Companies prepare defense against hackers during NATO summit

[Harry Osoff]

Not our kind of hacking - but thought it interesting. Will we be seeing - writing stories about this?

Harry Osoff
1537news


http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120503/NEWS02/120509967/companies-prepare-defense-against-hackers-during-nato-summit

Companies prepare defense against hackers during NATO summit

By Danny Ecker May 03, 2012

(Crain's) — Behind the fear of protesters shutting down Chicago during this month's NATO summit lurks a more sinister threat: hackers.

Cyber criminals and "hacktivist" groups have disrupted recent international events, stealing and publishing private information and triggering network crashes by spamming websites of large corporations.

Now some of Chicago's biggest companies are gearing up to defend against getting hacked while President Barack Obama hosts government leaders from two dozen nations here on May 20-21.

"Hacktivism happens regularly, and unfortunately it may ramp up for the summit," said Brian Tishek, executive director of Chicago First, a local nonprofit coalition of 30 companies aimed at coordinating response plans to security threats.

The group's members include major Chicago-based financial firms, such as Northern Trust Corp., CME Group Inc., Citadel LLC and MB Financial Inc.

Collectively, they're bracing for what Mr. Tishek characterizes as "a lot like Y2K, in that you don't know what will happen, but you prepare because it could be bad."

One member of the coalition, Riverwoods-based Discover Financial Services LLC, has advised traveling employees to be extra mindful of mobile computing during the third week in May.

"There's a heightened awareness," Discover spokesman John Drummond said. The credit card company also is part of the Lake Cook Regional Critical Incident Partnership, which has brought it together with other north suburban companies including Walgreen Co., Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. and Baxter International Inc. to share resources and security information relating to cyber threats.

Curbing internal leaks is a key battlefront, particularly for trading firms that already are under the regulatory microscope following last fall's costly collapse of equities and futures trader MF Global Inc.

Electronic trading software provider OptionsCity Software, whose clients include CME and CBOE Holdings Inc., is in the process of revising its employee security procedures as the NATO summit approaches.

"It is wild out there," said Hazem Dawani, CEO of OptionsCity. "If you don't keep your eyes open, you will get hurt."

With the proliferation of mobile devices, cyber crime has skyrocketed over the past year. The number of malicious applications that target mobile devices across all platforms increased by 155 percent to more than 28,000 from 2010 to 2011 , according to Sunnyvale, Calif.-based network service provider Juniper Networks Inc.

The company's 2011 Mobile Threats Report showed that on the Android smartphone market, which is more susceptible to malicious applications than Apple software because of its open source platform, the number of malicious applications skyrocketed to 13,000 from 400 between June and December.

That is just a fraction of the more than 300,000 active apps available for the Android platform, but a 2010 study by researchers at Intel Corp., Duke University and Pennsylvania State University showed that more than half of Android apps are sending personal information to advertisers without users' consent.

"Somebody is going to use this as an opportunity to get publicity," said Jerry Irvine, chief information officer at Schaumburg-based IT consulting firm Prescient Solutions.

Hacktivist group Anonymous has been blamed for denial-of-service attacks — when hackers disrupt websites' functionality — on Mastercard Inc. and Visa Inc. in 2010 and the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI in January, among many others.

Another breach occurred in April 2011, when hackers shut down Sony Electronics Corp.'s PlayStation Network, claiming to have stolen more than 2 million user credit card numbers in the process.

Mr. Irvine said he has fielded more cyber-security cases than usual since January, citing large Chicago companies that are "implementing new security measures." He is advising clients against doing business on mobile devices or using Wi-Fi during the summit if they don't absolutely have to.

Cyber criminals and hacktivists "are like pickpockets at Mardi Gras," he said. "Everybody is going to be at risk."