For a couple of weeks I’ve had a tickler on my to do list to write up the concept of virtual private storage, since everyone seems all fascinated with virtualization and clouds these days. Luck for me, Hoff unintentionally gave me a kick in the ass with his post today on EMC’s ATMOS. Not that he mentioned me personally, but I’ve had “baby brain” for a couple of months now and sometimes need a little external motivation to write something up. (I’ve learned that “baby brain” isn’t some sort of…
Securosis is a funny company. We have a very different work objectives and time requirements compared to, say, a software company. And the work we do as analysts is way different than an IT admin or security job. We don’t punch the clock, and we don’t have bosses or corporate politics to worry about. We don’t have a ‘commute’ per se , either, so all of the changes since I left my last company and joined have been for the better and do not take long to adapt to. Another oddity I recently learned…
This is the next installment in what is now officially the longest running blog series in Securosis history: Database Encryption. In case you have forgotten, Rich provided the Introduction and the first section on Media Protection, and I covered the threat analysis portion to help you determine which threats to consider when developing a database encryption strategy. You may want to peek back at those posts as a refresher if this is a subject that interests you, as we like to use our own…
You probably heard the news last week that hackers have infiltrated restricted computer databases at Cal Berkeley. 160,000 current and former students and alumni personal information “may” have been stolen. The University says social security numbers, health insurance information and non-treatment medical records dating back to 1999 were stolen. Within that data set was 97,000 Social Security Numbers, from both Berkeley and Mills College students who were eligible for medical treatment. I am…
Hey folks,
While we aren’t posting everything related to Project Quant here on the site, I will be putting up some major milestones. One of the biggies is to develop a survey to gain a better understanding of how organizations manage their patching processes.
I first got to know Martin McKeay back when I started blogging. The Network Security Blog was one of the first blogs I found, and Martin and I got to know each other thanks to blogging. Eventually, we started the Security Blogger’s Meetup together. After I left Gartner, Martin invited me to join him as a guest-host on the Network Security Podcast, and it eventually turned into a permanent position. I’ve really enjoyed both podcasting, and getting to know Martin better as we moved from…
CNET is reporting that last week the European Commission is proposing consumer protection laws be applied to software. Mentioning specifically anti-virus and video game software, commissioners Viviane Reding and Meglena Kuneva have proposed that EU consumer protections for physical products be extended to software in an effort to protect customers and implying that consumers would use more and buy more if the software was better.
I’d like to say I first became familiar with fire science back when I was in the Boulder County Fire Academy, but it really all started back in the Boy Scouts. One of the first things you learn when you’re tasked with starting, or stopping, fires is something known as the fire triangle. Fire is a pretty fascinating process when you dig into it. It demonstrates many of the characteristics of life (consumption, reproduction, waste production, movement), but is just a nifty chemical reaction…
Someone has finally captured my vision of what a data centric society without privacy rights looks like. This video is really funny … and scary. Law enforcement and drug companies have been doing this for years. And even if it is not public knowledge, many insurance companies are doing this as well. Orwell had no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes.
A lot of security related news this week in the mainstream press. What with Nuclear Secrets being a fringe benefit to eBay shopping. Other big names like McAfee exposing users to a CSRF and MI-6’s operations nixed on a missing memory stick. With security this bad, who needs Chinese hackers? What gets me is the simple stuff that gets missed. Unencrypted hard drives and memory sticks. WTF? Fighter jet plans and power grid control systems on networks, directly or indirectly attached to the…