Research

Rich and I were on a data security Q&A podcast today. I was surprised when the audience asked questions about Application & Database Monitoring and Protection (ADMP), as it was not on our agenda, nor have we written about it in the last year. When Rich first sketched out the concept, he listed specific market forces behind ADMP, and presented a couple of ADMP models. But these are really technical challenges to management and security and the projected synergies if they are linked. When we were asked about ADMP today, I was able to name a half dozen vendors implementing parts of the model, each with customers who deployed their solution. ADMP is no longer a philosophical discussion of technical synergies but a reality, due to customer acceptance. I see the evolution of ADMP being very similar to what happened with web and email security. Just a couple years ago there was a sharp division between email security and web security vendors. That market has evolved from the point solutions of email security, anti-virus, email content security, anti-malware, web content filtering, URL filtering, TLS, and gateway services into single platforms. In customer minds the problem is monitoring and controlling how employees use the Internet. The evolution of Symantec, Websense, Proofpoint and Barracuda are all examples, and it is nearly impossible for any collection of technologies to compete with these unified platforms. ADMP is about monitoring and controlling use of web applications. A year ago I would have discussed the need for ADMP’s technical benefits, due to having all products under one management interface. The ability to write one policy to direct multiple security functions. The ability for discovery from one component to configure other features. The ability to select the most appropriate tool or feature to address a threat, or even provide some redundancy. ADMP became a reality when customers began viewing web application monitoring and control as a single problem. Successful relationships between database activity monitoring vendors, web app firewalls companies, pen testers, and application assessment firms are showing value and customer acceptance. We have a long, long way to go in linking these technologies together into a robust solution, but the market has evolved a lot over the last 14 months. Share:

I recently had the pleasure to present at a local CIO conference. There were about 50 CIOs in the room, ranging from .edu folks, to start-ups, to the CIOs of major enterprises including a large international bank and a similarly large insurance company. While the official topic for the event was “the cloud”, there was a second underlying theme – that CIOs needed to learn how to talk to the business folks on their terms and also how to make sure that IT wasn’t being a roadblock but rather an enabler of the business. There was a lot of discussion and concern about the cloud in general – driven by business’ ability to take control of infrastructure away from IT – so while everybody agreed that communicating with the business should always have been a concern, the cloud has brought this issue to the fore. This all sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it? For a while now I’ve been advocating that we as an industry need to be doing a better job communicating with the business and I stand behind that argument today. But I hadn’t realized how fortunate I was to work with several CIOs who had already figured it out. It’s now pretty clear to me that many CIOs are still struggling with this, and that it is not necessarily a bad thing. It means, however, that while the CIO is still an ally as you work to communicate better with the business, it is now important to keep in mind that the CIO might be more of a direct partner rather than a mentor. Either way, having someone to work with on improving your messaging is important – it’s like having an editor (Hi Chris!) when writing. That second set of eyes is really important for ensuring the message is clear and concise. Share:

I was talking with security researcher Mike Bailey over the weekend, and there’s a lot of confusion around his disclosure last week of a combination of issues with Adobe Flash that lead to some worrisome exploit possibilities. Mike posted his original information and an FAQ. Adobe responded, and Mike followed up with more details. The reason this is a bit confusing is that there are 4 related but independent issues that contribute to the problem. A Flash file uploaded to a site always runs in the context of that site. This one isn’t any big surprise: any time you allow someone to upload executable code to your site, it’s probably game over from a security perspective. This is why major sites restrict the kinds of content users can upload, and many file types won’t run in the browser anyway. For example, even if you can upload a JavaScript file to a server, you can’t execute that file and have it run in the context of that server. Some other file types will execute in major browsers, but not many, and we control them using content headers and file extensions. (Technically file extensions shouldn’t matter, but a lot of sites rely on them anyway… especially for images). Flash ignores file extensions and content headers. The Flash player built into all of our browsers will execute any file that has Flash file headers. This means it ignores HTTP content headers. Some sites assume that content can’t execute because they don’t label it as runnable in the HTML or through the HTTP headers. If they don’t specifically filter the content type, though, and allow a Flash object anywhere in the page, it will run – in their context. Running in context of the containing page/site is expected, but execution despite content labeling is often unexpected and can be dangerous. Now most sites filter or otherwise mark images and some other major uploadable content types, but if they have a field for a .zip file or a document, unless they filter it (and many sites do) the content will run. Flash files can impersonate other file types. A bad guy can take a Flash program, append a .zip file, and give it a .zip file extension. To any ZIP parser, that’s a valid zip file, and not a Flash file. This also applies to other file types, such as the .docx/pptx/xlsx zipped XML formats preferred by current versions of MS Office. As I mentioned in the second point, many servers screen potentially-unsafe file types such as zip. Such hybrid files are totally valid zip archives, but simultaneously executable Flash files. If the site serves up such a file, (as many bulletin boards and code-sample sites do), the Flash plugin will manage to recognize and execute the Flash component, even though it looks more like a zip file to humans and file scanners. Flash does not respect the same origin policy. When I first started programming web applications, when Lynx and Mosaic were the only browsers, we worried quite a bit that if you set a cookie for one site, any other site could read it. That’s where the same origin policy for browsers started: a browser would only allow sites to read their own stored cookies, and prevent them from seeing cookies from other sites. As we added JavaScript, this became even more important – since JavaScript is executable code, any scripts should only a) run for and b) have access to the site that sent them to the browser, even if the code originated someplace else. If this didn’t work, JavaScript code on one site could manipulate and read data from any other site. Or I could host a JavaScript file on my site and use it to steal information from any other site that linked back to my code (referencing JavaScripts on remote servers is a common programming practice). With Flash I can host a file on one site and present it on another, and it runs with the rights to access both sites. Mike shows an example of this where a file on mail.google.com communicates with JavaScript on skeptical.org (his site). Since Flash has hooks into JavaScript, it allows one site to manipulate the JavaScript on another site… which shouldn’t ever happen. Thus we have four problems – three of which Adobe can fix – that create new exploit scenarios for attackers. Attackers can sneak Flash files into places where they shouldn’t run, and can design these malicious applications to allow them to manipulate the hosting site in ways that shouldn’t be possible. This works on some common platforms if they enable file uploads (Joomla, Drupal), as well as some of the sites Mike references in his posts. This isn’t an end-of-the-world kind of problem, but is serious enough that Adobe should address it. They should force Flash to respect HTTP headers, and could easily filter out “disguised” Flash files. Flash should also respect the same origin policy, and not allow the hosting site to affect the presenting site. If you are a web site administrator, there are a few things you can do. One of the easiest is to run all user-generated content from a separate server, which means Flash code should never be able to access your main server (and its JavaScript) since it runs in the context of the subdomain, not your main domain. You can also use the content-disposition header for user generated content, which will force the user to download included files, rather than running them in place (Flash does respect this header). This issue is definitely more serious than Adobe is saying, and hopefully they’ll change their position and fix the parts of it that are under their control. Share:

I was working at Unisys two decades ago when I first got into the discussion of what traits, characteristics, or skills to look for in programmer candidates we interviewed. One of the elder team members shocked me when he said he tried to hire musicians regardless of prior programming experience. His feeling was that anyone could learn a language, but people who wrote music understood composition and flow, far harder skills to teach. At the time I thought I understood what he meant, that good code has very little to do with individual statements or programing language used. And the people he hired did make mistakes with the language, but their applications were well thought out. Still, it took 10 years before I fully grasped why this approach worked. I got to thinking about this today when Rich forwarded me the link to Esther Schindler’s post “If the comments are ugly, the code is ugly”. Perhaps my opinion is colored by my own role as a writer and editor, but I firmly believe that if you can’t take the time to learn the syntax rules of English (including “its” versus “it’s” and “your” versus “you’re”), I don’t believe you can be any more conscientious at writing code that follows the rules. If you are sloppy in your comments, I expect sloppiness in the code. Thoughtful and well written, but horseshit none the less! Worse, this is a red herring. The quality of code lies in its suitability to perform the task it was designed to do. The goal should not be to please a spell checker. Like it or not, there are very good coders who are terrible at putting comments into the code, and what comments they provide are gibberish. They think like coders. They don’t think like English majors. And yes, I am someone who writes like English was my second language, and code like Java was my first. I am just more comfortable with the rules and uses. We call Java and C++ ‘languages’, which seems to invite comparison or cause some to equate these two things. But make no mistake: trying to extrapolate some common metric of quality is simply nuts. It is both a terrible premise, and the wrong perspective for judging a software developer’s skills. Any relevance of human language skill to code quality is purely accidental. I have gotten to the point in my career where a lack of comments in code can mean the code is of higher quality, not lower. Why? Likely the document first, code later process was followed. When I started working with seasoned architects for the first time, we documented everything long before any code was written. And we had an entire hierarchy of documents, with the first layer covering the goals of the project, the second layer covering the major architectural components and data flow, the third layer covering design issues and choices, and finally documentation at the object level. These documents were checked into the source code control system along with the code objects for reference during development. There were fewer comments in the code, but a lot more information was readily available. Good programs may have spelling errors in the comments. They may not have comments at all. They may have one or two logic flaws. Mostly irrelevant. I call the above post a red herring because it tries to judge software quality using spelling as a metric, as opposed to more relevant attributes such as: The number of bugs in any given module (on a per-developer basis if I can tell). The complexity or effort required to fix these bugs. How closely the code matches the design specifications. Uptime during stress testing. How difficult it is to alter or add functionality not provided for in the original design. The inclusion of debugging flags and tools. The inclusion of test cases with source code. The number of bugs is far more likely to be an indicator of sloppiness, mis-reading the design specification, bad assumptions, or bogus use cases. The complexity of the fix usually tells me, especially with new code, if the error was a simple mistake or a major screw-up. Logic errors need to be viewed in the same way. Finally, test cases and debugging built into the code are a significant indicator that the coder was thinking about the important data points in the code. Witnessing code behavior has been far more helpful for debugging code than inline comments. Finding ‘breadcrumbs’ and debugging flags is a better indication of a skilled coder than concise grammatically correct comments. I know some very good architects whose code and comments are sloppy. There are a number of reasons for this, primarily that coding is no longer their primary job. Most follow coding practices because heck, they wrote them. And if they are responsible for peer review this is a form of self preservation and education for their reviewees. But their most important skill is an understanding of business goals, architecture, and 4GL design. These are the people I want laying out my object models. These are the people I want stubbing out objects and prototyping workflow. These are the people I want choosing tools and platforms. Attention to detail is a prized attribute, but some details are more important than others. The better code I have seen comes from those who have the big picture in mind, not those who fuss over coding standards. Comments save time if professional code review (outsourced or peer) is being used, but a design specification is more important than inline comments. There is another angle to consider here, and that is coding in the open source community is a bit different than working for “The Man”. This is because the eyes of your peers are on you. Not just one or two co-workers, but an entire community. Peer pressure is a great way to get better quality code. Misspellings will earn you a few private email messages pointing out your error,

We talk a lot about the role of anonymization on the Internet. On one hand, it’s a powerful tool for freedom of speech. On the other, it creates massive security challenges by greatly reducing attackers’ risk of apprehension. The more time I spend in security, the more I realize that economics plays a far larger role than technology in what we do. Anonymization, combined with internationalization, shifts the economics of online criminal activity. In the old days to rob or hurt someone you needed a degree of physical access. The postal and phone systems reduced the need for this access, but also contain rate-limiters that reduce scalability of attacks. Physical access corresponds to physical risk – particularly the risk of apprehension. A lack of sufficient international cooperation (or even consistent international laws), combined with anonymity, and the scope and speed of the Internet, skew the economics in favor of the bad guys. There is a lower risk of capture, a lower risk of prosecution, limited costs of entry, and a large (global) scope for potential operations. Heck, with economics like that, I feel like an idiot for not being a cybercriminal. In security circles we spend a lot of time talking about the security issues of anonymity and internationalization, but these really aren’t the problem. The real problem isn’t the anonymity of users, but the anonymity of losses. When someone breaks into your house, you know it. When a retailer loses inventory to shrinkage, the losses are directly attributable to that part of the supply chain, and someone’s responsible. But our computer security losses aren’t so clear, and in fact are typically completely hidden from the asset owner. Banking losses due to hacking are spread throughout the system, with users rarely paying the price. Actually, that statement is completely wrong. We all pay for this kind of fraud, but it’s hidden from us by being spread throughout the system, rather than tied to specific events. We all pay higher fees to cover these losses. Thus we don’t notice the pain, don’t cry out for change, and don’t change our practices. We don’t even pick our banks or credit cards based on security any more, since they all appear the same. Losses are also anonymized on the corporate side. When an organization suffers a data breach, does the business unit involved suffer any losses? Do they pay for the remediation out of their departmental budget? Not in any company I’ve ever worked with – the losses are absorbed by IT/security. Our system is constructed in a manner that completely disrupts the natural impact of market forces. Those most responsible for their assets suffer minimal or no direct pain when they experience losses. Damages are either spread through the system, or absorbed by another cost center. Now imagine a world where we reverse this situation. Where consumers are responsible for the financial losses associated with illicit activity in their accounts. Where business unit managers have to pay for remediation efforts when they are hacked. I guarantee that behavior would quickly change. The economics of security fail because the losses are invisibly transfered away from those with the most responsibility. They don’t suffer the pain of losses, but they do suffer the pain/inconvenience of security. On top of that, many of the losses are nearly impossible to measure, even if you detect them (non-regulated data loss). No wonder they don’t like us. Security professionals ask me all the time when users will “get it”, and management will “pay attention”. We don’t have a hope of things changing until those in charge of the purse strings start suffering the pain associated with security failures. It’s just simple economics. Share:

I just read about some Georgia Tech researchers working on remote security techniques that carriers could use to help manage attacks on cell phones. Years ago I used to focus on a similar issue: how mobile malware was something that carriers would eventually be responsible for stopping, and that’s why we wouldn’t really need AV on our phones. That particular prediction was clearly out of date before the threat ever reared its ugly head. These days our phones are connected nearly as much to WiFi, Bluetooth, and other networks as they are to the carrier’s network. Thus it isn’t hard to see malware that checks to see which network interface is active before sending out any bad packets (DDOS is much more effective over WiFi than EDGE/3G anyway). This could circumvent the carrier, leaving malware to propagate over local networks. Then again, perhaps we’ll all have super-high-speed carrier-based networks on some 6G technology before phone malware is prevalent, and we’ll be back on carrier networks again for most of our connectivity. In which case, if it’s AT&T, the network won’t be reliable enough for any malware to spread anyway. Share:

A couple weeks ago, we began an internal discussion about DNS security and X.509 certificates. It dawned on me that those of you who have never worked with certificates may not understand what they are or what they are for. Sure, you can go to the X.509 Wiki, where you get the rules for usage and certificate structure, but that’s a little like trying to figure out football by reading the rule book. If you are asking, “What the heck is it and what is it used for?”, you are not alone. An X.509 certificate is used to make an authoritative statement about something. A real life equivalent would be “Hi, I’m David, and I live at 555 Main Street.” The certificate holder presents it to someone/something in order to prove they are who they say they are, in order to establish trust. X.509 and other certificates are useful because the certificate provides the necessary information to validate the presenter’s claim and the authenticate the certificate itself. Like a driver’s license with a hologram, but much better. The recipient examines the certificate’s contents to decide if the presenter is who they say they are, and them whether to trust them with some privilege. Certificates are used primarily to establish trust on the web, and rely heavily on cryptography to provide the built-in validation. Certificates are always signed with a chain of authority. If the root of the chain is trusted, the user or application can extend that level of trust to some other domain/server/user. If the recipient doesn’t already trust the top signing authority, the certificate is ignored and no trust is established. In a way, an x.509 certificate is a basic embodiment of data centric security, as it contains both information and some rules of use. Most certificates state within themselves what they are used for, and yes, they can be used for purposes other than validating web site identity/ownership, but in practice we don’t see diverse uses of X.509 certificates. You will hear that X.509 is an old format, that it’s not particularly flexible or adaptable. All of which is true and why we don’t see it used very often in different contexts. Considering that X.509 certificates are used primarily for network security, but were designed a decade before most people had even heard of the Internet, they have worked considerably better than we had any right to expect. Share:

How often have you heard the phrase, “Never assume” (insert the cheesy catch phrase that was funny in 6th grade here)? For the record, it’s wrong. When designing our security, disaster recovery, or whatever, the problem isn’t that we make assumptions, it’s that we make the wrong assumptions. To narrow it down even more, the problem is when we make false assumptions, and typically those assumptions skew towards the positive, leaving us unprepared for the negative. Actually, I’ll narrow this down even more… the one assumption to avoid is a single phrase: “That will never happen.” There’s really no way to perform any kind of forward-looking planning without some basis for assumptions. The trick to avoiding problems is that these assumptions should generally skew to the negative, and must always be justified, rather than merely accepted. It’s important not to make all your decisions based on worst cases because that leads to excessive costs. Expose all the the assumptions helps you examine the corresponding risk tolerance. For example, in mountain rescue we engaged in non-stop scenario planning, and had to make certain assumptions. We assumed that a well cared for rope under proper use would only break at its tested breaking strength (minus knots and other calculable factors). We didn’t assume said breaking strength was what was printed on the label by the manufacturer, but was our own internal breaking strength value, determined through testing. We would then build in a minimum of a 3:1 safety factor to account for unexpected dynamic strains/wear/whatever. In the field we were constantly calculating load levels in our heads, and would even occasionally break out a dynamometer to confirm. We also tested every single component in our rescue systems – including the litter we’d stick the patient into, just in case someone had to hang off the end of it. Our team was very heavy with engineers, but that isn’t the case with other rescue teams. Most of them used a 10:1 safety factor, but didn’t perform the same kinds of testing or calculations we did. There’s nothing wrong with that… although it did give our team a little more flexibility. I was recently explaining the assumptions I used to derive our internal corporate security, and realized that I’ve been using a structured assumptions framework that I haven’t ever put in writing (until now). Since all scenario planning is based on assumptions, and the trick is to pick the right assumptions, I formalized my approach in the shower the other night (an image that has likely scarred all of you for life). It consists of four components: Assumption Reasoning: The basis for the assumption. Indicators: Specific cues that indicate whether the assumption is accurate or if there’s a problem in that area. Controls: The security/recovery/safety controls to mitigate the issue. Here’s how I put it in practice when developing our security: Assumption: Securosis in general, and myself specifically, are a visible target. Reasoning: We are extremely visible and vocal in the security community, and as such are not only a target of opportunity. We also have strong relationships within the vulnerability research community, where directed attacks to embarrass individuals are not uncommon. That said, we aren’t at the top of an attacker’s list – there is no financial incentive to attack us, nor does any of our work directly interfere with the income of cybercriminal organizations. While we deal with some non-public information, it isn’t particularly valuable in a financial context. Thus we are a target, but the motivation would be to embarrass us and disrupt our operations, not to generate income. Indicators: A number of our industry friends have been targeted and successfully attacked. Last year one of my private conversations with one such victim was revealed as part of an attack. For this particular assumption, no further indicators are really needed. Controls: This assumption doesn’t drive specific controls, but does reinforce a general need to invest heavily in security to protect against a directed attack by someone willing to take the time to compromise myself or the company. You’ll see how this impacts things with the other assumptions. Assumption: While we are a target, we are not valuable enough to waste a serious zero-day exploit on. Reasoning: A zero-day capable of compromising our infrastructure will be too financially valuable to waste on merely embarrassing a gaggle of analysts. This is true for our internal infrastructure, but not necessarily for our web site. Indicators: If this assumption is wrong, it’s possible one of our outbound filtering layers will register unusual activity, or we will see odd activity from a server. Controls: Outbound filtering is our top control here, and we’ve minimized our external surface area and compartmentalized things internally. The zero-day would probably have to target our individual desktops, or our mail server, since we don’t really have much else. Our web site is on a less common platform, and I’ll talk more about that in a second. There are other possible controls we could put in place (from DLP to HIPS), but unless we have an indication someone would burn a valuable exploit on us, they aren’t worth the cost. Assumption: Our website will be hacked. Reasoning: We do not have the resources to perform full code analysis and lockdown on the third party platform we built our site on. Our site is remotely co-hosted, which also opens up potential points of attack. It is the weakest link in our infrastructure, and the easiest point to attack short of developing some new zero-day against our mail server or desktops. Indicators: Unusual activity within the site, or new administrative user accounts. We periodically review the back-end management infrastructure for indicators of an ongoing compromise, including both the file system and the content management system. For example, if HTML rendering in comments was suddenly turned on, that would be an indicator. Controls: We deliberately chose a service provider and platform with better than average security records, and security controls not usually available for a co-hosted site. We’ve disabled any HTML rendering in comments/forum posts, and promote use of NoScript when visiting our site to reduce user exposure when it’s compromised. On

I have to be honest. I’m getting tired of this whole “security is failing, security professionals suck” meme. If the industry was failing that badly all our bank accounts would be empty, we’d be running on generators, our kids would all be institutionalized due to excessive exposure to porn, email would be dead, and all our Amazon orders would be rerouted to Liberia… but would never show up because of all the falling planes crashing into sinking cargo ships. I’m not going to say we don’t have serious problems! We do, but we are also far from complete failure. Just as any retail supply chain struggles with shrinkage (theft), any organization of sufficient size will struggle with data shrinkage and security penetrations. Are we suffering losses? Hell, yes. Are they bad? Most definitely. But these losses clearly haven’t hit the point where the pain to society has sufficiently exceeded our tolerance. Partially I think this is because the losses are unevenly distributed and hidden within the system, but that’s another post. I don’t know where the line is that will kick the world into action, but suspect it might involve sudden unavailability of Internet porn and LOLCats email. Those of us deeply embedded within the security industry forget that the vast majority of people responsible for IT security across the world aren’t necessarily in dedicated positions within large enterprises. I’d venture a bet that if we add up all the 1-2 person security teams in SMB (many only doing security part-time), and other IT professionals with some security responsibilities, that number would be a pretty significant multiple of all the CISSPs and SANS graduates in the world. It’s ridiculous for us to tell these folks that they are failing. They are slammed with day to day operational tasks, with no real possibility of ever catching up. I heard someone say at Gartner once that if we froze the technology world today, buying no new systems and approving no new projects, it would still take us 5 years to catch up. Security professionals have evolved… they just have far too much to deal with on a daily basis. We also forget that, as with any profession, most of the people in it just want to do their jobs and go home at night, perhaps 10% are really good and always thinking about it, and at least 30% are lazy and suck. I might be too generous with that 30% number. Security, and security professionals, aren’t failing. We lose some battles and win others, and life goes on. At some point the world feels enough pain and we get more resources to respond. Then we reduce that pain to an acceptable level, and we’re forgotten again. That said, I do think life will be more interesting once losses aren’t hidden within the system (and I mean inside all kinds of businesses, not just the financial world). Once we can tie data loss to pain, perhaps priorities will shift. But that’s for another post… On to the Summary: Webcasts, Podcasts, Outside Writing, and Conferences Adrian and Martin on Network Security Podcast 173. Adrian’s Dark Reading post on Database Cell Encryption. Some of Rich’s work is in the brand new Macworld Snow Leopard Superguide. Favorite Securosis Posts Rich: Dave Meier’s post on security and location based services. This challenged my existing beliefs and forced me to separate the issues of security and privacy. Can’t ask for much more out of a post (or an intern). Adrian and Meier: Compliance vs. Security. Mort: Always Assume Other Securosis Posts 2010 Services Update Mobile Phone Worms Don’t Need Carriers Anymore Two Random Security Rules Google Dashboard Comments Layman’s view of X.509 Favorite Outside Posts Rich: Andy the IT Guy on building a program from the ground up. I think I might have to do a full response to this one. Adrian: SDL for Agile Development on the Microsoft Security Development blog. Chris: Paul Vixie on the subversion of DNS. Mort: Practices: Proven vs. Standard? Meier: Unpatched Windows 7 Bug Crashes Windows – Microsoft needs to give up the backwards compatibility and stick a fork in it – it’s done! Top News and Posts WordPress security patches out. HP buys 3Com – does this make them a security vendor now? (On the networking side – they already had application security). Mike Bailey discovers a flaw in Flash same origin policy enforcement. The Dark Side of the Cloud. Shocker: None of 16 AV products tested rated Very Good. Awesome: Hacked Roombas Used to Play Pac-Man. Where do they find the time? Apple Fixes User Account Bug. Marcus Ranum at TED. Martin on the ethics of spilled COFEE. Adam O’Donnell joins Immunet. A Security Catalyst post on what it’s like for new people entering the security profession. Researchers pushing smartphone security to the carrier. Google Latitude Gets Creepy with Location History and Alerts – Goes with Meier’s theme this week. Animated Network Packet Structure Visualization – Not security related exactly, but interesting. Blog Comment of the Week This week’s best comment comes from Mike Rothman in response to Compliance vs. Security: Wow. Hard to know where to start here. There is a lot to like and appreciate about Corman’s positions. Security innovation has clearly suffered because organizations are feeding the compliance beast. Yes, there is some overlap – but it’s more being lucky than good when a compliance mandate actually improves security. The reality is BOTH security and compliance do not add value to an organization. I’ve heard the “enabling” hogwash for years and still don’t believe it. That means organizations will spend the least amount possible to achieve a certain level of “risk” mitigation – whether it’s to address security threats or compliance mandates. That is not going to change. What Josh is really doing is challenging all of us to break out of this death spiral, where we are beholden to the compliance gods and that means we cannot actually protect much of anything. Compliance is and will remain years behind the real threats. Share:

You can ignore this post if you aren’t interested in the for-pay side of Securosis (in other words, if you don’t want to give us any cash). I try not to put too much of the business side here in the blog feed, but we’re doing our 2010 planning and have made some changes to our services. Since we continue to grow, we needed to formalize things a little more than we have in the past. Being transparent, we don’t have to hide any of this. So if you are looking for some independent analysis, here’s what’s on our plate for 2010. For anything that’s public facing (whitepapers, webcasts, speaking) it has to comply with our objectivity standards (Totally Transparent Research). All of our services are open to users, vendors or the investment community, but I doubt any of you user types wants to sponsor a whitepaper. Retainer Programs: For 2010 we’ve split this into 2 levels – Basic and Premier. Basic is defined and priced based on the number of dedicated hours you think you might want per quarter (the lowest is 3), and includes unlimited “short” contact (quick emails/calls). Premier is our new program, priced at the level our largest retainer clients tended to go with ($7,500/quarter), but now includes unlimited hour-long calls, and up to 5 “extended inquiries” for deeper work. All retainer programs include discounts for all our other services, especially on-site days, which vary based on the tier of the retainer. Advisory Projects: These are custom scoped projects to meet specific objectives. Yes, pretty much just like consulting, even though we give it a fancy analyst name. On-Site Advisory Days: These are for on-site strategy work, although we can combine them with speaking engagements. White Papers/Published Research: We are formalizing our research agenda for the year and many of our papers are open for sponsorship. Sponsors cannot influence the content of the paper, but they also don’t have to pay if the paper ends up not meeting their needs. We do accept proposals for paper/research ideas, but if they don’t match our coverage agenda, or are biased by the nature of the topic, we can’t be involved. We do not do any ghostwriting. Right now we have a couple slots open on our database encryption and vulnerability assessment papers, and topics for 2010 include cloud computing (specifically a paper on data security in the cloud, and another on cloud-based security services), some data and application security topics we’re trying to narrow down, and additional work on patch management and Project Quant. There will be a bunch more, but we haven’t fully planned out our 2010 agenda yet. Webcasts/Speaking/Presentations: The usual – topics must be in our coverage areas and meet objectivity requirements, but we are otherwise pretty open on topics. Videocasts: Within the next few weeks we will be releasing our first in a series of short videos designed to supplement our other research. We’ve invested a lot of time and resources to be able to produce something a heck of a lot better than blurry talking heads, and some of these will be open for sponsorship. The first two should be ready within the next couple weeks – one on content analysis techniques, and the other on database activity monitoring collection techniques. They will average 5-15 minutes long, with laser focus on a specific topic. And that’s it. We have some other exciting stuff in the works (all for the user community), but nothing we’re ready to announce yet. Share: