Security News for the Week Ending Nov 13, 2020

The “S” in Coworking Stands for Security

While the WSJ says that coworking companies are closing money losing spaces as a result of Covid, don’t forget that coworking spaces are about as secure as airport WiFi, meaning not at all. The local news just said that some coworking companies are actually expanding as people want to get out of their house. For most coworking companies, the users are on a shared WiFi connection with no security and often, no encryption. Your remote working policy and procedures need to address this subject, based on the level of risk you are willing to accept and whether you are part of a regulated industry that might frown on you sharing your trade secrets, PII or customer data with the world. Also remember, that if malware gets into shared WiFi, it will certainly try to attack you. Here are a few tips for coworking company security.

Travelers are Faking Covid-19 Test Results

Apparently some travelers don’t want to go through the hassle of getting tested for Covid but still want to travel to countries that require those tests to enter the country. First there were paper documents, which, with Photoshop, were easy to forge. The cops in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport just arrested some of those forgers. They were charging $180-$360 for fake documents. Apparently the French do not cotton to counterfeiters. The penalty for counterfeiting Covid documents is 5 years in a French prison and a half million dollar fine. Brazil arrested some tourists last month for presenting fake documents, so it sounds like you can get in trouble whether you are the buyer or the seller. Some locales are now only accepting electronic versions of the documents from the labs, making it harder to fake. Credit: USAToday

Google Finds At Least 7 Critical Bugs in Chrome, Android, iOS and Windows

Google says the bugs were being actively exploited int the wild, but are not saying by whom or against whom. The iOS 12 patch released patches back to iPhone 5S and 6, typically indicating that it is a big problem. The bugs were “found” by Google’s Project Zero, but apparently were being used by someone(s) prior to them being found. Does this smell like some spies were caught? Probably. We just don’t know which side they were on. Credit: Vice

Vietnam’s OceanLotus Hacking Group Joins Other Countries in Hacks

While countries like China get all the credit for hacking, Russia, North Korea and others are just as active. Add Vietnam to the list. Right now they are attacking their Asian neighbors. As is typical for these government run attacks, they are applying a great deal of effort to compromise their victims. Credit: The Record

White House May Fire Krebs for Securing the Election

Chris Krebs, the head of DHS’s Cybersecurity agency CISA, says he expects to be fired by the White House for securing the election from hackers. All reports indicate that while there is a lot more work to do to secure elections, the 2020 elections were, by far, the most secure ever. The agency also created an election rumor control web site (www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol). This website debunked many of the myths being spread people who are trying to discredit the election results. General Nakasone, head of NSA and Cyber Command, who also said that there was no significant election fraud, could also be in trouble. Credit: Darkreading

by