Research

This week Amazon announced that S3 now supports server side encryption. You can encrypt S3 items through either the API or web management console, or you can require encryption for S3 buckets. A few details: They manage the keys. This is full transparent AES-256 encryption, and you only manage the access controls. Encryption is at the object level, not the bucket level. You can set a policy to require any uploads into a bucket to be encrypted. You can manage it via API or the AWS Management Console. It’s interesting, but from a security perspective only protects you from one thing – hard drives lost or stolen from Amazon. Going back to my Three Laws of Data Encryption, you would use this if you are worried about lost/stolen drives or if someone says you have to encrypt. It doesn’t protect from hacking attacks or anything like that. Client-side encryption is more important for improving security. This isn’t really much of a security play, but it’s a big assurance/compliance play. Since I like bullet lists and clear advice, you should use S3 server side encryption: If you are required to encrypt data at rest, and said requirement does not also require you to segregate keys from Amazon. You want to market that you are encrypting the data, but still don’t have a requirement to lock out Amazon. That’s about it. If you are worried about drive loss/theft it’s probably due to a compliance or disclosure requirement, and so I recommend client side encryption instead, for its greater security benefit. This is a checkbox. Sometimes you need them, but if security is that important you have other options which should be higher priority. Share:

Time is a funny thing. You don’t really think about it until it’s running out. Deadlines. Mortality. It’s all the same. Time just sneaks up on you, and then it’s gone. Yeah, I’m a little nostalgic this week because my birthday is Friday. And yes, there is some fodder for you social engineers out there. The kids get more excited about my birthday than I do. They want to know about cakes, parties, and the like. Personally, I’d take a day to sleep in, but who has time for that? There are things to do and places to be. We at Securosis hit a milestone this week, unveiling the Securosis Nexus on Monday night. Honestly, I’m both exhilarated and terrified. We (especially Rich) have spent many hours conceiving, building, and populating our new online research ‘product’. I joke that building the Nexus took twice as long and cost 3 times as much as we expected. I’m probably understating it. But all of us have built software before, so we knew what to expect. What’s a little different this time is that we funded the project out of cash flow. So every check we wrote to our developers and designers could have been used to pay my mortgage. That really makes the investment real. Rich, Adrian, and I aren’t really gamblers. We all go to Vegas a few times a year for conferences, and you’ll find us hanging out at a bar – not the tables. We live conservative lifestyles (even if Adrian drives a Corvette). On the other hand, we’re making a huge bet folks who don’t have the word Security in their titles will pay for impactful, actionable security research. And that even some folks who do have Security in their titles will find enough value to make a modest investment. But what if we are wrong? It’s not like anyone has ever successfully delivered a research product to this market segment. Are we nuts? Compound that with the fact that we have built a pretty good business. We’re very busy writing blog series, pontificating, and doing strategy work, all of which I love. So why take the risk? Why make the investment? Why not just sit on our hands, keep pontificating, and enjoy the lifestyle? I’ll tell you why. Because time waits for no one. Rich and I decided back in 2006 that this market opportunity was real, and we believe it. Just because no one has tried it before doesn’t mean we are wrong. We want to build leverage into our business and be bigger than just Rich, Mike, and Adrian showing up and waving our hands. Ultimately we want to make a difference and believe the Nexus provides a great opportunity to help folks who can’t afford Big IT research. But we aren’t kidding ourselves – it’s scary. Fear is no excuse. It won’t hold us back. The train has left the station and now we will see where it takes us. The only thing we can’t get is more time, so we plan to make the most of it. Check out the Nexus. Sign up for the beta. Help us make it great. –Mike Photo credits: “Time” originally uploaded by Jari Schroderus Share:

It must be SIEM acquisition Tuesday. McAfee hit first by announcing their expected deal with Nitro Security. But then IBM surprised pretty much everyone by acquiring Q1 Labs. Don’t blink or you may miss another 2-3 SIEM/Log Management vendor acquisitions. Obviously we have been talking about consolidation in the SIEM/Log Management space for quite a while – there are about 20 vendors left now – but it’s strange that deals involving the two most significant independent vendors happened on the same day. Coincidence? Our pal and contributor James Arlen doesn’t believe in it, and neither do we… Hot Tamales First let’s discuss why these SIEM/LM players are such hot commodities. As many of us have been whining, compliance drives security nowadays, and log management is a must-have technologies for compliance. So almost everyone has some kind of log aggregation capability to cover the basic requirements. Most customers are thinking about enterprise-class options, which is driving business in the SIEM/Log Management space, as they want to do stuff with the vast amounts of data they collect. At the same time, the products are maturing. They aren’t easy to use, but they are getting better, and vendors’ ability to support enterprise-class requirements has improved, especially for Q1 and Nitro. That’s it. Also consider that security management was always destined to become part of the IT management and operations stack. That’s what drove the EMC/RSA/Network Intelligence and HP/ArcSight deals of yore, and is driving today’s deals. In simplest terms, SIEM/LM was never destined to be an independent technology over the long term, so these deals are just the logical conclusion of a 3-4 year consolidation. Why Buy? Let’s look at the buyer profiles – why did both McAfee and IBM buy the leading (independent) players in this market? In McAfee’s case the answer is simple. They had NOTHING to address this client requirement. They needed something – not having either LM or SIEM was forcing their customers to buy other solutions, such as ArcSight and RSA – which is unacceptable if your goal is to own the entire security stack. McAfee had to buy something, and frankly they should have done this a long time ago. IBM, on the other hand, had a number of SIEM-type platforms, most buried within the Tivoli group. But none were competitive, and I can’t tell you the last time I heard an end-user organization taking an IBM SIEM offering seriously. They do a bit of security management as a managed service (using the former ISS platform), but that wasn’t an answer. The real kicker, and what forced IBM’s hand, was clearly HP. HP’s ownership of ArcSight as the cornerstone of its enterprise security strategy put IBM at a clear disadvantage. Eventually not having a competing offering would have hurt them. I’m sure they did the math and decided it was easier to buy Q1 now (even for a pretty big number), than to wait until Q1 went public. Clearly IBM was going to pay to get into this market, so they decided to pay now. Why Sell? You always have to wonder why companies with clear momentum in a growing market sell. But don’t worry about it too much – I suspect it just came down to economics. Every company has a price, and clearly since it took so long for McAfee to consummate the Nitro deal, they finally reached it. This is actually a great outcome for Nitro, given that they were a couple of years behind Q1 on pretty much every enterprise front (revenue/bookings, channel, enterprise deployment), so getting taken out was a better option. McAfee was the likely candidate in light of their successful coordination as part of SIA (Security Innovation Alliance), as well as Nitro’s more reasonable price tag. McAfee has never really broken the bank for technology acquisitions since DeWalt came to power. Based on technology, sales model, and price, Nitro was a better fit for McAfee. Likewise, Q1 is the best fit for IBM. IBM is a huge company, and when they buy, they need to move the needle. Or at least have a chance to move the needle. Q1 was clearly on a path to go public, with speculation that the IPO would happen in early 2012. But every company goes into a deal with stars in their eyes, and Q1 is no different. IBM is giving Q1 CEO Brendan Hannigan the keys to a new combined security group. So they hope IBM will have a big group like HP does, which obviously dramatically increases the Q1’s impact on the market. Speaking of HP, we really cannot overstate the impact of the HP/ARST deal on this week’s events. From everything we’ve heard, after a little integration heartburn, HP is now driving ARST into deals that none of the other players are seeing. IBM gets a similar benefit with Q1. Clearly Q1 needs IBM’s reach to accelerate their growth path and impact. Will it happen? Who knows? But IBM gives the Q1 team their best chance. What about the customers? As with every deal, customers will suffer. The question is how much and for how long. All things considered, HP actually did a decent job with their ARST integration, so if IBM leaves Q1 alone, they have a chance. But there will be disruption – there always is. Q1 is now selling to IBM’s field sales force, and less directly to end users. It will take some time for IBM to figure out what they have, and the Q1 team needs to focus on teaching them – which means something will fall through the cracks. If you are a Q1 customer, and your implementation is working well, you should see little impact. If your implementation isn’t working well, start pushing for additional services to fix it. That will push Q1 to train IBM’s services teams, which is a good thing. McAfee historically has bought technology and just plugged it into their channel. SIEM is not AV, nor is it vulnerability management,

Rich, Adrian, and I have been hinting about our sekret plans to launch a new research ‘product’ for a while. Today we are finally ready to let you guys in on our the scoop. We are very excited about this next step in the evolution of Securosis. We call it the Securosis Nexus, and it’s an online environment built to help security professionals get their jobs done better and faster. We leverage our blog and white paper content (since that’s kind of what we do), but there are a bunch of community features that make this more than just a file cabinet of our stuff. What problem are we trying to solve? There is no lack of security content out there. But figuring out what’s important is the challenge. Most security folks spend far too much time wading through irrelevant content, as opposed to doing stuff. We have built the Nexus user experience to accelerate the process of figuring out what you need to know to achieve project success. Who is our target? First, the folks who probably don’t know what they don’t know about security. Unfortunately there are a lot of these folks – struggling every day because they don’t eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff like we do. Our working theory is that the vast majority of people working in security today don’t have security in their title, or even a security department or CISO in their company. We want to make sure those folks have enough information to be educated buyers and implementers of whatever product/project they are tackling, without having to spend 10 years taking classes and falling asleep in conferences. The Nexus is also for people who are working their behinds off every day, but aren’t experts in every little area. None of us know everything (just ask Rich about “IAM” if you want to see a blank stare), and we all need a little help from day to day. I have been describing it as a continuum. Most folks know perhaps 20% of what they need to know to do something. We believe the Nexus can get folks to 60-70% of what they need to know, with a much better chance to accomplish their tasks and do their jobs. There are two main aspects of the Nexus: Pragmatic Research: We tend to write 20-30 page papers, each providing a deep dive into a specific security topic. They aren’t for the Nexus – where our intended users don’t have time to read 30 pages about anything. They don’t get any awards for knowing everything about a topic, so the focus is instead on actionable information, not fluff or overly detailed description. The content is very modular and easy to navigate. Short descriptions, video, audio, checklists, and templates will be the bulk of the material on any specific topic. More about what needs to be done than why. There are a bunch of ways to view the content, and topics of interest can be stored in a library. All the content can be rated as well, so over time we’ll know what works and what doesn’t, and we will make it better. Ask an Analyst: We also know not every situation fits into a clean bucket of checklists and templates, so we have included a way to ask direct questions to an analyst and get direct answers. Privately and confidentially. The interface is built to make it easy to find both answers to your specific questions, and other public answers that may be helpful in solving your problem. We believe the Nexus will provide excellent value for expert practitioners and departments of larger enterprises as well, but likely more due to the Nexus community features. And best of all, we built the Nexus with economics in mind. Other research firms charge tens of thousands of dollars to ask them questions. For the Nexus, think hundreds rather than tens of thousands. Check out the Nexus site to see more features and view a video demo Rich put together. It’ll give you a good feel for the user experience. It looks great, if I do say so myself. We will launch Nexus later this year with a full set of content around PCI and associated technologies. Over time we will be building modules, templates, checklists, videos, and audio content for our entire coverage universe. We are just about ready to open the beta to a limited set of folks, and we’ll be inviting more over the next couple weeks as we continue building out the content. You can sign up for the beta on the Nexus site. We’ll talk more about the Nexus in the coming weeks as we add more content, flesh out the functionality, and launch to the public. In the meantime we’re interested in your feedback on what you can see in the video, so please check it out and let us know. Share:

I will fully admit that I sometimes finding myself parroting standard industry tropes. For example, I can’t recall how many times I’ve said in presentations and interviews: The defender needs to be perfect all the time. The attacker only needs to succeed once. And yes, it’s totally true. But we spend so much time harping on it that we forget how we can turn that same dynamic to our advantage. If all the attacker cares about is getting in once, that’s true. If we only focus on stopping that first attack, it’s still true. But what if we shift our goal to detection and containment? Then we open up some opportunities. As defenders, the more barriers and monitors we put in place, the more we demand perfection from attackers. Look at all those great heist movies like Ocean’s 11 – the thieves have to pass all sorts of hurdles on the way in, while inside, and on the way out to get away with the loot. We can do the same thing with compartmentalization and extensive alert-based monitoring. More monitored internal barriers are more things an attacker needs to slip past to win. Technically it’s defense in depth, but we all know that term has turned into an excuse to buy more useless crap, mostly on the perimeter, as opposed to increasing internal barriers. I am not saying it’s easy. Especially since you need alert-based monitors so you aren’t looking at everything by hand. And let’s be honest – although a SIEM is supposed to fill this role (at least the alerting one) almost no one can get SIEM to work that way without spending more than they wasted on their 7-year ERP project. But I’m an analyst so I get to spout out general philosophical stuff from time to time in hopes of inspiring new ideas. (Or annoy you with my mendacity). Stop wishing for new black boxes. Just drop more barriers, with more monitoring, creating more places for attackers to trip up. Share:

Tonight at sundown the holiday of Rosh Hashanah starts, and Jewish folks all over the world will celebrate the coming of the year 5772. Or so the story goes. But I know better than to discuss politics or religion on the blog. You believe what you believe and I believe what I believe, and it’s all good. But the coming of a new year is a time for reflection and renewal. At least for me. As most of you know from my weekly rants, I have a lot of balls in the air. Starting a business, managing a family, and all the other things that make life in the 21st century pretty complicated. I also have specifically stopped setting goals and I’m working on trying to enjoy the journey without worrying too much about where it leads. I am working on not being limited by what my peer group considers success. And I can say I’m much happier for it. Notice I didn’t say happy – I said happier. One of my other challenges is actually celebrating accomplishment. I’m trying to rewire my cranium, but it’s hard. I still don’t celebrate enough. So over the next few days, as opposed to focusing on what I’m going to get done over the next 12 months with my head in the future, and then building a list of all the things I want to accomplish, I’m going to spend some quiet time remembering what I got done over the last year. Yes, it takes me a conscious effort to look in the rearview mirror. But I need to take some time to smell the roses, or something like that. I hate to say it (for fear of some weird karmic jinx), but it’s been a good year. The kids are doing great, the Boss is in a good place, and so am I. The business is growing nicely (thank you very much), our side projects look very promising (yes, we’ll be unveiling our research product next week), and I can’t speak for Rich and Adrian, but I really enjoy being part of Securosis. I’m excited about the coming year. Mostly because I’m not sure what will happen. I’ve got a bunch of pretty cool research projects lined up. Stuff I’m looking forward to learning about and documenting. I’ll be getting my fitness regimen back on track and my eating plan has me feeling pretty good. What’s not to be excited about? I’ll spend Thursday and Friday getting my fill of dogma (that goes with the territory), spending time with friends and family, and taking a step back to enjoy what I’ve done the past 12 months. Then I’ll be back at it on Monday, renewed and focused. There is a lot to do, and some of it will actually get done. As one of my mentors always said, “It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.” He was right, but he missed an important nuance of that idea. If you don’t stop and check out the scenery every couple of miles, you miss out on most of the fun. -Mike Photo credits: “Renewal” originally uploaded by Auntie P Incite 4 U It’s all about expectations: Failure to manage expectations leads to unhappiness and angst. I’ve probably only written that about a zillion times. Augusto hits this point again, and reminds us that if your control set depends on a perfect scenario, there is a giant FAIL in your future. We can’t depend on executives to be rational (not from a security perspective, anyway), nor can we depend on projects to actually get to the finish line. These are bad assumptions. His points are right on the money. “It’s not just “design for failure”. It’s design around failure. Your network is a mess and it will always be like that, deal with it.” Yup. I’m looking forward to part 2, where he deflates policy and standards stupidity. – MR Selling security is doing it wrong: I’ve been on a couple vendor calls already this week where I had to explain that if you sell security to security, you can only grow so far, so fast. The real customer is never security, but development, operations, and plain old employees and executives. Cloudflare is an example of a company doing this right. Do they have security? Sure… but they also have analytics and, heck, now they have wiped some of your IPv6 problems off the table. They don’t care if something is security or not, so long as it brings value to their customers and fits their message. It’s a heck of a story and I think we’ll see a lot more of this approach: security as a byproduct – especially in SMB. – RM Trust at your own risk: I have gotten a couple email requests in the last couple days with dodgy looking PDF files attached. Given the recent OS X trojan, sending me a PDF file makes you suspect. Which is kind of funny, if you think about it, what with it being a universal document format. Supposedly the threat is considered low risk, but it’s really hard to tell what else it leaves behind that might open avenues for future attacks. What has really been worrying me is the Trojan Flash Player. You need to be careful where you get upgrades, and hope the big trusted site you get software from has not been hacked. Supposedly OS X will only install trusted and signed objects, but I don’t think there is any protection from having a pop-up ask for your administrator credentials – all with a nifty flash logo. Be careful what you click on, and be even more careful when you enter administrator credentials. – AL Wait. What? Security folks are pessimists? Shimmy tries to get us to think a bit more positively about security. He thinks because we have reasonably assured employment and challenging jobs, we should be happy. You know, more half full, less half empty. What if your

Two years ago I edited the Cloud Security Alliance’s Guidance (v2.1) with a couple other folks, and it nearly ended me. Pulling together a consensus with such a diverse group of global contributors, each running with very few constraints, lead to… certain quality issues. The CSA learned their lesson and Version 3.0 is under much better control. Aside from a lot more consistency and dedicated editors (our own Chris Pepper edited v2.1), the process is much better organized. Many groups have finished their initial work (including mine: Data Security) and the documents are up for public review. You can see the drafts and submit comments. I highly encourage you to get involved if you are interested in cloud security at all. This Guidance will probably live for 2-3 years, and it is already used extensively by end users and vendors to help guide their projects. I could also use some specific review in my domain (Information Management and Data Security): What do you think of the new lifecycle? Did we capture the right controls? Is the technology depth where it needs to be? Did we balance the practical with the strategic? If you don’t want to go through the full track-changes thing, feel free to email me directly or comment here. Thanks Share:

Evidently it’s time to rethink our business model at Securosis. All you need to do is role out a certification program and wait for money to roll in. Actually prove skills? Bah, humbug. Actually require some sort of test? Screw that. Basically all you need is a CISO job and $200, and I have a certification for you. My severe case of snark is directed at the new Certified CISO program, introduced last week by the EC-Council. Those are the folks who do the Ethical Hacker certification, which is actually a decent program. This Certified CISO program? Not so much. How do you qualify to be a Certified CISO? Basically you need to have a pulse and a job. For the next year, all you have to do is show that you have 10 years of experience with 6 years across the 5 CISO domains (Governance, Controls and Auditing Management, Management – Projects and Ops, Security Core Competencies, Strategic Planning & Finance). Not that there isn’t something to be said about someone who decides to remain a CISO for 10+ years (besides questionable judgement), but who needs a certification to prove that? Do you wonder why most certifications are less useful than toilet paper? At least you can wipe your backside with toilet paper. Wouldn’t your resume just suffice – since this just proves your experience? Even better is the price. You can get this critical certification for the low, low price of $350 to apply and another $200/year to renew. I’m sure Lee Kushner is quaking in his boots, as clearly Certified CISOs will now reduce the need for CISO recruiting services. Companies can now just add this term to their resume filtering machines and move on to the next position, right? It seems the EC-Council plans to have some kind of test in 2012, although you can exempt out of that if you bother to get high-impact certifications like the CISSP, PMP, and CISA. Although it’s not clear to me how you’d build a truly objective test to show what’s really important for a CISO: persuasion skills and a very high tolerance for pain and frustration. And don’t think that we are anti-certification out of hand. We built the curriculum for the CCSK certification training program. It’s just that the certification has to have some grounding in reality. Is that too much to ask? All I can hope is that self-respecting CISOs see through this haze and realize that more letters on their business card don’t prove anything. Or maybe I’ll just stop tilting at windmills and roll out a Certified Pragmatic CSO program. Maybe that’s the ticket. Photo credit: “Very Happy Toilet Paper” originally uploaded by kim’n’Cris Knight Share:

At 20 years old, you are on a precipice of perception: you are an adult but many adults view you as a kid. In the back of your mind you worry a bit about how adults will perceive you. It was with trepidation that I met my best friend’s Mom in college. My friend George – someone I had only known a couple months, but felt like we had known each other for years – invited me to dinner. I was surprised when his truck stopped in front of my house and he was not in it – instead his mother was. The truck screeched to a halt and out popped the highest energy person I have ever met; with a hearty “Hi there,” she was literally effervescent with energy. I was reserved, wondering how the famous ‘Doctor’ would treat me – as a child or as an adult. She waved again, told me to get my ass out of the street and in the truck. I obliged, somewhat taken aback, and hopped in the passenger seat. She rolled up to the red light, looked both ways, and floored it! We screeched through the intersection, oncoming traffic be damned; up the street, fraternity boys racing for the sidewalks, we headed for home. I was in the passenger seat, looking at this 50-ish Mom in utter disbelief. She was flying through the streets of Berkeley. “Oh, shit!” she said, stubbing out a cigarette. “Don’t tell George I did that. He’ll have a fit I am driving his truck like this.” Then she started telling a dirty joke, and believe me, OB/GYN doctors have some some raunchy ones. It was at this point I relaxed, and I knew we were going to be friends. And we were. We have been very close for the last 24 years. I am not afraid to say I am closer to her that I was her son – and I consider George to be my brother. She would have adopted me had I been under 18; I know because she told me several years later she tried. While I had my own place at Cal Berkeley during college, I lived with them. When I graduated I visited every free weekend. Even when I moved to Arizona, every Bay Area visit during the last 10 years included a mandatory stop to visit my friend and drink mocha-java coffee and talk about whatever: the stock market, politics, sailboat racing, Scotch, gardening, her crappy neighbor, broken sewer lines, etc. The details never mattered – it was always fun. She had a phenomenal intellect and a razor sharp wit. And the food – the food – was always memorable. My friend passed away this week from cancer. Her 5th bout in the last 11 years. She never mentioned that, as she was determined to keep all these struggles a secret. But I knew – one way and another I pieced it together. And I kept my mouth shut because I knew she would be pissed off it I let on – there is no value in embracing such things. And at any sign of pity she would have whacked me in the head before kicking me out of the house. So I called an visited as often as I could and never said a word, never acted differently. After all, life is to be enjoyed, and she lived it exactly the way she wanted to. And I’ll always remember her as that energetic, wickedly funny person person who just wanted to have fun. There will never be pity or regret, but she will be missed. Oh, and a short summary this week. Webcasts, Podcasts, Outside Writing, and Conferences Adrian’s DR post on Segregating DBA And Admin Duties. Favorite Securosis Posts David Mortman: Security Management 2.0: Migration. Adrian Lane: Home Invasion: What would you do? Other Securosis Posts Incite 9/21/2011: Where’s Waldo? Friday Summary: September 16, 2011. Favorite Outside Posts David Mortman: Don’t Hit the Snooze Button on DigiNotar Alarm Bells. Adrian Lane: Top 10 Most Overhyped Technology Terms. Very entertaining read by Amrit Williams. But just so that does not go to his head, he does really suck at Twitter. Rich: Criminal Hack versus FOIA request: The Showdown. Read this one and just think about it for a moment. Anonymous and Lulzsec look pretty petty and malicious. Project Quant Posts DB Quant: Index. NSO Quant: Index of Posts. NSO Quant: Health Metrics–Device Health. NSO Quant: Manage Metrics–Monitor Issues/Tune IDS/IPS. NSO Quant: Manage Metrics–Deploy and Audit/Validate. Research Reports and Presentations Tokenization vs. Encryption: Options for Compliance. Security Benchmarking: Going Beyond Metrics. Understanding and Selecting a File Activity Monitoring Solution. Database Activity Monitoring: Software vs. Appliance. Share:

It was a bit of a shock to us over two years ago, when we learned the Boy has a lazy eye. We found out when he got evaluated prior to entering kindergarten, and they said he needed to get his eyes examined. The Boss and I have very good vision, especially when we were growing up, so it was unexpected. Ultimately it’s not a big deal. He needs to wear glasses and we have to patch his good eye for a few hours every day to force his weaker eye to get stronger. We got him some pretty snazzy looking glasses. Oval in shape, you know, right out of the metrosexual handbook. Thankfully when you are 8, it’s cute. A couple years later, the glasses are part of him. He kind of looks strange when he doesn’t have them on. He is a boy, so he’s pretty hard on the glasses, with them always getting bent or otherwise screwed up. And when they don’t fit well, he tends to look over them. It’s not a conscious decision – he just lets them slide down his nose and goes about his business because his strong eye compensates. Or he doesn’t turn his head up when he’s looking up. Either way, he’s not getting the benefit of the glasses and it’s not helping to strengthen his weaker eye. During his quarterly check-up, the ophthalmologist suggested a new pair with bigger lenses that he wouldn’t be able to look over. We’re fine with that, but the Boy is a bit change averse. His first thought was that he didn’t want Waldo glasses. Those big frame models that make him look like the character from “Where’s Waldo?” We set the expectation that he’ll get the best glasses to address the issue, even if they are Waldo glasses. The Boss and I had a sneaking suspicion it wouldn’t end well, but we had to deal. I took him to the eyeglass shop and he started trying out frames. We found a pair that seemed good, which had rounder lenses. Not Harry Potter round, but rounder than his current model. I asked what he thought, and his response: “Horrible, Dad.” But both the optometrist and I told him they were cool, even if he didn’t believe us. Then I spied a pair of the dreaded Waldo glasses. “Boy, try these on!” After a little resistance, he put on the Waldo glasses (which were actually a pair of very expensive Calvin Klein models). I actually thought they looked good, but he was locked into the No Waldo position. He was clearly getting upset at the idea of having to get the Waldo model. Then I took the first pair with the rounded lenses and had him try those on again. Evidently it wasn’t the optometrist’s first rodeo either – he played up the cool frames and told him all the chicks would dig them. The Boy had no idea what he was talking about, but I was entertained. I had him put the Waldo glasses back on (just for good measure) and then try the rounded ones again. Then I went for the close. “So what do you think, dude?” He said, “I like them, Dad. They are cool!” Just like it was his idea. Win! Maybe at some point he’ll realize the conspiracy. Maybe not. Either way, it’ll be a lot harder for him to look over his glasses, which ultimately is all that matters. Even if it took a little manipulation to get him there. –Mike Photo credits: “Where’s Waldo” originally uploaded by Carolyn Coles Incite 4 U AV dying? Just like spam was going to be gone by 2004: Now that Microsoft has unveiled Windows 8 (talk about pre-announcing) with enhanced security features, the security industry is bracing for yet another assault on the cash cow of all cash cows: anti-virus. Evidently Win8 will have enhanced ASLR and heap stack protection, which is good news because <sarcasm>the attackers continue to stand still.</sarcasm> But it seems Windows Defender will be able to handle AV signatures now. First, AV signatures aren’t the answer. Second, inertia is substantial in both the consumer and business markets. If Microsoft said they were bundling white listing in, or some other mitigation that actually made a difference, I would be interested. But they didn’t so I’m not. But I do like the new Metro(sexual) interface. Not enough to actually use Windows, like ever, but it is pretty. – MR Needle in a crapstack: Most of the surveys we see in the security industry are pretty bad. They are driven by vendors looking for FUD to sell products. And hey, it’s our own fault because none of us wants to pay for the good stuff. (Our stuff excepted, of course 😉 ). But we can often find interesting nuggets anyway. These two surveys came courtesy of Martin McKeay, as prep material for this week’s podcast. The first, from Trustwave and Cybersource, tells us that 70% of businesses care more about their brands than PCI fines. Well, I sure as hell hope so – otherwise their priorities would be seriously out of whack. Then, courtesy of PWC, we find that only 13% of companies surveyed have a security strategy, reviewed the effectiveness of said strategy, and knew the types of breaches they suffered in the past 12 months. Heck, I’d say 13% sounds good – maybe even a little high. A lot of the rest of these two surveys is too tuned for my tastes, but I’m happy any time I can get a nugget or two. – RM Right tool for the job: If you are reliant upon email security to address HIPAA, you’ve already lost. But eWeek is positioning DLP Lite in email security tools as front-line defense for HIPAA. It’s a little like closing the window and leaving the front door wide open. Content screening of email is a last line of defense – one you hope you don’t