Fun Reading on Security - 2

Instead of my usual "blogging frenzy" machine gun blast of short posts, I will just combine them into my new blog series "Fun Reading on Security." Here is an issue #2, dated May 8, 2008.

So my next iteration of fun reading on security, logging and other topics.

1. 0x000000 blog has a neat post on security, word definition and all. It reminds us that "security is forever" since it is about people, not broken technologies. A quote: "And so we will never able to secure other people, they have to secure them self. And we know that they can't." Same blog also have a fun (but a little bizarre with a little 80s feel) interview with Richard Stallman.
2. Along the same line, discussion about security industry longevity is here at Gunnar Peterson's blog: specifically, he debates Mike R's semi-humorous prediction that in 2012 there will be 0 "security professionals." Indeed, secure networks + secure OS + secure apps < security.
3. Also a very fun read comes from DarkReading: "7 dirty secrets of the security industry." Example quotes: "The goal of the security vendor is not to secure, it's to make money" , "Security vendors want businesses to buy what they sell, so they push specific products to block specific threats "; it also discusses another facet of compliance vs security.
4. Fun - and as usual heated - debates about the "AV is dead" and "anti-anti-virus revolt" happen here. Is blacklisting  AV dead now? More dead than before? :-) Or just "limited",  but still very useful? BTW, Matasano opines on the subject here as well, calling it not a revolution, but a protest.
5. The next  Carnival of the Security Catalyst Community - April 22, 2008; as always fun. Next carnival Apr 29 is here and the last (so far) one is here.
6. Really good look at logging for developers is here. "all too often logging gets treated as optional and not necessary. In this column we will cover the essentials of logging []for developers!] from a security perspective"
7. Latest stolen account prices are posted here by AVERT Labs guys. Account with $16,000 goes for about 700 euros (!) Also, Finjan reminds us that top corporations are all owned.
8. ISP data retention rears its (ugly?) head again. Good business for LogLogic or privacy nightmare?
9. A fun read from Tizor Blog: "How did the TJX data breach happen? Part 1: Anatomy" A must read, with diagrams, etc. "After breaching the TJX wireless system, the attacker was able to gain administrative privileges to the RTS servers located at the TJX corporate headquarters in Framingham, MA."
10. A very good read from Greg Shipley: "Risk Management: Do It Now, Do It Right." A lot of interesting bits about CSOs, security technologies evolution, etc. "The journey continues. We invested hundreds of millions of dollars in intrusion-detection systems without a solid understanding of their relative effectiveness and total cost of ownership. The IDS craze led to reinvestments in intrusion-prevention systems that even today are only partially enabled, and PKI is still a bad word in many IT circles. There's no shortage of disappointments on other product fronts."
11. "Data Classification Is Dead?"  Rich Mogul explains why data classification by the owners is never going to fly... "Enterprise content is just too volatile for static tags to really represent its value. Even those of you in defense/intelligence don’t *really* do granular data classification. " This is a good reminder to shoe that just spout the propaganda "first, need to classify data." Can you hope to do "DLP" without it? Also, read this one from Rich as well: not only you can't classify, you often don't know who owns what.
12. Hot, hot, hot! "Snake Bytes " on DarkReading. "We are all in the business of stopping just enough crime to keep us in business." Wow! Definitely a must read.
13. Marcus Ranum on logging in Start Trek (read the whole thread): "What do you expect from a starship that runs on Windows-24k? Microsoft added support for syslog in 2348 - citing customer demand - but still
    has no Enterprise-class log architecture." :-)
14. Piece on PCI and log management where a vendor makes an idiotic faux pas by saying that "less than 1% logs are of interest." In reality, all (OK, most) logs are of interest under the right circumstances. And we almost never know which ones we'd need.
15. A fun blurb from a lawyer on PCI. Good conclusion too: "Regardless, now is the time for merchants to begin engaging their legal teams to address PCI compliance, and opening the lines of communication between the lawyers and security pros." He also fights the checkbox mentality by saying that  "merchants should not view their internal security personnel or QSAs as “rubber stamps” of PCI compliance." I am happy to see this lawyer basically say that if you ignore PCI, your ass is  0wned :-)

On that happy note - see you next time! :-)

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