McAfee Lost Key Employees

McAfee, the worldwide-known insecurity outfit, which was purchased by chip giant Intel, has just lost a couple of key employees. Meanwhile, the company is expected to introduce a new generation of security products in the nearest future.

George Kurtz, the worldwide chief technology officer, known for helping lead the McAfee’s product strategy, is going to leave the company by the end of October. However, he isn’t the first key staff member leaving the company: vice president Dmitri Alperovitch, a highly regarded threat researcher known for his work at McAfee that helped give the outfit a reputation for conducting cutting-edge research on hacking, has already slipped out the back door. Surprisingly enough, few noticed his move, as the media didn’t observe the event at all.

Dmitri Alperovitch was leading a research team which released a number of high-profile studies on alleged Chinese-government backed hackers. He is also known worldwide for coining the term “Operation Aurora” to describe hacker attacks suspected by Chinese intruders on the largest search engine Google and many other organizations.

Alperovitch was last mentioned in the press when his team discovered so-called “Operation ShadyRAT” – one of the largest cyber attacks throughout the globe, which caused the infiltration of the networks of seventy-two outfits, including the UN and numerous governments and companies all over the globe. However, the papers say Alperovitch will be doing a bit of work for McAfee as a consultant.

The industry observers only noticed the lack of the two key figures of the company when they were not found on the speakers list at the McAfee’s annual security conference. The rumors are that the two left because they weren’t happy about Intel’s involvement with China. The insecurity outfit has operations in China, but Intel features a much bigger manufacturing and marketing presence there. Operation ShadyRAT pointing the finger at that country must have caused some problems for the company. So, it seems that since Alperovitch has never openly pointed at China for some cyber espionage cases, it might have more to do with Intel than Alperovitch really wanted to say.

The company announced that the two key positions have been filled internally. Alperovitch was replaced by David Marcus, director of security research for McAfee Labs, and George Kurtz’s place is filled by Stuart McClure. 

Federal Trojan Used In Germany

Last week, the country’s Chaos Computer Club published a detailed analysis of the state trojan used by different police forces for spying on suspects. The outfit pointed out that the trojan in question breached tight limits set by the country’s highest court.

Restrictions imposed by the high court limited any kind of trojan used by police and other intelligence services to surveillance of voice chats via Skype. Nevertheless, it turned out the police have simply ignored the order of the Federal Constitutional Court and kept using an insecure and shoddily programmed trojan that offered much more features than was allowed.

Aside from being badly programmed and insecure, the trojan also allowed to download and install different modules. In theory, investigators can go as far as to search HDDs and manipulate information. Meanwhile, commands transmitted to the trojan aren’t even encrypted, and only one single key was used for all the trojans. Information transferred from computers and commands is routed through a server located somewhere in the United States, outside of German law.

Different antivirus outfits called trojan R2D2 because of the inclusion of C3PO, R2D2 and POE into the code. It was developed by a German company named Digitask, whose CEO and founder was sentenced to almost 2 years probation and a 1.5 million euro fine a decade ago for bribing state employees at the Customs Criminal Office in Cologne. After this his company renamed itself and continued selling services to state agencies.

One of such trojans was sent to the club by one of the German lawyers: it turned out that Bavarian state police installed it on the PC of his client during the investigation on drug-related charges. The trojan forwarded screenshots to the police that were in clear breach of the legislation. However, later the court found out that the police had no legal basis to do that. The matter is that the Bavarian police couldn’t make use of a trojan to track this person, as the high court restricted not just the means of surveillance, but also in which cases a trojan could be used by the police. These cases are clearly limited to the most serious crimes, and the charges against the individual in question were not that serious.

By the way, Bavaria wasn’t the only region to use the Trojan – police of other states employed it to monitor suspects against facing an international arrest warrants as well. 

Microsoft Will Lock Out Linux

For decades now open-sources have been running dual boot set ups featuring both Windows and Linux running alongside from a standardized boot. Nevertheless, the news is that in the new Windows 8, the firmware known as UEFI is going to replace the low level BIOS along with the ability to lock down PCs so that operating systems should be digitally signed through “secure boot”.

The industry couldn’t stay calm after this news. Ross Anderson, Cambridge University security engineering professor, claimed that Microsoft pushing for obligatory UEFI support would mean that such “unauthorized” operating systems as Linux or FreeBSD just won’t be able to run at all. The professor pointed out that it would mean an increased lock-in, less consumer choice and, as usual, less space to innovate. Overall, the entire idea is absolutely unlawful and mustn’t succeed.

However, software colossus Microsoft was quick to deny that its new operating system has been specifically designed to lock out Linux. The company’s representative said that secure boot was not a tool to lock out OS loaders, but rather a policy allowing firmware to validate authenticity of components. Microsoft has posted a long description of UEFI and the OS support for the next-generation security feature, trying to prove that it won’t control the settings on computer firmware which either control or enable secured boot from any OS different from Windows.

However, Linux fans remain a bit concerned about the secure booting feature of Microsoft that might lock their favorite operating system out. Moreover, the media already report that Linux Australia members have filed a complaint to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission about the plans of software giant and been told they have a case.

The argument of the group was that any software or hardware will need to be signed by Microsoft or any other relevant original equipment manufacturer to be able to run. This clearly means that alternative OS like Linux (and maybe even older versions of Windows) won’t work without the secure keys bundled with new OS releases and many more.

In respond, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has hinted that the open-sources may have a case if they provided more information on the issue. That’s why Linux Australia is planning to bring the matter up again and consider a larger campaign against Windows 8. 

BitTorrent Contributed To Network Decongestion

Erik Klinker, BitTorrent’s Chief Executive Officer, attended the Broadband World Forum that took place in France. As a result, he came with a new solution for an old problem of network congestion because of P2P. A new open-source technology called Micro Transport Protocol or xTP has already been introduced into the company’s application in order to increase the performance of network by decongesting it.

Most of the information flying around the web is transmitted through TCP, which works by breaking it down and later reassembling at the other end of the network link. However, Klinker explained that this method is obsolete, because TCP defines congestion based on lost packets. He compared the network congestion to driving a car through a school zone and only slowing down after having struck the first pedestrian.

As opposed to TCP protocol, the xTP technology would detect the network congestion on the early stage and try to fix it, because it was designed in the philosophy of yielding to traffic. BitTorrent promised that xTP will no longer be the cause of the web congestion thanks to new mechanisms. Mr. Klinker noted that if the company could somehow address the problem of network congestion, it would end up addressing the network cost issue. He also came with a prediction, saying that the worldwide web is going to evolve and develop in the direction of a multimedia network. What is it for the users? A lot more big files at the very least, and you can consider many other advantages.

BitTorrent CEO announced that the company will develop this new direction. BitTorrent has already begun to facilitate transferring large amounts of information from digital devices and gadgets, and it will do much more in the nearest future. Klinker promised that the industry will soon see the company rolling out software that would help liberate media from the above mentioned devices in order to share it easier with family and friends.

Many will agree with Erik Klinker that content doesn’t present any value until it is shared and seen. That’s where it becomes hard for today’s networks in the first place. While the devices at the edge of the network are rapidly increasing in capability, the today’s networks stay the same and are governed by the same old mechanisms.