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A Look at Microsoft's Security War Room
Josh Fink writes "C|Net has an interesting piece about Microsoft's Security War Room, or rather, shall I say rooms. This room came about when Microsoft's security chief, Mike Nash, had issues finding open conference rooms. The response; a dedicated room only for him and his staff to handle emergencies. "And while he was at it, why not have two? That way, the folks working on fixing a security crisis could have a little breathing room from those drafting the public and customer communications around the issue. ""
"No Penguins Allowed"
Anyone notice that all the swivel chairs are bolted to the ground? I wonder why they made them fixed and permanent.
Viruses, backdoors, security holes, buffer overflows, trojans galore... and they get a room. Ooooh, they're so dedicated to security!
They have a big sign out front indicating security, but they don't even have locks on the kitchen cabinets.
...any windows there... ;)
Microsoft's top engineers relentlessly persue their war on security.
Home fucking is killing prostitution.
But where is the "sekrit world headquarters" of Linux that they intend to nuke?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
One dedicated fix team for all that code?
That wouldn't make sense at all, there's too much for anyone to grasp. It would be like a dedicated fix team that cover Linux+KDE+OpenOffice. (replace Linux with OpenSolaris or *BSD if you like, KDE with Gnome or some other high-feature window/session/desktop manager if you like)
It's to complex to keep aware of the ins-and-outs of everything - just one of those would be hard enough. Each project should have their own dedicated fix team - The top-string regular devs for the project (hence they understand the code), maybe one or two outsiders (another perspective), who normally work on the specific project, but drop everything and work on fixes if they occur.
Also, it never said that they didn't (or for that matter, did) already have a dedicated team then (or now), simply that until '05, they had to share conference rooms.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
When I read there were two rooms, my first reaction was: one to work on the current security threat, a second to work on the security threats created by the first one...
It's a backup for when the first room crashes!
- a bag of pretzels
- a couple bottles of hersheys chocolate syrup
- one can of soda or juice
- a couple containers of nondairy creamer
- 3 bottles that look like liquor bottles
All that to feed a group of engineers that "gets hit with an emergency and has to pull an all-nighter."Sounds like a typical geek diet to me.
it's nice that it's so clearly stated exactly why there is this "war room". We have similar requests by various teams in our organization as if a war room is some amazing thing that you just can't live without. In reality it's almost always because some asshat can't be bothered to book meeting rooms in advance. If all the rooms are always booked, add more rooms. What you end up with is a room that no one else can use and except in dire situations, no one is using at ALL.
In somebody's defense, they probably just picked up the concept and terminology from large telcos. If you go to a large network operations center (say like what AT&T operates in Piscataway, NJ) you will find two or more good-sized conference rooms provisioned with 10-15 workstations each that sit idle 99 percent of the time. Just used in cases of major outages/problems or sometimes for network upgrades. Known as the "war rooms" for as long as I am aware.
There is no one in those rooms!
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
I expected this, not some crummy office with a conference table.
"You can't patch in here, this is the Microsoft Security War Room!"
I've been in a few war rooms, control centers, command centers, etc etc etc over the years. Even helped design one a little. 4 Flat screens is all they've got? Four? That's no war room. Scuffle closet maybe?
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
I am interested in joining your war on the inappropriate use of the word 'war'.
Considering how many moles are in CTU, I definitely see the resemblence to Microsoft security.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Seriously, a few photos of a conference room? And Harvey Keitel and an espresso machine? This is just a room where people sit down to discuss issues. Just like in every office everywhere in the world, except this one has some TVs on the wall. Can I please have that 10 minutes of my life back?
It seems fitting they have a picture of Harvey Keitel playing The Wolf character from Pulp Fiction hung on the wall.
I've had to clean up after a large scale Microsoft failure a few times, and it the whole process did seem like going on "Brain Detail" in the back of a car.
-ted
...
The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) was completed in June 2005. Why would anyone shill 2+ year old "news"?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
But... Microsoft told me they take security seriously! They wouldn't lie to me!
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Please wear a helmet; look out for flying chairs.
I'm sure they're vastly simplifying their processes. This seems to just be a triage centre (and a fairly rudimentary one too). I doubt the actual fixing takes place here, rather just co-ordinating that process.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 Whoops, silly middle mouse button...
that's kinda what I was trying to say, but you were much more concise.
showoff
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
The proper name is "War on Security". It's not supposed to be used outside of Redmond though.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Glad I did some checking. I had started typing up a response challenging you to ascii-art tic-tac-toe right here on /. I had even made a mention of $50 via PayPal. "Think first, post second" saves the day again, (but didn't quite kick in before I made my original post.)
I still stand by my claim on WinME, though.
Redundancy is good And also good.
Why do I get a vision of Jack Bauer taking orders from Bill Gates to wipe some Chinese online terrorists off the map from some CTU-like complex?
Because you watch too much TV?
Comment of the year