Remember the term "Snake oil salesman" - Canadian company Tapplock sells a product that claims “unbreakable design” (Unbreakable for less than 2 seconds).

Tapplock claims that unlocking takes just 0.8 seconds unfortunately, it only takes 2 seconds to break-in.

Additionally, they found that the protocol used to grant access to multiple users access couldn’t handle revocation.

 That’s a fancy way of saying that the unlock code transmitted to the lock was identical for every user, which is like having the same password for every account on a server – if one person goes rogue, you can’t lock them out without locking everyone else out, too. 

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2018/06/14/the-99-digital-padlock-that-kept-crooks-out-for-2-whole-seconds/

Instead of treating Spectre as a bug, Intel is offering Spectre protection as a feature.

The decision to address the flaw with an opt-in flag rather than activating defenses by default has left Linux kernel steward Linus Torvalds apoplectic.

Known for incendiary tirades, Torvalds does not disappoint. In a message posted to the Linux kernel mailing list on Sunday, he wrote, "As it is, the patches are COMPLETE AND UTTER GARBAGE."

"All of this is pure garbage. Is Intel really planning on making this shit architectural?" he asked. "Has anybody talked to them and told them they are f*cking insane? Please, any Intel engineers here – talk to your managers."


https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/22/intel_spectre_fix_linux/

How secure is the Internet>? - few facts that could shed some light

Food for thought

Seventh most common TCP/IP protocol is telnet, and there are 15 million “good old, reliable, usually unencrypted telnet nodes out there, offering shells to anyone who cares to peek in on the clear text password as it's being used,”

There are 11.2 million nodes appearing to offer direct access to relational databases, and 4.5 million apparent printer services. Rapid7 also counted 7.8 million MySQL databases and 3.4 million Microsoft SQL Server systems. And 4.7 million systems expose one of the most commonly attacked ports used by Microsoft systems, 445/TCP.

About 75% of the servers offering SMB/CIFS services—a (usually) Microsoft service for file sharing and remote administration for Windows machines—reside in just six countries: The United States, China, Hong Kong, Belgium, Australia and Poland.”

For more info:
http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/internet-rife-with-unencrypted/

Hacked data on millions of US gov't workers is bad news, "Data was NOT encrypted" - this is very very bad

Encryption  - One of the important layer for Security - Why are people still not doing it.

From the Article:

Cox wrote in the letter, a copy of which was provided to IDG News Service. "Worst, we believe that Social Security numbers were not encrypted, a cybersecurity failure that is absolutely indefensible and outrageous."

More information:

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2935132/cybercrime-hacking/hacked-data-on-millions-of-us-govt-workers-was-unencrypted.html