InfoSecPodcast.com » Industry News

Twitter + Security = Security Twits

Chris Harrington — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:29:12 +0000

When I first read about Twitter I didn’t see much value in it for me. It wasn’t until I started using it last year when I saw the usefulness for me. Twitter is an interesting communicaiton tool. I call it a cross between an IM client and a Bulletin Board. There are a lot of informal groups that use twitter. One of them is the Security Twits.

Security Twits are people in security related jobs, companies, etc that use Twitter. We can thank Jennifer, aka Mediaphyter, for the name and the original blog post on the Twits. It’s actually a pretty impressive list of security folks using it.

If you have not tried Twitter you should. You may just find it useful if not downright addictive.

– Chris

Technorati Tags: Twitter, Security, Security Twits

Juniper launches a switch line

Chris Harrington — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:02:40 +0000

Juniper Networks announced today their EX line of Switches. You can see more about the switches and a demo at www.juniper.net/ This new line of switches runs their JunOS operating system, rather than some other OS that would create confusion and complication. I have spoken to the local Juniper team and it seems as though Juniper built the switches themselves rather than through OEM or acquisition. I’m not sure I agree with that from a product maturity or time to market aspect. In any case, congrats to Juniper for filling what many believe was a hole in their product offering.

I am curious as to what this will do for their NAC strategy, if anything.

–Chris

Technorati Tags: Juniper, switches, NAC

No end to end encryption….no privacy

Chris Harrington — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 02:32:08 +0000

I have been following the case of Dan Egerstad from Sweden. He is the researcher who earlier this year posted the user names and passwords for 100 accounts on the Internet. Included in those accounts were ones from government embassies and major corporations. How did he obtain them? He used the Tor network.

I first learned of Tor while at the NSA, back then it was more commonly known as Onion Routing. Tor is basically a series of servers setup with software that allows the forwarding of packets while hiding the originating IP address. One of the biggest problems with Tor is the “last hop” or exit router. This is the last Tor server (node) that handles the packet before it reaches the destination. This last node sees everything being passed and is not encrypted, unless the connection to the destination is done using SSL / TLS, IPSec, etc. The other issue with the exit router is that anyone can set one up. Since Tor is an open network you just need hardware to run the Tor software and a network connection. This is where Dan came in.

Dan simply setup several Tor servers and analyzed the traffic passing through these exit servers. All total he was able to gather over 1000 user names / passwords. In the interest of disclosure he did make some attempts to notify the organizations involved. It seems in most cases he was ignored or not understood. He then posted 100 of those accounts on the Internet.

The moral of the story. Encrypt it end to end if you expect any degree of privacy. Transport level and application level encryption is so common place these days it amazes me the number of people that don’t use it. The Wall of Sheep at DefCon is a good representation of this. Will that solve everything? Of course not but it will definitely help.

–Chris

Technorati Tags: Tor, encryption, Dan Egerstad

Hushmail turns over encrypted email to the Feds

Chris Harrington — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:50:49 +0000

And you thought your Hushmail email was secure and private…..

blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/11/encrypted-e-mai.html

–Chris

Technorati Tags: Hushmail, encrytped email

The best VC post I have seen

Chris Harrington — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:54:08 +0000

There are a couple of VC blogs / sites that I read religiously. They are Fred Wilson from AVC, avc.blogs.com and Paul Graham, www.paulgraham.com/articles.html Even though I am no longer looking for VC funding I still try to keep my eye on that ball. You never know when you might need one.

Yesterday Fred Wilson had a post on the “lead investor”. It was a great description of those VC’s who say they will invest but didn’t want to lead the funding round. Having seen this first hand (from the other side of the table from Fred), I thought it was dead on. My favorite quote:

“If you are raising a financing of any kind, spend all of your time looking for a lead investor. Qualify every meeting upfront. If the investor won’t lead, don’t take the meeting.”

Good article.

–Chris

Technorati Tags: VC, investors, Fred Wilson

CSI 2007 Annual Conference

Chris Harrington — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 02:05:34 +0000

Its that time of year. The Computer Security Institute is holding its 2007 Annual conference in Alexandria, VA. The dates are November 3rd to November 9th. For those of you going you can get $100 of the full conference fee by using the code CSI2007. Conference details and registration can be found at www.csiannual.com. It looks like a great agenda.

The good folks at CSI were kind enough to give me a press pass and 2 conference passes for zilch, as they seem to have done with several of my fellow security bloggers. Sorry, I have already given the 2 passes to a couple of security geeks who really wanted to go.

I hope to see you there.

–Chris

Technorati Tags: CSI 2007, security conference, Alexandria

MikeTechShow.com live tonight

Chris Harrington — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:08:01 +0000

My friend Mike Smith from MikeTechShow.com will be live on ComputerAmerica tonight at 10:00 PM. Mike has has been podcasting for over 2 years now. I think Mike has an excellent technology podcast where he covers material for both the novice and experienced PC user. Recently he started streaming live video of his podcast on Ustream.

Please stop by and check it out.

–Chris

Technorati Tags: MiketechShow, podcast, ustream, ComputerAmerica

Bad NIC strands 17,000 at LAX

Chris Harrington — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 04:39:14 +0000

A bad network card in a PC is blamed for a network outage that stranded more than 17,000 people at Los Angeles International Airport last weekend. Here is the story.

Ouch…

–Chris

Technorati Tags: LAX, NIC, network outage

Whitedust.net called it quits?

Chris Harrington — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 02:50:56 +0000

I was looking for something tonight and clicked a link to a page on Whitedust Security’s news site, Whitedust.net. When I clicked on the link I got a page with only this:

14 August 2007 - 23:58 GMT

With the industry and those in it so seemingly hostile to Whitedust, and
pure apathy from anyone who thinks otherwise. Why bother. This site is
now closed permanently. It’s staff have abandoned the scene and the industry
for real world projects - for good, you won’t be seeing us again. You “Won”.

Good luck out there. You’ll need it.

-The Staff

Hoax, hack or real? I have not noticed anything about them closing down. Anybody know more about it?

–Chris

Technorati Tags: whitedust security, whitedust.net

Is Data Leak Prevention the next “big thing” in security?

Chris Harrington — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:25:55 +0000

I experienced first hand the IPS hype cycle working for a vendor, from early commercial products in 2003 to more mainstream adoption in 2006. My NAC vendor experience was shorter but I still was there for the big hype late last year and early this year. Was there a hype for Data Leak Prevention solutions like Vontu, Code Green Networks, Reconnex and GTB? I remember seeing several DLP vendors at RSA this year.

From a vendor standpoint (where I am now), I am seeing a big jump in awareness of DLP technology in our customer base. Granted we focus on the mid-market….there may be even more awareness in the Fortune 1000 and up. The sales are starting to trickle in for this technology as well.

We are also seeing M&A activity in this space. RSA recently acquired Tablus. This is a natural extension given the information life cycle management offerings that EMC (RSA’s parent company) is selling.

So my question remains, Is DLP the next big security technology? Will it follow in the footsteps of IPS and NAC?

–Chris

Technorati Tags: Data Leak Prevention, DLP, Vontu, Code Green, Reconnex, GTB