved traffic as potential "bad" traffic, protect your servers on the inside with additional firewalls, monitor server activity and access, centralize your logging of events, implement a dual approval requirement for the creation of sensitive accounts (root or administration access), etc etc etc.

What is new is that EXECUTIVES are starting to listen. SOX and HIPPA and GLB and other regulations / laws are starting to change cooperate behavior.... and my team has way too much work at the moment.

Good news in some ways.... but do not panic over this article.

[ConservativeMind]

In general, they can only penetrate if something is left open or otherwise compromised.

Firewalls are effective, but they don't stop all information from getting in or out (if they did, there would be no need for a firewall to filter traffic). Spyware and viruses are only protected against to the extent of updates meant to tackle already-found viruses. Once infected, much traffic can go both ways through the firewall to remote "attackers".

[MeanWestTexan]

No, he's gotten out of murder and rape charges with some fast thinking.

[AppyPappy]

Your chances of being hacked past the firewall are slim and none. My DSL modem has a firewall and I use a software firewall. If someone goes to all the trouble to defeat that, they can have anything on the box. Which is nothing but saved game files.

Use your noodle. Don't leave non-critical financial stuff on the box.

[ShadowAce]

[Senator Bedfellow]

Cyber-criminals can penetrate past security measures such as firewalls.

Regular criminals can penetrate past security measures such as door locks. So, you gonna toss out all your deadbolts?

Didn't think so.

[banjo joe]

Put me on your tech ping, please, and thanks!

[ShadowAce]

You've been added.

Welcome Aboard!

[N3WBI3]

Your chances of being hacked past the firewall are slim and none.

I have to disagree strongly with that

[AppyPappy]

I meant for a home computer. Hackers are usually looking for something.

[ko_kyi]

I meant for a home computer. Hackers are usually looking for something.

Sometimes just a safe place from which to attack the system they are actually targeting.

[AppyPappy]

They usually use viruses and trojans for that.

[N3WBI3]

Bingo!

[snowrip]

'Course, if you have a Mac, this is all a moot point, isn't it?

[zeugma]

Sometimes just a safe place from which to attack the system they are actually targeting.

True, but there is so much low-hanging fruit out there that it doesn't make a lot of sense to hack through a firewall just to have a launching point.

[KoRn]

I didn't sign up so I couldn't read the entire article. I'd like to see how? They always make claims like this, but when you go into methods used, and they hardly ever go into details.

In almost all cases a firewall is never going to be any better than your most gullible user.

[KoRn]

What is someone broke into your house =). Physical security is just as important as network security. If someone was able to get into your house and leave without you knowing, you are fully compromised. In most cases passwords won't matter with physical security. People can use Live CDs to access your hard drive, and USB drives to copy your data. Or they could just steal your entire computer lol.