Friday, May 21, 2010

The Facebook pile-on is in full swing: Will they survive?

As a former Facebook user, I was sad to see the direction and risk that the company was taking on when it began partnering with web sites to integrate their tool. Of course, Facebook has a long history of setting its own course and has suffered minor setbacks in the past as a result.

With the media hype coming down from the iPad, it appears from my vantage point that Facebook will continue its death spiral at a more rapid pace. The questions will be coming from all angles in the media, but I think there is more to learn than "violating trust is bad" from the Facebook model. Social networking as we know it has some very real benefits and constraints, and there are certainly some ethical boundaries that need to be addressed so that the data that exists on these sites are used only for its intended purpose.

Essentially, Facebook is the worst example of our best social networking community. As is the case in research and scholarly writing, we must continue to evolve, let the market forces play themselves out, and not only question, but apply the lessons learned to advance the technology.

For now, the question is simply... will Facebook survive?

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

New Research Project

I am beginning a research project today that will attempt to explore how humans can possibly use the kinetic energy that is transmitted through the body to charge and power Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators (ICDs). With an average lifespan of 7 to 10 years, and the earlier onset of obesity that causes Chronic Heart Disease, these devices will need to be changed more frequently, with each surgery (however minor) resulting in independent game theory outcomes.

I am finding the convergence of biology and technology very fascinating, and while researchers like Kevin Hu are squarely focused on the security of these devices from malicious wireless transmissions, I am becoming particularly interested in the business applications of biotechnology.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Is Lock Picking a Lost Art?

By now, most of the people in the security field have become aware of near foolproof means of bypassing pin tumbler locks and the like using a special key and hammer. My naive thought was that once the new method would come to light, the art of lock picking would soon fall by the wayside.

Furthermore, particularly in information security circles, people mostly lose sight of the need to address physical security as a means of ethically penetrating a client's infrastructure. To this end, I encourage information security pratitioners to expose themselves to lock picking as a means of increasing concentration, and solving puzzles. Whether it be a door to a server room, or a lock protecting a rack of servers, having a basic understanding of how locks work and some general techniques to defeat them can make all the difference in the world.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Data Disclosure and Compensation

I was recently thinking about the data disclosure breach of 3.3 million from ECMC, and as I read the article, I was becoming increasing disturbed about the lengths that companies that sustain a data breach are taking to compensate the victim. It seems as it is customary to send a letter to the victim and offer one year of credit monitoring services. This is garbage in my opinion, as many of the victims are already under a credit monitoring service from some other company and their data breach.

We are quickly heading towards two unique tipping points:

1) Credit monitoring service is not retributive justice for the violation of one's private, personal data. Sure it stings the company bottom line, but chances are, this is in a cash account just waiting for the day it may need to be used. The real victims are the one's whose data is stolen, kicked around, and ends up who knows where. So we give the victim the equivilent of a carnival prize. "Thanks for playing."

2) It appears that the information security community places a high value on private (PII) information. We spends trillions of dollars protecting 9-digit SSNs because they can easily be paired with a name as the basis of identity theft. What if we devalued this information, instead of throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it to keep it secret. Maybe it is biometrics, or maybe it is some form of smart card. I don't claim to know the answer; however, we should consider all options to protect the identity of the victims and potential victims, not the random bits and bytes that identify us.

I would be interested in hearing others' perspective on these points.

Monday, September 7, 2009

It has been a while... My apologies.

I know, I know... it has been a long time since I posted to this blog. It is truly unfortunate that there is not 25 or 26 hours in a day. Truth be told, things are heating up substantially at work. With this, coupled with my doctoral coursework, being a dad and a husband, time is pretty valuable for me to decompress. However, no excuses. I will get back into the swing of things and find some time to post to this blog.

With that, I may as well check in with how I am seeing the information security profession and the things I am coming into contact with (or avoiding intentionally).

1) Data Loss Prevention is a much bigger problem than most companies realize. While this may not come as a newsflash to some, peers and organizations that I have come into contact with are starving for justifications; yet, are probably grossly underestimating the time, budget, and strategy needed to effectively manage data before it leaves the cloud.

2) Is anyone else waiting for the next big virus to stem from the shortening of URLs ala Twitter and Facebook?

3) It should be interesting to see the adoption of Windows 7 in the corporate world. A colleague of mine recently made the statement that Microsoft may be in financial trouble if Windows 7 does not succeed. To a certain extent, I think he is correct. We are 3-5 years removed from anything truly innovative, and from the sidelines, it does appear that Microsoft is too busy regaining footing in the web browser and desktop operating systems space. Maybe they should think about...

4) Varonis. In working with the Data Loss Prevention suite directly, what Varonis is bringing to the market is truly innovative. In my humble opinion, I am not convinced that they scale to the enterprise level, but they are getting there.

5) Finally (for tonight at least), I think the security industry is still lacking a fundamental strategy for its customers. With the economy being in such a tumultuous state, every move should be calculated, justified, and brought into the wider context for our business partners. I still, to this day, believe that metrics are such a fundamental construct for justification of efforts and setting the vision. Yet I am completely surprised that organizations are still overcommitting and under-delivering on metrics that would allow the executives with the money to make a common sense call to arms.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Security Metrics as a Process

Recently, I was presented with an interesting challenge within my organization. Quite honestly, the challenge is not anything new or specific to this organization; it is a systematic problem within the Information Security function. The concept of Information Security metrics is, in my opinion, largely based on snake oil sales. Unfortunately, it perpetuates as a nebulous science, complicated further by inconsistency and contention on resources that fail to see the value of the art.

If you had to read that last sentence multiple times to catch the meaning, well then you are at the same wavelength that our decision makers are at when it comes to the metrics that we define as a horizontal function. The statement is based on opinion, contains fancy words, and yet somehow dos not address the challenge in quantitative terms.

This is the crux of my challenge, and one that I hope can translate into my dissertation in organizational management. Metrics can be defined by nearly everyone; effective metrics cannot. The practice of arriving at effective security metrics will take many resources: human, financial, temporal, and technological.

Like the Information Security function itself, the effective metrics process is a process, not a product. Borrowing from Andrew Jaquith's book Security Metrics: Replacing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, I believe he is correct when he defines the criteria for an effective metric:


  • Consistently Measured

  • Cheap to Gather

  • Expressed as a Cardinal Number or Percentage

  • Expressed using at least One Unit of Measure

  • Contexually specific



Surprisingly to me at this point, is the noticable lack of material on the subject of Information Security Metrics. Outside of Andrew Jaquith's book and the works of ISO 27004, which is yet to be published, I have yet to find good material on the topic.

What I would be interested to see, is what practioners in the field use to measure their effectiveness in Information Security as a process.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

First Stripe

Thursday marked an important day in my brazilian jiu-jitsu training. Along with a handful of other students, I received my first promotion in the gentle art. As many of you have heard or read, I felt I had plateaued in my training, and was struggling for answers. In the ceremony, Luis "Sucuri" Togno explained how this was natural for students, and further went on to explain how proud he was of all of his students.

The interesting thing about Team Alliance from my vantage point is that, unlike many schools, Luis is very interested in the student's advancing through strict adherence to the details of each technique. He does not promote in order to run a profitable business and maintain student tuition. This is extremely important for the real world defense of the art and the skills of the practitioner. Too often we read about students at other schools being promoted to blue after 6 months or so. However, in many cases, these students do not understand the roots of the art, the accomplished fighters, or the reasons why details are so important.

I am proud to have received my bar and stripe this week, and sincerely look forward to the day I can look back on this and provide that new student, struggling in his or her own training and provide the motivation to continue on, regardless of how difficult it may seem.

Check out Alliance of Charlotte and reach out to Luis "Sucuri" Togno for more information about the academy.

Good night!

New Alliance BJJ YouTube Channel

Well, my professor and friend Luis "Sucuri" Togno has done it again. With very little discretionary time on his hands, he has somehow managed to find time to help Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practioners around the world by creating a YouTube channel which demonstrates world-class techniques. The Alliance of Charlotte channel can be found here.

For those in the Charlotte, NC area looking for a rewarding and challenging experience in martial arts, highly encourage you to consider Alliance. Alliance of Charlotte's website is located in the SouthPark area, over by Angry Ale's and The Press Box.

Even if you are unsure of whether the academy is right for you, Sucuri offers a 30-day free trial.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Tuscan Whole Milk

Quite possibly the best milk ever created. If you don't believe me, check out the Amazon.com reviews...

http://www.amazon.com/Tuscan-Whole-Milk-Gallon-128/dp/B00032G1S0

Monday, November 17, 2008

North Carolina BJJ State Championships

Over the weekend, Team Alliance participated in the North Carolina Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu State Championships. Overall, I think the team did pretty well, taking yet another State team title. One of the highlights of the tournament for me was when a Team Alliance member was down 6-0 in points with a minute left, when he pulled this gem of a move to submit his opponent:



It was the first time I had ever seen a flying triangle in real competition, and the circumstances by which it was executed was truly amazing. Congratulations to all of my teammates on an impressive display of skill and dedication.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Good to Great?

It is truly going to be a sad day for many Circuit City employees around the United States, as Circuit City has apparently decided to close 155 stores and withdraw from 12 markets.

Recently, I completed reading the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. Between the time I began reading it, and tonight, I have seen several of the companies profiled in this book do a complete 180. Companies, such as Fannie Mae, Circuit City, Kroger, etc. were highlighted in Jim's books. Now, I am not questioning the power of the analysis of Jim's team, and the facts do not lie about their performance. The point I am trying to make is that something happened to these companies that made them stop being great.

Are we in an age whereby large, monolithic organizations can simply steamroll the competition? The images of Walmart, Best Buy, and Bank of America spreading their business model across the landscape like a swarm of locusts. Landing where they wish, devouring all of the vegetation, and leaving permanent scarring across rural America.

I am not naive, and I understand that at this point, cost is a very important consideration for consumers. However, it makes me wonder how much these monolithic organizations are capturing, compiling, and ultimately leaving vulnerable for hackers and other mal-intended organizations.

To put it in perspective, consider the role that Microsoft plays in the world of personal computing. From my perspective -- and for the sake of this argument -- Microsoft is playing the same role that a Walmart or Best Buy is playing. However, ironically as it sounds, we do not hear the same pleas for choice as we do when we think of retail organizations. There is an entire community of people that choose the open source community for their computing needs. While the attractiveness of low cost is one factor, this is not the true motivation for many of the open source projects out there.

I could go on and on about this topic, the social impacts of the "locust swarm"; however, what I am truly searching for is a follow up book from Jim Collins that takes the same approach as his book Good to Great to perform a post mortem on the original 11 companies to see how the leadership and management has changed.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Training and Dinner With Carlson Gracie Jr.

I just got back from a training seminar led by 4th degree black belt and the "Prince of Jiu-Jitsu", Carlson Gracie Jr.. What an incredible experience and honor! The seminar brought out many students from different academies and several of Charlotte's finest law enforcement officers, most of whom train at Alliance Jiu-Jitsu of Charlotte.

Afterwords, I was invited by my professor, Luis "Sucuri" Togno to go to dinner with he and Carlson Jr. While much of the conversation was in Portuguese, I did have an opportunity to discuss a number of topics related to Jiu-Jitsu. In addition, Sucuri asked me if I would like to go to Brazil with some of the students next year to train. I suppose the hard work and dedication to the art is translating nicely for my instructor, and I truly appreciate what he has already done for me.

All I can say is that I continue to be pleased and excited about the whole experience. For those people who are seeking some solid, tangible real-world martial arts skills and live in Charlotte, I have nothing but positive things to say about Team Alliance of Charlotte, and would highly encourage you to give it a try.

So for those people that are curious how BJJ relates to the security world, let me quickly summarize why I think my experiences in BJJ is relevant to the security world:

BJJ is a gentle art of fighting, and while books like Sun Tzu's Art of War draw parallels to business, management, etc., BJJ is all about leveraging your knowledge with the least amount of perceived effort. I have witnessed first hand the seemingly impossible odds of a 150-pound fighter tear into someone with 50 to 60 pounds. Initially, with a wrestling background, I thought I could outmuscle my training opponents. In the security world, it is not the one that has the high-tech technology running on autopilot that defends the shareholder value, it is the one that has the ability to effortlessly transition from "move to move", a concept known as Defense in Depth. As an ethical hacker, I have been able to circumvent my client's perimeters protected by large, expensive systems, and I have been halted by some inexpensive, modular systems. Therefore, it is all about the leverage, not the muscle in many situations.

I hope the readers of this blog will bear with me when I seemingly go on these tangents. While my primary purpose for blogging is to educate readers regarding information security and technology, it is important to note that we draw conclusions as a result of the culmination of our life's experiences. There will be plenty of time for straight security talk, and I promise I will try to keep the tangents to a minimum, or at least draw the parallels to the spirit of this blog.

Best Regards...

Monday, October 20, 2008

Acronym Soup In Security Certifications

A few weeks ago, Shon Harris asked the White Hat Hacking group to comment on the state of the industry from a certification perspective, and in particular, how fractured the industry is with respects to certification bodies (including vendor-neutral versus vendor-heavy).

Here is the snip of my response at the time:


Actually, I am skeptical that we will ever have a certification track that will effectively capture the industry. As you mention, vendor-concentrated certifications demonstrate knowledge on a particular platform or product; however, in my opinion, information security is so fluid and nebulous that it is similiar to trying to have an intelligence (adjective, not noun) certification.

From a personal perspective, I have always found it more impressive if someone can teach as well as simply speak facts. Therefore, I would hope that a measure of a practitioner's value to an organization could be viewed, not by a single or suite of certifications, but rather the lifelong pursuit of the advancement of the profession. I think there is a very good parallel to this in practice throughout history today with the various martial arts.

I think ISC(2) and others have dabbled in this approach, but in my opinion, it needs to be refined. If I was holding the "magic wand", I would suggest that everyone study, teach, and contribute to the community through volunteering or charitable contributions to maintain a credential. Ultimately, I believe this would do more for the industry than any certification can provide alone.

Thoughts?


I wanted to throw it out to a wider audience to get some additional perspectives on the whole notion of requiring mentoring, teaching, or volunteer work as a condition of a security credential. It is one thing to have a bunch of acronyms after one's name, and I am not trying to diminish the accomplishments of those that are dedicated enough to obtain many certifications or advance their careers.

However, how would hiring managers feel about the merits of a technical certification(s), versus a more rounded certification which included charity work as a prerequisite?

I would love to hear opinions on this one.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Is the Election Over Yet?


Without publicly leaning to the left or right, I have to be honest.... I am through with the political advertisements for this election cycle. Everywhere I turn, it is smear and boast, smear and boast. Print ads, radio spots, and television commercials: media overload! There is even a 30-minute infomercial from one of the candidates! I am wondering if these candidates are taking cues from Billy Mays and Tony Little ("YEAH, BABY!")
. Unfortunately, these "in-your-face" ads are effective to a certain degree, which is why they continue en masse.

Would I feel any better if the candidates focused on the issues... I mean REALLY focused on the issues? Probably not. In my opinion, there is no substitute to solid research undertaken in the privacy and comfort of one's own home. Let me draw my own conclusions. Steer me... Yes, preach to me... not so much.

Geico's Motorcycle Commercial Earworm


Ok, so this commercial has been an earworm since I saw it, but in case you may be in the same predicament as I was....

"Hurt You" by The Sounds

Maybe it is a guilty pleasure, or a throwback to the Depeche Mode / Red Flag / Talking Heads hybrid sound. I am quite certain it is not the cavemen in the commercial though (don't want to see another spinoff TV show created!).

On a somewhat separate, yet similar thought... How do these marketing folks find these gems? I am having a hard time believing it is trial and error sampling. At one point, I believe I had a box set of songs from commercials, TV shows, and other advertisement campaigns. I suppose I am just curious as to how marketers "connect" with a specific audience -- and specifically -- whether or not Geico was intending to connect with my specific demographic for this particular advertisement. If so, I believe there is a great deal of application in how we, as security practitioners, connect with business and technology demographics in the workplace.

Without further adieu, here is the commercial: