Will We Control Computers With Our Brains Soon?

Over the years, Facebook has made several high-profile acquisitions, with one of their most recent being the acquisition of Oculus Rift for a staggering two billion dollars.  Now, rumors are swirling that the company is on track to buy another innovative startup, CTRL-Labs. They are the makers of an innovative device worn at the wrist that uses brain waves to allow users to control electronic devices.

Estimates are that the social media giant will pay between $500 million and a cool one billion dollars to acquire the company, which is one of a number of startups creating BMIs, (Brain Machine Interfaces).

What's interesting about the offering by CTRL-Labs is that their product is worn on the wrist, while most of their competitors rely on devices worn on the head. In a few cases, they require chips to be physically implanted in the brains of those who want to use their tech.

In this regard, what CTRL-Labs is offering borrows from two different technologies that have been featured on TED talks in recent years:  Pranav Mistry's "Sixth Sense" technology (which translates gestures into commands that a computer can understand) and the Emotive headset, which scans your brain for changes and translates those signals into commands.

Honestly the industry is still too small and the technologies are too unrefined to know for certain whose products will wind up being adopted as the de facto standard.  However, the fact that Facebook is placing a large bet on the industry is a powerful indication that these types of technologies (whatever form they ultimately take) are the future.

It's a long-term bet, to be sure.  Although there are products you can buy today, they only offer limited functionality and it will be at least five years before we see a killer app for the new tech, but one way or another, the day is coming when we will indeed control computers with our brains.

Just like the many breakthroughs in today's technology, hackers are also becoming more clever as they continue to find ways to obtain personal and business information from individuals and companies. Given that, you need to step up your game by making sure that there are no loopholes in your cybersecurity. Call SpartanTec Inc in Fayetteville and let our team help you with your security solutions. 

SpartanTec, Inc.
517 Owen Dr
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

Cities Served:
Fayetteville, Spring Lake, Hope Mills, Dunn, Aberdeen, Southern Pines, Pinehurst, Sanford, Clinto

Problems With Consumer Based Routers And Devices

The SOHOpelessly Broken 2.0 study has been released by Independent Security Evaluators.

The picture it paints of routers and the so-called 'smart' devices that make up the rapidly expanding Internet of Things (IoT) is not pretty.

The researchers sum up their findings as follows:

"Today, we show that security controls put in place by device manufacturers are insufficient against attacks carried out by remote adversaries.  This research project aimed to uncover and leverage new techniques to circumvent these new security controls in embedded devices."

The research team investigated several SOHO routers and NAS devices offered by a range of manufacturers, including:

• ASUS
• Asustor (a subsidiary of ASUS)
• Buffalo
• Drobo
• Lenovo
• Netgear
• QNAP
• Seagate
• Synology
• TerraMaster
• Xiaomi
• Zioncom
• Zyxel

Sadly, devices from every manufacturer listed above had at least one web app vulnerability that could allow a remote attacker to gain access to the administrative panel of the device in question.  Worse, the researchers reported that they were able to obtain root shells on 12 of the devices, giving them complete control. In six cases, they were able to gain complete control remotely and without authentication.

The most at-risk routers the group tested are the:

• Asustor AS-602T
• Buffalo TeraStation TS5600D1206
• TerraMaster F2-420
• Drobo 5N2
• Netgear Nighthawk R9000
• TOTOLINK (Zioncom) A3002RU

Since the publication of the SOHOpelessly Broken 1.0 report, the research team did say that the general state of security on IoT devices had improved somewhat. That's a low bar given the sorry state of IoT security to begin with.  While things have no doubt improved, there are still miles to go before IoT security could be called anything approaching robust.

In fact, many of the IoT devices being sold today still lack basic web application features like browser security headers and anti-CSRF tokens.  Until these kinds of issues are addressed, the conclusions fronted by the SOHOpelessly Broken 3.0 report won't be much better than they are now.

The internet world has become a scary place and most small business are ill prepared for an attack. What is the state of your companies security? If you have any doubts - call SpartanTec, Inc. for a complete analysis of your network and suggestions on how to secure your data.

SpartanTec, Inc.
517 Owen Dr
Fayetteville, NC 28304
(910) 745-7776
http://manageditservicesfayetteville.com

Cities Served:
Fayetteville, Spring Lake, Hope Mills, Dunn, Aberdeen, Southern Pines, Pinehurst, Sanford, Clinto