Nieuwe webshop maakt inzet douanesoftware aanzienlijk eenvoudiger, sneller en goedkoper

AEB  opent een unieke webshop voor douanesoftware. Deze webshop stelt in- en uitvoerende bedrijven in staat om hun logistieke software snel en eenvoudig te optimaliseren zonder tijdrovende verkoop- en implementatietrajecten. Iedereen kan de software een maand lang zonder verdere verplichtingen gratis uitproberen. “Met de webshop verlagen we de drempel voor bedrijven om hun douaneprocessen met inzet van slimme oplossingen te optimaliseren”, verklaart Groenendijk.

 Met de webshop speelt AEB volledig in op de sterk veranderende wijze waarop bedrijven software aanschaffen. “Voor veel IT projecten is het vandaag de dag niet meer nodig om door een ingewikkeld aankoop en implementatie proces te moeten gaan. Wij bieden eenvoudige oplossingen die direct zijn aan te schaffen en te gebruiken”, verklaart Richard Groenendijk, General Manager van AEB Nederland.

Geen ellenlange implementatietrajecten meer
Bedrijven zitten bovendien niet langer te wachten op complexe implementatieprojecten als ze eenmaal hebben besloten software aan te schaffen. Ze willen niet zes maanden of langer hoeven te wachten en voortdurend verantwoording hoeven af te leggen over het gebruik van de budgetten voor implementatie. En als de software eenmaal draait, willen ze niet meer worden geconfronteerd met frequente updates die de bedrijven zelf moeten installeren en testen. Vaak moeten ze daarvoor een beroep doen op de interne, vaak toch al overbelaste IT-afdeling, wat leidt tot vertragingen en frustraties. Dat levert vooral problemen op als het gaat om douanesoftware, gezien de veelvuldige wijzigingen in de wet- en regelgeving op dit gebied.

Snel en eenvoudig toegang tot software
De webshop van AEB biedt daarvoor de oplossing. De douaneoplossingen van AEB staan in de cloud en worden aangeboden als software-as-a-service. Via de webshop kunnen bedrijven snel en eenvoudig toegang krijgen tot de software zonder uitgebreide verkoop- en implementatietrajecten. De eerste maand is gratis, zodat ze uitgebreid de tijd hebben om de oplossingen te testen. Daarna betalen ze een vast bedrag per maand. Wie dat wil, kan ze op elk gewenst moment zonder verdere verplichtingen stoppen met de software. Groenendijk: “Bedrijven kunnen zelf alle mogelijkheden ontdekken en de software installeren zonder weken- of maandenlange doorlooptijden. En niet onbelangrijk: wij bieden volledige prijstransparantie. Bedrijven betalen geen setup-kosten en weten exact wat ze elke maand kwijt zijn.”

Eenvoudig te integreren via API

De software in de webshop van AEB kan stand-alone worden gebruikt, maar ook worden geïntegreerd met het eigen ERP-systeem via een API-kopppeling. “Daarvoor is geen hulp nodig van AEB of van de ERP-leverancier. Wij bieden uitgebreide documentatie, waarmee iedereen met enige affiniteit voor IT zelf de koppeling tot stand kan brengen. Veelal kunnen bedrijven binnen een dag over een geïntegreerd douanesysteem beschikken. Als ze toch hulp van AEB nodig hebben, kunnen ze natuurlijk met al hun vragen altijd contact opnemen”, licht Groenendijk toe.

Twee producten: douaneaangiftes en screening

Via de webshop biedt AEB vooralsnog twee producten aan.

■       AEB Customs Integration - verwerk sneller en slimmer al je douane aangiften

Software voor elektronische douaneaangiftes van zowel import- als exportzendingen. Kijk op de webshop: www.aeb.com/customs-integration

■       AEB Complinance Screening - doe veilig zaken met je zakelijke relaties

Software voor het screen van bedrijven en/of personen tegen sanctielijsten. Kijk op de webshop: www.aeb.com/compliance-screening

Voor importaangiftes, exportaangiftes en screening tegen sanctielijsten kunnen bedrijven kiezen uit drie modellen. Voor slechts € 149 per maand kunnen bedrijven al 100 douane aangifteposten versturen of voor € 99 per maand 20.000 adressen screenen tegen officiële sanctielijsten.

Groot succes in Duitsland

In de loop van het eerste kwartaal van 2017 worden nieuwe producten toegevoegd. “Denk dan aan producten voor classificatie en exportcontroles. Met de webshop verlagen we de drempel voor bedrijven om hun douaneprocessen met inzet van slimme oplossingen te optimaliseren”, verklaart Groenendijk.

In Duitsland is het online product al een groot succes, stelt Groenendijk. “De AEB Customs Integration-oplossing heeft zich daar al in de praktijk al bewezen. Met deze oplossing handelen we inmiddels dertig procent van alle Duitse exportzendingen af en bedienen we al meer dan 3000 bedrijven. Nu kan de oplossing net zo gemakkelijk worden gebruikt door importerende en exporterende bedrijven in Benelux.”

Lloyds Banking Group hit with distributed denial of service attack

By Narinder Purba

Lloyds Banking Group in the UK was subjected to a distributed denial of service attack, it has been revealed.

Over the course of two days (January 11th to 13th), cybercriminals targeted the bank, leaving many of its customers unable to properly access its online services.

According to the Financial Times, which first reported the story, this DDoS attack was part of a larger effort to take down some of the biggest banks in the UK.

While Lloyds Banking Group has declined to comment on the exact details of the attack, it said in a statement:

“We experienced intermittent service issues with internet banking between Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon the week before last and are sorry for any inconvenience caused.

“We will not speculate on the cause of these intermittent issues.”

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre is now working with the bank on the incident.

This is latest in a number of attacks targeting UK banks. More recently, Tesco Bank was hit with “a systematic, sophisticated attack“.

As a result, the bank paid out £2.5 million to the 9,000 customers that had been affected by the incident.

“Anybody wishing DDoS attacks would go away is in for a rude awakening.”

Neustar’s 2016 Worldwide DDoS Attacks & Protection Report concluded that DDoS attacks are likely to “continue at a fervent pace”.

“Anybody wishing DDoS attacks would go away is in for a rude awakening,” the authors of the paper went on to say.

“The attacks remain steady and as companies continue to produce insecure devices, the number of botnets will only increase.”

RoT: Ransomware of Things

By Stephen Cobb

One of the trends that I found most worrying in 2016 was the willingness of some individuals to participate in the following three activities: holding computer systems and data files hostage (ransomware); denying access to data and systems (Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS); and infecting some of the devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT).

Sadly, I think these trends will continue to evolve in 2017 and there is potential for cross-pollination as they do so. For example, using infected IoT devices to extort commercial websites by threatening a DDoS attack, or locking IoT devices in order to charge a ransom – something I like to call “jackware”.

Past and future threats

Abusing information systems to extort money is almost as old as computing itself. Back in 1985, an IT employee at a US insurance company programmed a logic bomb to erase vital records if he was ever fired. Two years later he was – and, accordingly, the bomb erased the records, leading to the first conviction for this type of computer crime.

“The goal of jackware is to lock up a car or another device until you pay up.”

Malware that used encryption to hold files for ransom was identified in 1989, as David Harley has recounted. In 2011, my colleague Cameron Camp described locking computers for a ransom as “stooping to new lows”.

So how might these elements evolve or merge in 2017? Some people have been referring to 2016 as “The Year of Ransomware” and I’m concerned 2017 could be dubbed “The Year of Jackware”.

Think of jackware as malicious software that seeks to take control of a device, the primary purpose of which is neither data processing nor digital communications. A good example is a “connected car”, as many of today’s latest models are described. These cars perform a large amount of data processing and communicating, but their primary purpose is to get you from A to B.

So think of jackware as a specialized form of ransomware. With regular ransomware, such as Locky and CryptoLocker, the malicious code encrypts documents on your computer and demands a ransom to unlock them. The goal of jackware is to lock up a car or other device until you pay up.

Picture this: on one particularly cold and frosty morning I use the car app on my phone to remote start my car from the comfort of the kitchen, but the car does not start. Instead I get a text on my phone telling me I need to hand over X amount of digital currency to re-enable my vehicle. This is what jackware could look like from a victim’s point of view. Fortunately, and I stress this: jackware is, as far as I know, still theoretical. It is not yet “in the wild”.

It’s not easy to prevent jackware being developed and deployed; especially considering previous examples. We have already seen that a car company can ship more than a million vehicles containing vulnerabilities that could have been abused for jackware: take the Fiat Chrysler Jeep problem that was all over the news in 2015.

An equally serious case was the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) apparent lack of planning for vulnerability patching in the vehicle design process. It is one thing to ship a digital product in which ‘holes’ are later discovered – in fact, this is pretty much inevitable – but it is a different and more dangerous thing to ship digital products without a quick and secure means of patching those holes.

“This year, bugs were discovered in the online web app for BMW ConnectedDrive, which connects BMWs to the Internet of Things.”

While most “car hacking” research and discussion centers on technical issues within the vehicle, it is important to realize that a lot of IoT technology relies on a support system that extends well beyond the device itself. We saw this in 2015 with VTech, a player in the Internet of Children’s Things (IoCT) space. Weak security on the company’s website exposed personal data about children, reminding everyone just how many attack surfaces the IoT creates.

We also saw this infrastructure issue in 2016 when some Fitbit accounts had problems (to be clear, the Fitbit devices themselves were not hacked, and Fitbit seems to take privacy seriously). Also this year, bugs were discovered in the online web app for BMW ConnectedDrive, which connects BMWs to the IoT. You can use the BMW ConnectedDrive to regulate your home’s heating, lights, and alarm system from inside your vehicle.

The possibility that the features and settings of an in-vehicle system could be remotely administered through a portal that could be hacked is unsettling to say the least. And reports of vehicular cyber-insecurity keep coming, like this Wi-Fi enabled Mitsubishi, and hacked radios used to steal BMWs, Audis, and Toyotas.

“While I originally thought of jackware as an evolution of malicious code targeting vehicles, it was soon clear that this trend could manifest itself more broadly.”

While I originally thought of jackware as an evolution of malicious code targeting vehicles, it was soon clear that this trend could manifest itself more broadly – think “the Ransomware of Things (RoT)”. A chilling story from a city in Finland indicates one direction that this might take (DDoS attack halts heating in Finland in winter). While there was no indication of ransom demands in the reports, it does not take much imagination to see this as the next step. Want us to stop DDoSing the heating system? Pay up!

Stopping the RoT

To stop the IoT becoming home to the RoT, a number of things need to happen; in two different spheres of human activity. First is the technical sphere, where the challenge of implementing security on a vehicular platform is considerable. Traditional security techniques like filtering, encrypting and authenticating can consume costly processing power and bandwidth, adding overhead to systems, some of which need to operate with very low latency. Security techniques like air-gapping and redundancy could potentially contribute significantly to increasing costs of vehicles. And we know that controlling costs has always been critical to car manufacturers, down to the last dollar.

The second sphere in which action against the RoT should be taken is policy and politics. There has been a collective international failure to prevent a thriving criminal infrastructure evolving in cyberspace; one that now threatens every innovation in digital technology you can think of, from self-driving cars to drones; from big data to telemedicine. For example, as alluded to in Challenges and Implications of Cybersecurity Legislation, concerned politicians failed to pass legislation in 2016 that would help secure the smart grid, despite bipartisan support.

“Traditional security techniques like filtering encrypting, and authenticating can consume costly processing power and bandwidth.”

To be clear, terms like RoT and jackware are not intended to cause alarm. They symbolize things that could come to pass if we do not do enough in 2017 to prevent them from becoming a reality. So let me end with some positive developments.

First, a variety of government agencies are stepping up their efforts to make the IoT more secure. In 2016 we saw the publication of the Strategic Principles for Securing the Internet of Things from the US Department of Homeland Security, and the NIST Special Publication.

The full title of the latter is Systems Security Engineering Considerations for a Multidisciplinary Approach in the Engineering of Trustworthy Secure Systems. NIST is the National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the US Department of Commerce, and over the years the agency has exerted a positive influence on many aspects of cybersecurity. Hopefully, these efforts – and the many others around the world – will help us make progress in 2017, working towards the goal of securing our digital lives against those who choose to abuse technology to extort us.

Finally, evidence that we might be making some progress – at least in terms of public awareness of the IoT’s potential to bring problems as well as perks and productivity gains – comes from a different kind of publication: the results of an ESET consumer survey. Reported under the title of “Our Increasingly Connected Digital Lives” the survey revealed that more than 40% of American adults were not confident that IoT devices are safe and secure. Furthermore, more than half of respondents indicated that privacy and security concerns had discouraged them from purchasing an IoT device.

Could the combination of consumer sentiment and government guidance lead companies to make the IoT more resistant to abuse? We may find out in 2017.

http://www.welivesecurity.com/2017/01/25/rot-ransomware-things/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eset%2Fblog+%28ESET+Blog%3A+We+Live+Security%29

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Author Stephen Cobb, ESET

Apple issues security patches for… just about everything

BY GRAHAM CLULEY 

If you have a piece of Apple technology in your house or office, chances are that it’s time you updated it.

On Monday Apple issued security patches for all of its major operating systems – fixing vulnerabilities in iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, the Safari browser, and iCloud for Windows.

iPhones and iPads, for instance, now have access to new version of the iOS operating system – version 10.2.1. In a support knowledgebase article, Apple shares details of a host of vulnerabilities that iOS 10.2.1 reportedly fixes, including a flaw that allowed devices to be automatically unlocked even when users were not wearing a linked Apple Watch.

In addition, updating to iOS 10.2.1 is said to fix two very serious remote code execution flaws that Google vulnerability researchers uncovered in Apple’s code. Such vulnerabilities potentially, if left unpatched, hcould be abused by criminal hackers eager to install malware onto targeted devices.

Furthermore, 12 vulnerabilities in Webkit – the technology Apple uses to render webpages in iOS and macOS – have been fixed.

More details of these and other security fixes in iOS 10.12.1 are described on Apple’s support knowledgebase webpage.

To update your iPhones and iPads, select “Settings / General / Software update”.

Macs and MacBooks haven’t escaped the wave of security patches either, with users encouraged to update to macOS Sierra 10.12.13 to protect against a variety of vulnerabilities.

The security holes addresses in macOS Sierra 10.12.13 include “multiple issues” in PHP, and a method by which an attacker may be able to exploit a weakness in Apple’s Bluetooth code to execute malicious code with kernel privileges.

In addition, the new version of macOS Sierra is said to fix a vulnerability in Help Viewer which – if left unpatched – could allow a malicious attacker to plant boobytrapped content on a webpage that would result in arbitrary code execution.

Mac users, including those still running Mac OS X Yosemite and El Capitan, are advised by Apple to update their copies of the Safari web browser to version 10.0.3. The new version of Apple’s browser fixes numerous flaws which could be exploited by attackers if user visit poisoned webpages from a vulnerable computer.

More details of these and other security fixes in macOS Sierra 10.12.13 are described on Apple’s support knowledgebase webpage.

To update your Apple desktop and laptop computers, open the “App Store” and choose “Updates” from the top right corner of the window.

Meanwhile watchOS (updated to version 3.0.3) and tvOS (updating Apple TV devices to version 10.1.1 of the operating system) also received fixes, including fixes for flaws that could see maliciously crafted content leading to arbitrary code execution.

My view is that if Apple is treating the security vulnerabilities seriously, and pushing the patch out to the masses, then you should take them seriously too.

Although there is an argument that it’s unwise to be one of the very first to install a security update, in case the code is buggy or causes conflicts, for most people it probably makes sense to install the updates at the earliest opportunity.

Patches and security updates are an essential part of your arsenal of weaponry, defending you from online attack. Combined with other security solutions you can harden your systems and reduce the chances of a hacker stealing your records or hijacking your online identity.

Although it would have been better if these software bugs had not been present in the first place, Apple should be applauded for addressing the security holes and helping to make their users safer. A notable rival smartphone operating system has had a much more chequered history when it comes to making security updates available to users.

http://www.welivesecurity.com/2017/01/24/apple-issues-security-patches-just-everything/