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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."
half of computer attacks seen by Microsoft come from the .edu domain
:) we all did it at one stage ;)
nothing to worry just students testing their scripts against big bad microsoft
over half of computer attacks seen by Microsoft come from the .edu domain
Actually, does this really surprise anyone? I think if you took away the botnets that might attack Microsoft, you might have
something more like 80%. Not that it was an attack, but I used to always use billy@microsoft.com as a return address when I was testing
e-mail or showing someone something.
Without all of the ads. Won't someone please think of my eyes?
That's quite the straw man... and it seems to be singing something...
*listens in*
"If I only had a brain..."
Hell you can kill someone and not even get that much time. If your rich or a politician you can get off completely.
I agree with punishment fitting the crime but I think you put too much value on the damage the cause. The simple fact is that too few of people take the required steps to protect themselves. People have locks on their homes and cars, they don't normally allow complete strangers inside, and most people won't give out personal information to complete strangers they meet. Yet when it comes to the net it seems as if all bets are off, you never know what they will do - other than it being stupid.
I am all for punishment, but damn, people put more value on things and animals than human life.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
i presume same things that spooks every other network admin
:(
*rooted linux boxes, yes these are dangerous in wrong hands
*Russian business network
*chineese spammers
*prolonged multi gbit DDOS
The reason why the security flaws are dropping is because the 2 largest groups of crackers are operating under foreign govs. The russians were out to make money, But now operate with the russian gov. In addition, the chinese crackers have also switched up. Why? Because they can do all this legally in their country and not worry about a bullet to the brain. The simple fact is, that 5 years ago, these folks were cracking systems for money. Now, they are cracking targeted systems (i.e. DOD) and using subtle openings. Almost certainly the big openings are being saved for future use.
Question: What do you think about Microsoft's U.S. general manager/chief security advisor?
Answer: I think it would be a good idea.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
What Spooks Microsoft's Chief Security Advisor?
Flying chairs?
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
"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...
HTTP/1.1 400
is that you end up making short cuts to bring products to market as quickly as the public demands with software.
It also doesn't help that software rarely has a chance to mature into a known quantity before it is tossed out for something new.
I've been tasked to junk systems that weren't perfect, but that worked well enough to get the job done because the customer was pissy about them. Rather than tell their people to get over it, they wanted something new.
And lo and behold, you might say "meet the new system, same as the old system" because they traded one not perfect system for another not perfect system that had its own new issues.
Mind you, I wouldn't have expected anything less from Microsoft's Chief Security Advisor.
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.
Come now, give credit: Mahatma Gandhi...
Reporter: "Mr. Gandhi, What do you think of western civilization?"
Gandhi: "I think it would be a good idea!"
He could have a Toyota sports car from 1992 and be very enthusiastic about it you know. Plenty of people would rather spend loads of money on their old MR2 than buy a new car.
Personally that's not my cup of tea, but it is pretty ignorant to label him as some kind of cheap moron and it is pretty daft to think that a top level manager at Microsoft is somehow a poor man.
Perhaps it is your horse that you should be dismounting from. Don't presume to speak on behalf of everyone else with regard to participation in unruly behaviors. Dipshit. We've all stolen a pack of gum or something from a store. ORLY??
Somebody owes me a free pack of gum, then. Apparently I missed "sticky finger day" when I was a kid. we need to separate the smarts kids being mischievous from the criminals committing real harm Your arrogance astounds me. You actually think that "mischievous" behavior and socially irresponsible law breaking is somehow correlated to "being smart". Wow.
Among the most frustrating findings for Arsenault: Just over half of all attacks originated from the .edu domain. "[That's] a fundamental problem," he said. "We've got to do a better job with the university systems to stop that."
There's a simple solution: stop maintaining the fiction that one company and one operating system can do it all. If you want to be a vendor of high-uptime, high-reliability systems, concentrate on that market segment and stop marketing your systems to the mass market. On the other hand, if you want to be a vendor of flaky commodity operating systems, stop worrying about your systems not being secure and stop marketing them as such (oh, and run your own corporate operations on something that actually is secure).
With Vista and other new products, Microsoft ships the hardening guide along with the product
Dell, Toshiba, HP, et el do not send that documentation along with a new machine when Vista is pre-installed. Could they be held accountable for people getting pwnd? Could this be an opening to get the M$ tax back when someone is forced to buy a machine with Vista on it?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I guess I'm just a "goody two shoes." When I was growing up, I never stole a pack of gum (or anything else) from a store. I never carved my name in a tree or participated in vandalizing something at all (much less as a "form of expression"). My motivations in my youth had nothing to do with mischief. I did experiment with computers, but they were my own computers or they were the school's and I was acting within the limits of my classroom activities. For example, when asked to program a slot machine program on an old Apple IIe, I finished *way* before everyone else. So I started adding in more features. I added in betting, and still people weren't done. So then I added in a mobster that you could borrow money from if you were broke. (I coded it so that you either paid him back in a certain number of turns or he broke an arm and a leg of yours, took all of your money, and the game ended.) I was exploring the limits of what my coding could do, but it was without causing harm/damage to someone else's property.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I mean seriously.... Bret Arsenault?
Did he legally change his name after he got hired? Other cool pseudo-names: Ima Baadash, Tod Newclierre, or John Wepunce.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
You "years" key is broken.
Your 'R' key is broken. =) I keed I keed!
This security guy cited userland applications as the next battleground in windows. This, to me, sounds like he is trying to drum up support for completely locking down user space and only allowing signed apps to run in future versions of windows. Vista already forbids non-signed kernel mode drivers from running and has the ability to differentiate between signed/unsigned user apps. Previously, in XP, signed kernel mode drivers were an option and it was _not_ forced upon you. Application development on windows in the future might resemble iPhone development were you have to pay MS or some cert. authority a fee for every app that you want to distribute. As with anything, these future features will be advertised as for improving security when it is really about control and money. These are troubling trends.
Again, you are being "absolutist" about this, and that is the problem. Your descriptions do not describe mere mischief, but harassment and intimidation. They *may be* acts described as vandalism, but they are more serious than what I'm talking about.
Putting a sticker on a street sign. Carving your name in a tree. Small mischievous things are far different than wholesale destruction.
This "zero tolerance" absolutist world we live in doesn't allow children to make mistakes or recover from bad judgment. One mistake and they want to bring the full force of law down on you.
Some transgressions should not be considered crime even though they share some similarity, and in some cases repercussions, as real crime. Kids have bad judgment, it is a fact and it is a flaw in human beings. We should seriously consider this during prosecution.