Over the summer we initiated what turned out to be a pretty darn big data security survey. Our primary goal was to assess what data security controls people find most effective; and get a better understanding of how they are using the controls, what’s driving adoption, and a bit on what kinds of incidents they are experiencing.
In our last post we kicked off the DLP selection process by putting the team together. Once you have them in place, it’s time to figure out which information you want to protect. This is extremely important, as it defines which content analysis techniques you require, which is at the core of DLP functionality.
Since our main contention in the Understanding and Selecting an Enterprise Firewall series is the movement toward application aware firewalls, it makes sense to dig a bit deeper into the technology that will make this happen and the major uses for these capabilities. With an understanding of what to look for, you should be in a better position to judge whether a vendor’s application awareness capabilities will match your requirements.
As I mentioned previously, I’m working on an update to Understanding and Selecting a DLP Solution. While much of the paper still stands, one area I’m adding a bunch of content to is the selection process. I decided to buff it up with more details, and also put together a selection worksheet to help people figure out their requirements. This isn’t an RFP, but a checklist to help you figure out major requirements – which you will use to build your RFP – and manage the selection process.
I just got back from the AppSec 2010 OWASP conference in Irvine, California. As you might imagine, it was all about web application security. We security practitioners and coders generally agree that we need to “bake security in” to the development process. Rather than tacking security onto a product like a band-aid after the fact, we actually attempt to deliver code that is secure from the get-go. We are still figuring out how to do this effectively and efficiently, but it seems to me a very…
When there’s smoke, there’s usually fire. I’ve been pretty vocal over the past two weeks, stating that users need to forget what they are hearing about various rumored acquisitions, or how these deals will impact them, and focus on doing their jobs. They can’t worry about what deal may or may not happen until it’s announced. Well, this morning HP announced the acquisition of ArcSight, after some more detailed speculation appeared over the weekend. So is it time to worry yet?
The next step in our journey to understand and select an enterprise firewall has everything to do with management. During procurement it’s very easy to focus on shiny objects and blinking lights. By that we mean getting enamored with speeds, feeds, and features – to the exclusion of what you do with the device once it’s deployed. Without focusing on management during procurement , you may miss a key requirement – or even worse, sign yourself up to a virtual lifetime of inefficiency and wasted…
I attended the OWASP Phoenix chapter meeting earlier this week, talking about database encryption. The crowd was small as the meeting was the Tuesday after Labor day, rather than the normal Thursday slot. Still, I had a good time, especially with the discussion afterwards. We talked about a few things I know very little about. Actually, there are several areas of security that I know very well. There are a few that I know reasonably well, but as I don’t practice them day to day I really don’t…
Now that we’ve been through technical architecture considerations for the evolving firewall (Part 1, Part 2), let’s talk about deployment considerations. Depending on requirements, there many different ways to deploy enterprise firewalls. Do this wrong and you end up with either too many or too few boxes, single points of failure, suboptimal network access, and/or crappy application performance.
Tonight starts the Jewish New Year celebration – Rosh Hashanah. So L’Shana Tova to my Jewish peeps out there. I send my best wishes for a happy and healthy 5771. At this time of year, I usually go through my goals and take a step back to evaluate what I’ve accomplished and what I need to focus on for the next year. It’s a logical time to take stock of where I’m at. But as I’ve described, I’m moving toward a No Goal philosophy, which means the annual goal setting ritual must be jettisoned.