Securosis Blog

New Paper: Building an Early Warning System

Mike Rothman · January 21, 2013

One topic that has resonated with the industry has been Early Warning. Clearly looking through the rearview mirror and trying to contain the damage from attacks already in process hasn’t been good enough, so figuring out a way to continue shortening the window between attack and detection continues to be a major objective for fairly mature security programs. Early Warning is all about turning security management on its head, using threat intelligence on attacks against others to improve your…

From NATHER’S LAW OF POLICY MANAGEMENT on the Tufin blog:

That last one is of particular interest to me today, as I saw a client recently with a rule base for his firewall that was around 1000 rules long. When looking at his compliance results for policy and risk he was showing me hundreds of rules he wanted to mark as exceptions. I was puzzled – almost two thirds of his rule base consisted of exceptions to the compliance policies they were trying to enforce.

Actually, I really was a criminal…

Rich · January 18, 2013

When Mike wrote his review of Rob Graham’s post on what could define criminality on the Internet, he focused on the anonymization piece. Me? I was struck more by Rob’s “Witchcraft is not a crime” post in a very personal way:

It appears that Java is still vulnerable to exploit after the latest patch from Oracle.

Disabling Java completely probably isn’t possible for many of you, so I suggest you at least use a good web gateway/network IPS/NGFW that filters for malware, and something cloud or VPN based to protect mobile users. Events like this are why I’m so interested (and have been for a long time) in browser virtualization technologies (Bromium, Invincea, anyone else?).

We are all criminals

Mike Rothman · January 18, 2013

In the anger and sorrow following Aaron Swartz’s suicide, Rob Graham makes an excellent point in I conceal my identity the same way Aaron was indicted for

A different kind of APT

Mike Rothman · January 17, 2013

What happens when you work for a US critical infrastructure company and see strange connections coming into your network from China? Using the real credentials of your top programmer? You crap your pants, that’s what you do. And you figure you have been compromised by the APT and pull the alarms. But what happens when it’s actually something else. Security audit finds dev OUTSOURCED his JOB to China to goof off at work

CISO Rule #1: Don’t be a douche…

Mike Rothman · January 17, 2013

Let’s take a look at Adam Shostack’s recent post, “The Phoenix Project may be uncomfortable”.

First of all, I haven’t gotten a chance to read Gene Kim’s new book “The Phoenix Project,” but they were kind enough to send me an electronic copy and I will get to it soon. I love the idea of teaching important lessons via a fictional story, even for technology stuff. As much as I like technical books, I don’t read them. I consult them when I have a technical question. But I read stories, and learn by…

Friday Summary: January 18, 2013

Rich · January 17, 2013

I will not write about Manti Te’o.

I will not write about Manti Te’o.

I will not write about Manti… ah hell, who am I kidding.

My DHS Beats Your FDA

Rich · January 17, 2013

As someone who has been part of the medical field my entire life (family business before I became a paramedic) the intersection between medicine and technology is of high personal interest. I still remember the time I got in trouble at work for hacking my boss’s password so we could get into the reporting application he accidentally locked everyone out of.

“The Cloud” is a term so overused and often misapplied that it has become meaningless without context. This series will discuss identity and access management as it pertains to the three major cloud service models (Infrastructure, Platform, and Software). Each of these models (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) presents its own unique challenge for IAM, because each model promotes different approaches and each vendor offers their own unique flavor. The cloud service model effectively acts as a set of…