I am sitting on the porch reading a Sybase ASE document on transparent database encryption, so it’s ironic that a few minutes ago I got word that SAP bought Sybase for $5.8 billion. SAP posted a press release. This announcement is right on the heels of their partnership announcement last March.
MSNBC has an interesting news item: a German court is ordering all wireless routers to have a password, or the owners will be fined if it is discovered that someone used their connection illegally. From the post:
I wrote last Monday’s FireStarter on Process and Peer Pressure because there were a few things bothering me that I needed to get out of my system, but I saved a lot for later. I didn’t really intend to write this followup so soon, but I saw that Cisco announced their own Software Development Lifecycle. I wanted to make some statements on SDL later this year when I begin publishing more concrete Secure Software Development Lifecycle (SSDL in Securosis parlance, SDL for most organizations)…
Yesterday I finished up a presentation for the Secure360 Conference: “Putting the Fun in Dysfunctional – How the Security Industry Works, and Why It’s Your Fault”. This is a combination of a bunch of things I’ve been thinking about for a while, mostly focused on cognitive science and economics. Essentially, security makes a heck of a lot more sense once you start trying to understand why people make the decisions they do, which is a combination of their own internal workings and external…
I spend a heck of a lot of time researching, writing, and speaking about data security. One area that’s been very disappointing is the quality of many of the surveys. Most either try to quantify losses (without using a verifiable loss model), measure general attitudes to inspire some BS hype press release, or assess some other fuzzy aspect you can spin any way you want.
It’s kind of weird, but our first white paper to remain unsponsored is also the one I consider our best yet. Adrian and I have spent nearly two years pulling this one together – with more writes, re-writes, and do-overs than I care to contemplate.
Continuing our theme of quick and effective database security measures, we now move into the data protection phase. The most common (and potentially most effective) security measure for data at rest is encryption. Since we are shooting for fast and effective, we are looking at some form of transparent encryption. Almost every database has transparent encryption built in, and it is effective for securing data files and archives from snooping. Several vendors also offer forms of transparent…
I’ve been writing about data breaches for a long time now – ever since I received my first notification (from egghead.com) in 2002. For about 4 or 5 years now I’ve been giving various versions of my “Involuntary Case Studies in Data Breaches” presentation, where we dig into the history of data breaches and spend time detailing some of the more notable ones, from breach to resolution.
The other day it hit me: Process is not that important to secure code development. Waterfall? Doesn’t matter. Agile process? Secondary. They only frame the techniques that create success. Saying a process helps create secure code is like saying a cattle chute tames a wild Brahma bull. Guidelines, steps, and procedures do little to alter code security, only which code gets worked on. To motivate developers to improve security, try less carrot and more stick. Heck, process is not even a carrot –…
I’m starting to think I shouldn’t take vacations. Aside from the Symantec acquisition of PGP and GuardianEdge last week, someone went off and released the first open source DLP tool.