Two quick articles of interest today. The first from Business Week discusses the “rising attacks on America’s most sensitive computer networks”, and how the biggest menace is coming from the People’s Republic of China. It’s unnerving to think about the information being stolen and the potential for damage that can be done. Hopefully the government’s “Cyber Initiative” is a move in the right direction to minimize these attacks. Click here for the article.
The second article from the Seattle Times concerns Microsoft’s distribution of the “Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor”, (or COFEE), thumb drive to law enforcement agencies. The device “contains 150 commands that can dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence, … decrypt passwords and analyze a computer’s Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer.” This sounds mostly like an interesting time saver for computer forensics investigators. I just hope the password decryption is done using currently known exploits and not a new one facilitated by Microsoft for this purpose. One would think MS would spend more time trying to secure their systems rather than break them. I’d like to see more details about this, and definitely wouldn’t mind getting my hands on it. Click here for the article.
Filed under: Security | Tagged: Chinese Cyber Threat, Computer Forensics, E-espionage, Microsoft
