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Friday Summary: March 7, 2014

Adrian Lane March 6, 2014 No Comments

I don’t code much. In fact over the last 10 years or so I have been actively discouraged from coding, with at least one employer threatening to fire me if I was discovered. I have helped firms architect new products, I have done code reviews, I have done some threat modeling, and even a few small Java utilities to weave together a couple other apps. But there has been very, very little development in the last decade. Now I have a small project I want to do so I jumped in with both feet, and it feels like I was dumped into the deep end of the pool. I forgot how much bigger a problem space application development is, compared to simple coding. In the last couple of days I have learned the basics of Ruby, Node.js, Chef, and even Cucumber. I have figured out how to bounce between environments with RVM. I brushed up on some Python and Java. And honestly, it’s not very difficult. Learning languages and tools are trivial matters. A few hours with a good book or web site, some dev tools, and you’re running. But when you are going to create something more than a utility, everything changes. The real difficulty is all the different layers of questions about the big picture: architecture, deployment, UI, and development methodologies. How do you want to orchestrate activities and functions? How do you want to architect the system? How do you allow for customization? Do I want to do a quick prototype with the intention of rewriting once I have the basic proof of concept, or do I want to stub out the system and then use a test-driven approach? State management? Security? Portability? The list goes on. I had forgotten a lot of these tasks, and those brain cells have not been exercised in a long time. I forgot how much prep work you need to do before you write a line of code. I forgot how easy it is to get sucked into the programming vortex, and totally lose track of time. I forgot the stacks of coffee-stained notes and hundreds of browser tabs with all the references I am reviewing. I forgot the need to keep libraries of error handling, input validation, and various other methods so I don’t need to recode them over and over. I forgot how much I eat when developing – when my brain is working at capacity I consume twice as much food. And twice as much caffeine. I forgot the awkwardness of an “Aha!” moment when you figure out how to do something, a millisecond before your wife realizes you haven’t heard a word she said for the last ten minutes. It’s all that. And it’s good. On to the Summary: Webcasts, Podcasts, Outside Writing, and Conferences Mort quoted in Network World. Rich quoted in Building the security bridge to the Millennials. Adrian quoted on Database Denial of Service. David Mortman and Adrian Lane will be presenting at Secure360. Mike and JJ podcast about the Neuro-Hacking talk at RSA. Favorite Securosis Posts Adrian Lane: Research Revisited: The Data Breach Triangle. This magical concept from Rich has aged very very well. I also use this frequently, basically because it’s awesome. Mike Rothman: Research Revisited: Off Topic: A Little Perspective. Rich brought me back to the beginning of this strange journey since I largely left the corporate world. 2006 was so long ago, yet it seems like yesterday. Other Securosis Posts Incite 3/5/2014: Reentry. Research Revisited: FireStarter: Agile Development and Security. Research Revisited: POPE analysis on the new Securosis. Research Revisited: Apple, Security, and Trust. Research Revisited: Hammers vs. Homomorphic Encryption. Research Revisited: Security Snakeoil. New Paper: The Future of Security The Trends and Technologies Transforming Security. Research Revisited: RSA/NetWitness Deal Analysis. Research Revisited: 2006 Incites. Research Revisited: The 3 Dirty Little Secrets of Disclosure No One Wants to Talk About. Favorite Outside Posts Adrian Lane: Charlie Munger on Governance. Charlie Munger is a favorite of mine, and about as pragmatic as it gets. Good read from Gunnar’s blog. Gal Shpantzer: Bloodletting the Arms Race: Using Attacker’s Techniques for Defense. Ryan Barnett, web app security and WAF expert, writes about banking trojans’ functionality and how to use it against attackers. David Mortman: Use of the term “Intelligence” in the RSA 2014 Expo. Mike Rothman: How Khan Academy is using design to pave the way for the future of education. I’m fascinated by design, or more often by very bad design. Which we see a lot of in security. This is a good story of how Khan Academy focuses on simplification to teach more effectively. Research Reports and Presentations The Future of Security: The Trends and Technologies Transforming Security. Security Analytics with Big Data. Security Management 2.5: Replacing Your SIEM Yet? Defending Data on iOS 7. Eliminate Surprises with Security Assurance and Testing. What CISOs Need to Know about Cloud Computing. Defending Against Application Denial of Service Attacks. Executive Guide to Pragmatic Network Security Management. Security Awareness Training Evolution. Firewall Management Essentials. Top News and Posts Behind iPhone’s Critical Security Bug, a Single Bad ‘Goto’. We Are All Intelligence Officers Now. A week old – we’re catching up on our reading. Marcus Ranum at RSA (audio). Hacking Team’s Foreign Espionage Infrastructure Located in U.S. The Face Behind Bitcoin Uroburos Rootkit Fix it tool available to block Internet Explorer attacks leveraging CVE-2014-0322 Blog Comment of the Week This week’s best comment goes to Marco Tietz, in response to Research Revisited: FireStarter: Agile Development and Security, and you’ll have to watch the video to get it. @Adrian: good video on Agile vs Security. But why did you have the Flying Spaghetti Monster in there and didn’t even give it credit! 🙂 rAmen Share:

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