Security quotes of the week

But what happened to me exposes vital security flaws in several customer service systems, most notably Apple’s and Amazon’s. Apple tech support gave the hackers access to my iCloud account. Amazon tech support gave them the ability to see a piece of information — a partial credit card number — that Apple used to release information. In short, the very four digits that Amazon considers unimportant enough to display in the clear on the web are precisely the same ones that Apple considers secure enough to perform identity verification. The disconnect exposes flaws in data management policies endemic to the entire technology industry, and points to a looming nightmare as we enter the era of cloud computing and connected devices.

A key impact of CGNs [Carrier Grade NAT] is that if you want to trace back “who did that” you may need to have recorded not only an IP address and an accurate timestamp, but also to be able to provide the source port of the connection. Failure to provide the source port will mean that an ISP using CGN will not be able to do any tracing, because they will be unable to distinguish between hundreds of possible perpetrators.