Cisco recently acquired OpenDNS and its security offerings.

The Domain Name Service is a hierarchical lookup service that converts human readable names to IP addresses that are used for routing. As such the DNS lookup servers can see the names being accessed, their access trends, web security attack patterns such as phishing redirects and so on.

But how did OpenDNS come to focus on security ? It was preceded by a free DNS service called EveryDNS started by David Ulevitch in his college dorm in 2001. The free nature of it attracted an interesting clientele– a number of malicious services, sites and agents.  This gave EveryDNS visibility into this part of the internet – both the customer view and a real-time view. David realized the potential and started a new company OpenDNS with both a free+paid dns offering and a growing number of security services.

In 2012 OpenDNS offered an Umbrella service to blacklist malicious sites. The most interesting offering is its OpenDNS Security Graph. The Umbrella Security Graph maintains and automatically updates malware, botnet, phishing domain and IP blacklists. This is then sold to enterprises – a higher margin business than providing DNS lookup alone.

Verisign is also in the DNS security business after it sold its certificate business to Symantec.

Tesla is an advanced computer on wheels. How is security for such systems designed ? Snippets from below are insightful.

http://www.wired.com/2015/08/researchers-hacked-model-s-teslas-already/

“Two researchers have found that they could plug their laptop into a network cable behind a Model S’ driver’s-side dashboard, start the car with a software command, and drive it. They could also plant a remote-access Trojan on the Model S’ network while they had physical access, then later remotely cut its engine while someone else was driving.”

“Tesla distributed a patch to every Model S on the road on Wednesday. Unlike Fiat Chrysler, which recently had to issue a recall for 1.4 million cars and mail updates to users on a USB stick to fix vulnerabilities found in its cars, Tesla has the ability to quickly and remotely deliver software updates to its vehicles. Car owners only have to click “yes” when they see a prompt asking if they want to install the upgrade.”

“The Model S has a 17-inch touchscreen that has two critical computer systems. One is an Ubuntu server responsible for driving the screen and running the browser; the other is a gateway system that talks to the car. The Tesla gateway and car interact through a vehicle API so that when a driver uses the touchscreen to change the car’s suspension, lock the doors, or engage its parking brake, the touchscreen communicates with the gateway through an API, and the gateway communicates with the car. The touchscreen never communicates directly with the car. “At least so our research has found so far,” Mahaffey says.”

“The Model S has an Ethernet cable for diagnostic purposes and by connecting to this they were able to get access to the car’s LAN. This allowed them to uncover information about the firmware update process, such as the configuration of the VPN the car used to obtain updates as well as the URLs from where the updates were downloaded. They also found four SD cards inside the car that contained keys for the VPN structure, and they found unsecured passwords in an update file that allowed them to gain access to the Tesla firmware update server. “By using the VPN credentials we got from the SD card, we were able to configure and open VPN clients to go and talk to Tesla’s infrastructure and mimic the car.”

Even though Tesla provided the update quickly, having unsecured passwords in a file that allowed access to go to the firmware update server should alert one to the risks of connected cars.

From http://thehackernews.com/2015/08/hacking-internet-of-things-drone.html

Security researchers have developed a Flying Drone with a custom-made tracking tool capable of sniffing out data from the devices connected to the Internet – better known as the Internet-of-things.

The Target data breach in 2013 affected 40million credit cards. It was traced back to an onsite HVAC (that was remotely accessible for billing) being on the same network as the rest of the system . The credentials for the HVAC were breached and used to attack the internal computers.

The link below discusses a comprehensive security plan for a building automation system. The connected components are identified and the network and systems are designed for authorized access.

http://www.automatedbuildings.com/news/may14/articles/llnl/140425010101llnl.html

One can see such a plan being useful for a number of sensor/IOT systems – e.g. energy, temperature and and video sensors.