I always read Gary McGraw’s research on BSIMM. He posts plenty of very interesting data there, and we generally have so little good intelligence on secure code development that these reports are refreshing. His most recent post with Sammy Migues on Driving Efficiency and Effectiveness in Software Security raises some interesting questions, especially around the use of pen testing. The questions of where and how to best deploy resources are questions every development team has, and I enjoyed his…
I’m happy to say the holiday season was pretty eventful for the Boss and her family. Her brother (and his wife) welcomed twin boys into the world right after Xmas. The whole process of creating life still astounds, and the idea of two at a time boggles the mind – even if you’ve been through it. Turns out we were up North when the new guys showed up (a week early), so we got to meet them in person. We live 600 miles apart, so that was an unexpected bonus.
As we discussed in our first Mobile Device Security post (I can haz your mobile), supporting smartphones isn’t really an choice. You aren’t going to tell your CEO or any other exec 5-6 pay grades above you that they can’t use their iPad to access the deal documents on that multi-billion dollar acquisition. You know it’s much easier to read an iPad on the can, than to lug the laptop around when taking care of business, right?
In New Data for New Attacks we discussed why there is usually too much data early in the process. Then we talked about leveraging the right data to alert and trigger the investigative process. But once the incident response process kicks in too much data is rarely the problem, so now let’s dig deeper into the most useful data for the initial stages of incident response. At this early stage, when we don’t yet know what we are dealing with, it’s all about triaging the problem. That usually means…
Well, it didn’t take long to see the bankers and lawyers stayed busy over the holidays. Dell announced they are acquiring SecureWorks, the MSSP, for an undisclosed sum. Yeah, you are probably thinking the same thing I did initially. Dell? WTF?
Ah yes, 2011 is here. A new year, which means it’s time to put into action all of those wonderful plans you’ve been percolating over the holidays. Oh, you don’t have plans, besides getting through the day, that is? I get that. The truth is things aren’t likely to be better in 2011 – probably not even tolerable. But we persevere because that’s what we do, although a lot of folks (including AndyITGuy, among others) continue talking burnout risk. And that means we have to refocus.
Yesterday I got involved in an interesting Twitter discussion with Jeremiah Grossman, Chris Eng, Chris Wysopal, and Shrdlu that was inspired by Shrdlu’s post on application security over at Layer8. I sort of suck at 140 character responses, so I figured a blog post was in order.
As we start 2011, a friend pointed out that my endpoint research agenda (including much of my work on Positivity) is pretty PC platform focused. And relative to endpoint security that is on point. But the reality is that nowadays we cannot assume that our only threat vectors remain PC-like devices. Given that pretty much all the smart phones out there are as powerful as the computers I used 5 years ago, we need to factor in that mobile devices are the next frontier for badness.
There are some mornings I should not be allowed to look at the Internet. Those days when I think someone peed in my cornflakes. The mornings when every single media release, blog post, and news item, looks like total BS. I think maybe they are just struggling for news during the holiday season, or maybe I am just unsually snarky. I don’t know. Today was one of those days. I was combing through my feed reader and ran across Brian Prince’s article, Database Security Reminder: Don’t Let Your Guard…