Presentation at Stepping Up 2013 (IIA) about online privacy and security

1. PRIVACY & SECURITY
CHALLENGES IN AN
INTERNET AGE
Vikram Kumar
Mega Ltd.
vikram@mega.co.nz
@vikram_nz
STEPPING UP / IIA NZ Conference 2013
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2. Talk scope
• Professionals and SMEs
• Online collaboration and communication (documents and
emails primarily)
• Using the open Internet
• External threats
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3. Information Integrity
Privacy +
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Confidentiality
Integrity
Availability
Authenticity
Non-repudiation
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4. Threat Landscape
Human error +
• Non-targeted attacks
• Automated kits
• “Full take” by government agencies
• Targeted attacks
• Criminals
• Competitors or “partners” or activists
• State sponsored or initiated
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5. Major attack vectors
• Phishing, Spear Phishing
• Social engineering
• Purchase databases
• Device/Internet exploits
• Chained/escalated attacks
• Mobile and wifi
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6. Problem is increasing
• Expectations and need for anytime/anywhere access to
files
• Inability for corporate IT to deliver- the “Dropbox Effect”
• Bring Your Own Device, mobility
• Invisible, delayed impact
• Falling technology prices- especially storage
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7. CRYPTO & MEGA
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8. Crypto 101
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9. MEGA
• „Cloud‟ (Internet) file storage and collaboration
• 50 GB free storage. Fastest in the world. Easy to use.
• End-to-end, user controlled encryption
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10. MEGA Statistics
• Launched 20 January 2013
• About 5 million service users
• 450 million files uploaded, 180 Gb/s bandwidth, 0.05%
notices of alleged copyright infringement
• Hosted in Germany, Luxembourg, and NZ
• Exiting beta soon with new website, iOS app,
synchronisation client
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11. MEGA as a global company
Source: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mega.co.nz
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12. Defeating crypto
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13. Crypto for the masses: lessons learnt
• It has to just work
• No compromises
• Network effect
• Privacy/confidentiality as a business model is viable
• Open source necessary for trust
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14. THE FUTURE OF EMAIL
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15. Email in a post-Snowden era
The death of email is vastly exaggerated.
3 emerging paths:
• Peer-to-peer
• Integrated with standard web email
• Closed, secure sandbox
but most individuals will stay with free-for-advertising model.
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16. MEGA’s secure communications approach
• Closed, secure model with end-to-end encryption
• Integrate with online file storage and collaboration
• Integrated messaging, voice, and video
• In the browser but other apps and services built on top of
MEGA will provide multiple options
• Privacy but not anonymity
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17. THANK YOU
Questions / comments?
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