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Boaz Nails It- The Encryption Dilemma

Rich June 3, 2009 6 Comments

Boaz Gelbord wrote a thoughtful response (as did Mike Andrews) to my post earlier this week on the state of web application and data security. In it was one key tidbit on encryption: The truth is that you just don’t mitigate that much risk by encrypting files at rest in a reasonably secure environment. Of course if a random account or service is compromised on a server, having those database files encrypted would sure come in handy. But for your database or file folder encryption to actually save you from anything, some other control needs to fail. I wouldn’t say this is always true, but it’s generally true. In fact, this situation was the inspiration behind the Three Laws of Data Encryption I wrote a few years ago. The thing is, access controls work really freaking well, and the only reason to use encryption instead of them is if the data is moving, or you need to somehow restrict the data with greater granularity than is possible with access controls. For most systems, this is to protect data from administrators, since you can manage everyone else with access controls. Also keep in mind that many current data encryption systems tie directly to the user’s authentication, and thus are just as prone to compromised user accounts as are access controls. Again, not true in all cases, but true in many. The first step in encryption is to know what threat you are protecting against, and if other controls would be just as effective. Seriously, we toss encryption around as the answer all the time, without knowing what the question is. (My favorite question/answer? Me: Why are you encrypting. Them: To protect against hackers. Me: Um. Cool. You have a bathroom anywhere?) Share:

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Join the Open Patch Management Survey—Project Quant

Rich June 3, 2009 No Comments

Are you tired of all those BS vendor surveys designed to sell products, and they don’t ever even show you the raw data? Yeah, us too. Today we’re taking the next big step for Project Quant by launching an open survey on patch management. Our goal here is to gain an understanding of what people are really doing with regards to patch management, to better align the metrics model with real practices. We’re doing something different with this survey. All the results will be made public. We don’t mean the summary results, but the raw data (minus any private or identifiable information that could reveal the source person or organization). Once we hit 100 responses we will release the data in spreadsheet formats. Then, either every week or for every 100 additional responses, we will release updated data. We don’t plan on closing this for quite some time, but as with most surveys we expect an initial rush of responses and want to get the data out there quickly. As with all our material, the results will be licensed under Creative Commons. We will, of course, provide our own analysis, but we think it’s important for everyone to be able to evaluate the results for themselves. All questions are optional, but the more you complete the more accurate the results will be. In two spots we ask if you are open for a direct interview, which we will start scheduling right away. Please spread the word far and wide, since the more responses we collect, the more useful the results. If you fill out the survey as a result of reading this post please use SECUROSISBLOG as the registration code (helps us figure out what channels are working best). If you came to this post via twitter, use TWITTER as the reg code. This won’t affect the results, but we think it might be interesting to track how people found the survey, and which social media channels are more effective. Thanks for participating, and click here to fill it out. (This is a SurveyMonkey survey, so we can’t disable the JavaScript like we do for everything here on the main site. Sorry). Share:

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Five Ways Apple Can Improve Their Security Program

Rich June 3, 2009 No Comments

This is an article I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Sure, we security folks seem to love to bash Apple, but I thought it would be interesting to take a more constructive approach. From the TidBITS article: With the impending release of the next versions of both Mac OS X and the iPhone operating system, it seems a good time to evaluate how Apple could improve their security program. Rather than focusing on narrow issues of specific vulnerabilities or incidents, or offering mere criticism, I humbly present a few suggestions on how Apple can become a leader in consumer computing security over the long haul. The short version of the suggestions are: Appoint and empower a CSO Adopt a secure software development program Establish a security response team Manage vulnerabilities in included third party software Complete the implementation of anti-exploitation technologies Share:

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Piracy Fighting Dog FUD

Adrian Lane June 3, 2009 2 Comments

OK, I have to call Bull$%} on this: Anti-piracy pup sniffs out 35,000 illegal DVDs. A piracy fighting dog. Really. From Yahoo! News: The black Labrador helped enforcement officials who carried out raids last week in southern Johor state which neighbours Singapore, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) said in a statement. Paddy was given to Malaysia by the MPA to help close down piracy syndicates who churn out vast quantities of illegal DVDs. The dog is specially trained to detect chemicals in the discs. So the dog can detect chemicals used in DVDs. Call me a cynic, but I suspect that ‘Paddy’ cannot tell the difference between Best Buy, an adult video store, and an underground DVD warehouse. So unless someone has figured out how to install laser diodes and detection software onto a Labrador, it’s not happening. Of course, when they do, the pirates will be forced to escalate the confrontation with the unstoppable “Fuzzy, bouncy, piracy tennis ball of mayhem”. Seriously, this is an illustration of the huge difference between marketing security and actual security. It looks to me like someone is trying to create the MPA version of Sexual Harassment Panda, and it’s just wrong! Share:

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