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Incite 2/2/2011: The End of Anonymity

Mike Rothman February 2, 2011 No Comments

“Hi Mike, how are you this morning?” When I heard those words I instinctively checked over my shoulder, since no one really calls me by name in any of the coffee and bagel shops I frequent. And that is intentional. I like to be the nondescript guy who may look familiar, but you don’t know from where. I don’t do small talk, and if I’m in a very good mood, maybe you’ll get a smirk. Other than that, I’m just the guy with his head down, inhaling coffee, and banging away at his Mac. Part of this is the security mindset. I vary my patterns and try to blend in. You never know when that hit team will be after you, so I don’t want to be a soft target. I’m also mostly anti-social. Sure, I turn it on for a few events a year, but truth be told, I’m like most of you. Introverted and happy to do my thing and not engage in small talk about stuff I mostly don’t care about. Unless I’m talking to you, then I’m very interested. Really. So once I realize the gig is up and they know who I am, my mind goes into response mode. I start thinking about extraction of the threat and how to eliminate any forensics trail. I’m sure the CSI team in my city is top notch. I’m evaluating locations for my Dexter-style kill room. I’m thinking of where I can get those rolls of plastic, and it’s time for a new reciprocating saw anyway, so my old trusty saw will do just fine. But then I realize being friendly isn’t a capital offense, so I’ll have to let it slide. This time. It turns out the staff at the bagel shop aren’t the only folks recognizing me. I had a guy come up to me in Starbucks and basically introduce himself because he’s seen me a number of times over the past few weeks. Another one who has to disappear? Of course, I recognized him too, since I pay attention to stuff like that. He rotates the stores he goes to as well. Not because he’s a paranoid security guy or socially inept, he just has various meetings around town and it’s convenient. So I guess the gig is up. I guess after living in ATL over six years and being in coffee shops 3-4 times per week, I can no longer slip entirely under the rader. Is it time for a change in behavior? Maybe smile a bit and even make conversation? Yeah, not so much. I can get comfortable with some level of recognition, but being friendly? Homey don’t play that. Mike Photo credits: “Anonymous is Friendly?” originally uploaded by liryon CCSK Training @ RSA Going to RSA? Interested in proving your cloud competency? Then you may be interested in the CCSK (Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge), offered by the Cloud Security Alliance. We have partnered with the CSA to build a full-day training session to make sure you are ready to pass the test. The maiden voyage of this course will be Feb 13, the day before RSA. The training program costs $400, which includes a token to take the test (which costs $295 otherwise). So basically, you can spend a day with the Securosis team for $100. Let’s just say that’s a fair bit below our normal rates. And we are cutting off registration at 30, so you’ll get personal attention, whether you want it or not. We have a handful of slots left, so sign up now. Incite 4 U Groundhog Security Day: Love this obvious observation from Julie Starr on the reality that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Wait, a persistent attacker? Yes, we’ve seen this movie before and as Rich says, we aren’t going to change human behavior. Bad guys will find ways to do bad things. N00bs will continue to think they can win. One step above n00bs, folks will think they can protect something a persistent attacker wants. And the rest of us need to continue reminding these folks of the reality of our predicament. To answer Julie’s question on whether we’ve made progress, I’d say we have. Security is top of mind for most. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, or that we get what we want, or all our users any smarter. It just means organizations are now making conscious decisions to ignore security. And most are no longer blissfully unaware. No, it’s not where we want to be, but it’s still progress from where we were. – MR Open sourced: Apparently the source code of the KLAVA AV engine created by Kaspersky Labs was leaked to the Internet. Kaspersky is downplaying the report, saying it’s only a fragment of code, and it’s from 2008. But when you are talking about the core of a processing engine, 2,000 lines of C++ code is a lot and it’s pretty important. It’s very unlikely, given Big AV’s focus on adding features and researching new signatures, that the current engine has been fundamentally altered from the leaked version. To say it another way, there is a reasonable likelihood this is close to current production code. Will it affect the business? No. Existing customers pay for the signatures and all the other crap that goes along with an endpoint suite nowadays. The bulk of development costs go into research, so this is likely to have no effect on the business. Knowing how the processing engine works shouldn’t help attackers circumvent AV, so it’s pretty much “no harm, no foul”. – AL Getting real doesn’t make crap products work: I’m a big fan of MacGyver, so when I saw an article on a MacGuyer approach to security, I was intrigued. Some aspects of Richard Rushing’s approach are good. Especially the idea of “faster ways to detect and seal the vulnerabilities”, say the React Faster and Better guys. But the idea of “real” AV, IDS/IPS, and firewalls

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