Jashawn Dixon
CSCI 501: Overview of Computer Security
Discussion Board One
Dr. Huggins
July 1, 2015

Since the birth of the internet, we have seen numerous changes within the world progress day to day and along with these changes, we have seen issues that have also had effects on the security feature of numerous assets that works side by side with the operation of the internet. This week’s discussion board question ask for a summary of a recent security incident and to link that information to a topic from Chapter 1 of our text, along with a biblical example that could be tied to the topic at hand. My current event computer security incident comes from Computer Weekly and the post is on how “Most VPNs leak user details, study shows” by Warwick Ashford.
Ashford posting is about virtual private network (VPN) and it speaks on how 80 percent of the tested VPN providers, has shown some form of user’s information being leaked by their software, due to a vulnerability known as IPv6 leakage. According to Kim & Solomon (2014) text under Wide Area Network (WAN) Domain connects, “a VPN is a dedicated encrypted tunnel from one endpoint to another.” The purpose of a VPN is to ensure the proper level of security to the connected systems when the primary network set-up alone cannot provide it. The term vulnerability is known as “a weakness that allows a threat to be realized or to have an effect on an asset;” according to Kim & Solomon (2014) text and this IPv6 leakage occurred when the deployment of a new version of the protocol used to run the internet, which was set to replace the pervious IPv4. Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is a set of conditions from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that are basically used as a source and destination address to pass packets over a network. The researchers who ran these studies from Queen Mary University of London, stated that “the leaked information ranged from the websites a user is accessing to the actual content of user communications, such as comments posted on forums.” (Ashford, 2015) To complete these studies the researchers used two types of attacks on the fourteen VPN providers to gather user’s data. The first of the two attack attempts used a program to collect unencrypted data that has passed through the access point called passive monitoring. Domain Name System (DNS) hijacking was the other form of attack used by the researchers. The hijacking was done by redirecting user’s browsers to a controlled web server by pretending to be commonly visited website. The study also took a look at various mobile platforms when using VPNs and the results showed that the Apple’s iOS was much more secure than the Google’s Android.
I found a little comparison in1 Corinthians 15:33 from the New International Version (2015) to Ashford’s post, it states “Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”” This scripter speaks loudly to me and the message I received from this was that, we should be vulnerable to all the thing we may use or see on the internet, because that bad company or service could corrupt your good character by taking your data and use it against your permission. In other words, protect yourself just as you are willing to protect yourself from sin.
In closing, Computer Weekly has been tracking this IPv6 issue since 2011 and until this day the only advise that has been given was to turn off IPv6 until businesses are ready to switch to the new protocol and all the updates within the security networks has been in place. Since everyone haven’t switched over from IPv4, the leakage and vulnerabilities will still occur those VPN providers.

Reference

Ashford, W. (2015). Most VPNs leak user detail, study shows. Retrieved from Computer Weekly website: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500249000/Most-VPNs-leak-user-details-study-shows.
Kim, D., & Solomon, M. G. (2014). Chapter 1: Information Systems Security. Fundamentals of information systems security (2nd ed.), pp. 6- 27. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
New International Version (2015). 1 Corinthians 15:33. Retrieved from Bible Gateway website: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15%3A33&version=NIV.