Security

Welcome to the Network Security website at the IAS

A picture of Brian Epstein standing in front of Fuld Hall at the Institute for Advanced Study.

This website brings you the latest news, how to's, tools and resources in Information Security. Security Awareness for our Faculty, Members and Staff is key in creating a safer computing environment.

The three major Principles of Information Security, Availability, Integrity and Confidentiality, will be covered throughout the security awareness program at the Institute. For a description of these principles, please see our About section.

In keeping with the spirit of the Institute, I encourage questions and open discussions about security. And if you discover anything out of the ordinary, please feel free to bring it to my attention so that we can work together to create a more productive, safer environment.

Thanks,
Brian Epstein <security@ias.edu>
twitter: @epepepep

Recent Blog Posts

Protecting your home network with OpenDNS for free

There are many ways to carry out a cyber attack. You can go super technical with smashing the stack, super strength with brute forcing, or super easy with social engineering. If you have a...

Deep packet inspection is dead, and here's why

Deep packet inspection is a methodology that network security professionals have been doing for many years. It involves looking at the data going over the network and determining if anything malicious is going on based on what's in those packets.

...

Ransomware 2017, why is this still a thing?

My last post on Ransomware was in 2013 when we were being hit by Cryptolocker. I mentioned that in around 2010 Data Doctor 2010 was the ransomware in the news. According to Wikipedia, the first "ransomware" was called the "AIDS Trojan" in 1989...

Poodle and the Beast, this isn't a love story (SSLv3 cipher vulnerability)

Poodle and the Beast, this isn't a love story

Three years ago, Thai Duong and Juliano Rizzo demonstrated [1] an attack against one of the methods used in securing Internet traffic.

They named their creation BEAST (Browser Exploit Against SSL...

Shellshock, a Bash Code Injection Vulnerability

In late September, 2014, a bug was released to the public in the popular Linux/Mac shell called bash. For those that aren't familiar, the shell is the black box that some computer folks seem to spend...

What I did with my accounts because of the Heartbleed bug

Heartbleed vulnerability

A flurry of information is coming out about the Heartbleed vulnerability that is affecting Internet websites everywhere. As the Information Security Officer at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), I worked closely with...

Don't Click Tired

Martin Lee, the Threat Intelligence Technical Lead over at Cisco, posted a fascinating article about the dangers of clicking on links when tired. There has recently been a campaign telling people that driving tired is as bad or worse than driving...

Does unsubscribing from spam make things better or worse?

It has been a common thread in security talks since the inception of spam that it is a bad idea to give any type of response indicating that a human is reading the spam. For example, by clicking on the "unsubscribe" link in a spam, all you are...

Ransomware 2013, holding your data hostage

Cryptolocker is a new piece of malicious software that has started circling the globe in the last half of 2013. Deemed "rasomware" by security professionals, Cryptolocker encrypts your files and demands payment to receive the key to decrypt them. ...

Ellen DeGeneres on passwords

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srh_TV_J144

Ellen did a great skit on the real world infomercial for the Password Minder. It is a good watch, especially if you are a fan of hers.

For some good tips on creating security, easy to remember passwords...