Archive for August, 2011

The Life of a Recycled Mobile Phone

Finally decided to recycle Blackberry phones that have been lurking in the “Stuff” draw for months? Online recycling companies like Mazuma Mobile lead the way in the ethical mobile phone recycling sector. What Does “Ethical” Mean? The term refers to the two paths of mobile phone recycling – refurbish or throw away. Refurbished phones are [...]

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

Trojans Inside Computer Hardware

Globalization of the semiconductor industry and associated supply chains have made integrated circuits increasingly vulnerable to Trojan programs inside a microprocessor that executes designed microcode. A Trojan is a destructive program that masquerades as an application. The software initially appears to perform a desirable function for the user prior to installation, but steals information or [...]

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

The Problem with Cloud-Computing Standards

Cloud computing is pursuing a proprietary approach to promote its offerings. Firms do not offer readily portability or cloud solutions from one vendor to another. The current tendency is to offer as little interoperability as possible. Cloud computing, especially IaaS and PaaS, can be compared to a hotel where guests can check it but find [...]

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

Sand Boxes for Advanced Persistent Threats

McAfee’s VP of threat research in a recent blog post noted "The targeted compromises--known as 'Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) … we are focused on are much more insidious and occur largely without public disclosures. They present a far greater threat to companies and governments, as the adversary is tenaciously persistent in achieving their objectives. The [...]

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

Trojan Methods for Subverting Desktops

The notorious recent corruption of RSA systems defenses was accomplished by using the the Poison Ivy remote administration utility. It is a backdoor Trojan. It bypasses normal security mechanisms to secretly control a program, computer or network. It is available from   . There are other similar programs commercially available. There is an illegal market [...]

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011