What Spooks Microsoft's Chief Security Advisor

alphadogg writes "Microsoft's U.S. general manager/chief security advisor for its National Security Team, Bret Arsenault, thinks like a true security professional. In every bit of good news, he wonders what bad news could be coming. Application security, virtualization security and the fact that over half of computer attacks seen by Microsoft come from the .edu domain are just some of the things keeping him up at night."

Comments

Re:students sharpening their pens

[an.echte.trilingue]

True. Students usually have time on their hands, knowledge at their disposal and being young they still have an underdeveloped sense for the potential consequences of their actions. Oh, and T1 connections directly into the dorms. Just talk to somebody who administers a university network: trying to keep students from "playing" with the school infrastructure is a nightmare.

Re:students sharpening their pens

[morgan_greywolf]

Fatter pipes are bigger targets to would-be evildoers, as it gives them more bandwidth with which to carry out their nefarious deeds. That makes a rooted .edu box almost as important a component of Dr. Evil In Trainings' arsenal as a hollowed out volcano island. At one time that was true. Not anymore. Haven't you heard? Fat pipes are cheap and increasingly common these days.

What do you prefer?

[miffo.swe]

"Application security, virtualization security and the fact that over half of computer attacks seen by Microsoft come from the .edu domain are just some of the things keeping him up at night."

As a user of said computers/servers i much prefer a scripthappy student whimsing around my systems alerting me about security issues. What do worries me are govt founded hackers stealing sensitive information, research and other secrets leaving no n00b traces for me to discover. Its not the actual breakin that worries me but what the perpetrator do thats an issue. If someone breaks in but does no harm i can live with that. My feelings may get hurt but the company is ok atleast.

An application/OS vendor ofcourse prefer the stealth hacker since the student hacker brings into attention all the various security issues with their products and makes people look for other options. Many vendors prefer a company being hacked to pieces before letting an exploit being known publicly. Microsofts own exploit policy is a very telling sign of this. As long as an exploit isnt used extensively its not going to get patched regardless of how many systems are exploitable. That worries me at night...

Computer Security what is a crime and what isn't?

[mlwmohawk]

I hear a lot of people make the analogy that computer breaches are like breaking and entering, and while some of the actions are, some are clearly not.

Mischief is the motivation of youth. Vandalism is a form of expression. We've all participated in it in some form, so everyone get off their high horse, and rather than "get tough on crime," its time to figure out the difference between kids having fun and serious criminals. It is also time to make computer systems in "the digital world" as resilient to mischief and vandalism as real physical buildings are in the real world.

We've all carved our names in a tree in a park. We've all stolen a pack of gum or something from a store. We've all done petty crimes when we were young. The difference in the digital world is that everything is so brittle and poorly built and the mischief that is expected from youth ends up costing companies [B|M]illions of dollars. In the classic movie, "War Games," a kid practically starts world war III, the analogy fits if you excuse the hyperbole.

From a societal point of view, we need to separate the smarts kids being mischievous from the criminals committing real harm, just like we do in the real world.