If You're Not Investigating, You Are Out of Touch! : Machine Wars

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Machine Wars – The Hackers Dream!

By Nick Ashton, Founder, CEO, Tracometry Group of Companies.

In the beginning it was desktop computers as the Computer Gods took over our capabilities and daily communication processes. Gates, Job and Sinclair were the early pioneers and then…

We were talking to machines, albeit through our fingers in the early days through the keyboard. Today, it is machine to machine or computer to computer with limited, but necessary human intervention. There lies the problem, humans!

The machines have to be managed, connected and allowed to talk to each other and to know they are correctly allowed to. That is why we invented computer certificates to acknowledge they were trusted and allowed to work together, hand in hand.

KEYTALK SECURES SOLIDLY, MACHINE TO MACHINE COMMUNICATION

These are exciting times for the wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) industry. Across the world, tens of millions of M2M connections are revolutionizing the way that companies of all kinds do business. Across a broad range of sectors, significant gains are being made thanks to the promise of M2M, enabling innovations in industries stretching from healthcare to utilities, automotive to security to interactively serve their masters, us.

However, as we move closer to a future in which M2M is no longer just part of an emerging technological marketplace but the dominant one, ensuring the security of those M2M connections will be of paramount importance. As a result, network operators need to work with dedicated security providers that can integrate with their existing network platforms and provide protection that bridges the gap between legacy ‘human-to-human’ standards of protection and those required for M2M.

There is no difference between traditional certificates and M2M certificates. Both types of certificates are intended to authenticate via a trusted third party the identity of communicating entities.

Traditional certificates were designed and implemented in an era when desktops and laptops were the predominant source of computing power and digital communications. Bandwidth issues were virtually non-existent. Smart cards, smart mobile phones, tablets and devices such as commercial and residential CCTV were on the distant horizon. Oh, we must not forget transportation, trains, boats, planes and the automobile, all have computers on-board that complete the majority of the functions and are hackable.

The fact is, traditional certificates were never designed for use in very constrained environments where computing, bandwidth, power and storage are issues of great importance.

YOUR MACHINE BECOMES A TOKEN

KeyTalk protects M2M online community’s data-in-motion against Man-in-the-Middle and Phishing attacks. Based on our proprietary automated distribution for short lived Machine certificates, Machines transfer data to servers and the Cloud from their connection by KeyTalk identified trusted Machines, using state-of-the-art expiring encryption keys with a time window predefined by your administrator at virtually zero management.

KeyTalk delivers a unified architecture for perimeter, internal and web based access control, based on the industry standard X.509 digital certificates.

SECURING SENSITIVE DATA IN MOTION

With KeyTalk Machines that you trust, you can securely connect to target servers over any non-secure network (including Hotspots) or Internet environment.

All it requires is your server trusting your KeyTalk instance as a trusted source and you are good to go. That includes lines of defense, such as ultra-high level security devices, cameras, motion sensors and perimeter protection. Yes, they all controlled by computers.

Sadly the majority of these devices have outdated or long term certificates. Why that is a problem is simple. Untrusted or non-existent certificates allow the hacker to gain access with absolute easy and ply their trade, criminality. Long term certificates allow a much larger window of opportunity to break the codes and gain access. Not what is needed in this unsociable society!

SEAMLESS INTEGRATION & ZERO MANAGEMENT

KeyTalk seamlessly integrates into your existing network Infrastructure. As a result, no data needs to be replicated making life for your administrator a lot easier. And by automating the certificate issuance and installation process no user actions are required whatsoever.

Schiphol Airport and all world airports have security cameras, which are manually updated. This takes time and manpower and are not completed on a reliable time frame leaving a window of opportunity you can ill-afford.

KEYTALK does all of this automatically and maintains perfect security for all.