Slashdot Mirror
The New School of Information Security
Ben Rothke writes "It is 2008
and never has so much been spent in information security.
Year after year, more and more security hardware and software is
purchased, more and more security professionals are hired, and more security
is done; yet things are not getting better. Every
indicator, every pundit, everything points to more security breaches,
vulnerabilities and incidents. Large amounts of
proprietary data are compromised on a daily basis.
Obviously something is wrong, yet the entire industry goes along
thinking things are getting better and more secure.
Obviously something needs to change. And
that new change is what The New School of Information Security
attempts to conceive."
The New School of Information Security
author
Adam Shostack and Andrew Stewart
pages
288
publisher
Addison-Wesley
rating
9
reviewer
Ben Rothke
ISBN
978-0321502780
summary
Information security is highly broken; this book suggests a realistic fix.
Far too
much of the security industry has its roots in FUD.
Billions of dollars of information security
products have been sold, and for what? The
book asks why is information security so dysfunctional and why companies are
often wasting so much money on security.
So what is this thing called the new
school? The authors define it as neither a service
nor a product; rather it is a new approach that uses the scientific method and
objective data. This in turn gives an entirely new
perspective from diverse fields to make effective security
decisions. The authors
rightly believe that when objective data is used, it enables better
decision-making.
The New School of Information Security is a ground-breaking text in that it attempts to remove the reader from the hype of information security, and enables the reader to focus on the realities of security. The fact that such a book needs to be written in 2008 shows the sorry state of information security.
The book starts out with observations of why there are so many failures within information security. Anyone with experience in security can easily relate to these issues. One recurring theme throughout the book is that poor data, be it research or advertising negatively effects the state of security. The authors astutely note that security advertising often does a disservice to the security field because it glosses over complex problems and presents the illusions of a reality in which a security panacea exists. It makes the buyer believe they can reach that panacea by using their service or purchasing their product.
In creating their new school, the authors have no qualms in attacking the dogma of the current state of information security. From Gartner to the Executive Alliance and more, the authors show that these groups and more often suffer from issues such as bias, lack of a scientific method and more. The book notes that the search for objective data on information security is at the heart of the philosophy of the new school. Since there is a drought of objective data today, the book asks how can we know that the conventional wisdom is the right thing to do? The observation is that the current state of affairs is unsustainable for the commercial security industry and for security practitioners.
The title of chapter 5 gives away the theme of the book — Amateurs Study Cryptography — Professionals Study Economics. The idea is that information security must do a better job of embracing such diverse fields as economics, psychology, sociology and more, to make effective decisions.
In some ways, the authors are perhaps too aggressive in their desire for security statistics. One of the most scientific approaches to information security is from CERT (www.cert.org). Yet the authors are not satisfied with CERT's findings that the majority of incidents appear to be insider based. Given what data and statistics we have in 2008, the figures from CERT are certainly good enough. Yes, they could be better, and yes, breach data is not actuarial data, but given the data from CERT, combined with recent news and court cases (UBS, Société Générale,etc.) clearly show that insiders are the most insidious threat.
Also, while the current state of information security is indeed less than perfect, the authors are a bit too condescending of areas where security is formalized (ISO 27001, etc.), yet not perfect.
After years of countless 1,000+ page massive security books, The New School of Information Security succinctly spreads its message in a brief 160 pages. In those 160 pages, the author's detail at a high-level what needs to be done to create this new school. Therein lays the books only flaw, its brevity. The authors want to get the concept of the new school out there, but they do not detail enough of the necessary requirement to make it work. They show with clarity how things are broken, but don't do enough to show how to fix it. Let's hope the authors are at work on a follow-up writing those necessary additions.
Some Slashdot readers are likely to question how an author (Shostack) can write a book on security while being employed by Microsoft. Even with all its security issues, what many do not realize is that no software company has spent more on security in the past decade than Microsoft. Indeed they have a lot of catching up to do, but it is being done. Put another way, Microsoft has likely spent more on security than China has spent on democracy.
Too much of information security is clearly broke and The New School of Information Security is about fixing it. The author's pragmatic approach is a refreshing respite from years of security product based FUD and silver-bullet solutions. The approach of the new school is one that screams out to be put into place. It is the job of today's CISO's and CIO's to heed that call, take the initiative, and lead their organizations there. Either they graduate their staff from the new school, or we are faced with more decades of information security failures.
Let's hope The New School of Information Security is indeed a new start for information security. The book is practical and pragmatic, and one of the most important security books of the last few years. Those serious about information security should definitely read it, and encourage others to do the same.
Ben Rothke is a security consultant with BT and the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase The New School of Information Security from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The New School of Information Security is a ground-breaking text in that it attempts to remove the reader from the hype of information security, and enables the reader to focus on the realities of security. The fact that such a book needs to be written in 2008 shows the sorry state of information security.
The book starts out with observations of why there are so many failures within information security. Anyone with experience in security can easily relate to these issues. One recurring theme throughout the book is that poor data, be it research or advertising negatively effects the state of security. The authors astutely note that security advertising often does a disservice to the security field because it glosses over complex problems and presents the illusions of a reality in which a security panacea exists. It makes the buyer believe they can reach that panacea by using their service or purchasing their product.
In creating their new school, the authors have no qualms in attacking the dogma of the current state of information security. From Gartner to the Executive Alliance and more, the authors show that these groups and more often suffer from issues such as bias, lack of a scientific method and more. The book notes that the search for objective data on information security is at the heart of the philosophy of the new school. Since there is a drought of objective data today, the book asks how can we know that the conventional wisdom is the right thing to do? The observation is that the current state of affairs is unsustainable for the commercial security industry and for security practitioners.
The title of chapter 5 gives away the theme of the book — Amateurs Study Cryptography — Professionals Study Economics. The idea is that information security must do a better job of embracing such diverse fields as economics, psychology, sociology and more, to make effective decisions.
In some ways, the authors are perhaps too aggressive in their desire for security statistics. One of the most scientific approaches to information security is from CERT (www.cert.org). Yet the authors are not satisfied with CERT's findings that the majority of incidents appear to be insider based. Given what data and statistics we have in 2008, the figures from CERT are certainly good enough. Yes, they could be better, and yes, breach data is not actuarial data, but given the data from CERT, combined with recent news and court cases (UBS, Société Générale,etc.) clearly show that insiders are the most insidious threat.
Also, while the current state of information security is indeed less than perfect, the authors are a bit too condescending of areas where security is formalized (ISO 27001, etc.), yet not perfect.
After years of countless 1,000+ page massive security books, The New School of Information Security succinctly spreads its message in a brief 160 pages. In those 160 pages, the author's detail at a high-level what needs to be done to create this new school. Therein lays the books only flaw, its brevity. The authors want to get the concept of the new school out there, but they do not detail enough of the necessary requirement to make it work. They show with clarity how things are broken, but don't do enough to show how to fix it. Let's hope the authors are at work on a follow-up writing those necessary additions.
Some Slashdot readers are likely to question how an author (Shostack) can write a book on security while being employed by Microsoft. Even with all its security issues, what many do not realize is that no software company has spent more on security in the past decade than Microsoft. Indeed they have a lot of catching up to do, but it is being done. Put another way, Microsoft has likely spent more on security than China has spent on democracy.
Too much of information security is clearly broke and The New School of Information Security is about fixing it. The author's pragmatic approach is a refreshing respite from years of security product based FUD and silver-bullet solutions. The approach of the new school is one that screams out to be put into place. It is the job of today's CISO's and CIO's to heed that call, take the initiative, and lead their organizations there. Either they graduate their staff from the new school, or we are faced with more decades of information security failures.
Let's hope The New School of Information Security is indeed a new start for information security. The book is practical and pragmatic, and one of the most important security books of the last few years. Those serious about information security should definitely read it, and encourage others to do the same.
Ben Rothke is a security consultant with BT and the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase The New School of Information Security from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
In my opinion, one of the most worrying trends in the computer security world was Bruce Schneier's turn from crypto guru to security consultant. He now gives only vague pronouncements of security, doesn't seem to seek to empower the community, and his books like Secrets and Lies seem designed to sell Counterpane's services. Has lessening interest in widespread use of crypto led to security experts closing themselves off in consultancy bubbles?
Throwing more "experts" at the problem doesn't make the problems go away. Just like making passwords more complex doesn't seem to increase security, especially when the average user doesn't seem to be getting any better (still writing password on post-its, etc)
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
One crippling problem with gathering hard numerical data about security is that so many incidents go unreported. A few make it into books, a few make it into the press, but most are solved internally.
If you have a fire, the fire department will write it down and it will go into national statistics that fire insurance companies can bet money on. If you have a security breach, would you even try involving law enforcement?
Another hassle is that so many of the costs are hard to quantify. Loss of revenue after a fire is something you can pin down. Loss of reputation or consumer confidence after a breach? The numbers will be uselessly fuzzy.
Compare and contrast these two quotes:
Year after year, more and more security hardware and software is purchased, more and more security professionals are hired, and more security is done; yet things are not getting better.
And:
Even with all its security issues, what many do not realize is that no software company has spent more on security in the past decade than Microsoft.
"Do as I say, not as I do?"
The issue is not how we handle security, but rather a fundamental flaw with the technology itself..
Meaning, the design of files themselves make it too easy to copy them. Also, trying to slap on some sort of encryption layer is laughable at best because once the encryption is removed all security goes along with it.
In my opinion, as an industry we need to re-examine how documents are managed. I suspect a considerably better approach is more of a "looking glass" to managing data where instead of actually having the physical files move around the network, you instead have sort of a vnc type approach where you only view the document where it resides. Yes, there are allot of complexities to this approach, but fundamentally I think this is where the industry needs to go...
"Even with all its security issues, what many do not realize is that no software company has spent more on security in the past decade than Microsoft." I guess that goes to show us that security is one problem you can't just throw money at and make it go away.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
I hope everyone reads this book. I think they make a great point about looking at business practices as security vulnerabilities.
The authors astutely note that security advertising often does a disservice to the security field because it glosses over complex problems and presents the illusions of a reality in which a security panacea exists. It makes the buyer believe they can reach that panacea by using their service or purchasing their product.
MARKETING causes problems?!! I'd have never dreamed of such a concoction of lunacy! This guy wants to make us think we'd actually be safer without the Nortons and McAfees of the world. I tell you this buddy, you can pry my annual $50 subscription from my cold dead hands!! I say we hunt down this guy with torches and rope in hand!
No,I do not work for Norton. What a silly question. That thousand bucks the guy in Norton shirt just gave me is totally normal, so never you mind it. Anyways, lynch the heretic!
I got a catholic block.
Devry Institute*
*Credits unlikely to transfer.
The difference between the rich and the poor is greater than ever, and power over the unwilling must be maintained through security.
What... criminy... can you put down your Karl Marx for a second and look at the reality.
The solution is to re-engineer the economic system, to prevent people from having the capability of getting so rich that poor people feel they are better off attacking or exploiting the system than they are living within its boundaries.
There's always going to be jealousy and that jealousy is more the fault of the have-nots than the haves. Guess what? If you are stupid, you will not get rich.
I always love how socialists argue that we are too caught up in property while they, more than anyone else, continually keeps score on who has what.
This is my sig.
Economics is only one of many motivations for attempting to exploit a system. There's also fame and politics that we see quite regularaly.
Secondly, even if by some unbelieveable turn of events, there were no financial motivations for hacking, that's no reason at all to be lax about security.
I think I'd beg to differ. Consider the growth rate of deployed systems and data, and compare to the number of security incidents. I think someone could make a strong argument that it IS getting better, proportionately. The internet has such impressive growth, it's hard to notice the change. Check out any sites with historical trends of reported security incidents (dshield.org, cert.org, whomever). They all show very large growth rates up until 2006, where they tend to level off. The internet didn't stop growing during that period, we just managed to catch up.
I think what's likely is that Schneier realized that availability of good crypto isn't the only link in the security chain, and it's probably been a while since it was a candidate for weakest link.
Hence the discussion about how security as a field is reaching out to other disciplines -- organizational behavior and sociology and economics are essential because you're looking at the problem of why business organizations don't do well at security, and it isn't just a technical matter.
Tweet, tweet.
any suggestion to "communism" is going to lead to blood shed. Just submit to the power and there shall be peace. Surrendering is the only solution.
May the Jew man shall control this planet forever!
In my opinion, as an industry we need to re-examine how documents are managed.
And what's the cost benefit of that? You are talking about security and secrecy but really at the price of throwing innovation and efficiency out the window.
How can anyone on slashdot in their right mind be so dull-wittingly committed to doing in IT the very things that caused so many societies to fail! Secrecy and an atmosphere of secrecy, authentication at every turn,... my god, we have turned information into a virtual police state where you have to have papers, everywhere you go. And guess what, our digital Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia has failed just as much as their physical counterparts did.
Centralization is why IT sucks. Big Data Centers = Big Government, with the same long lead times, ineffective management, unaccountable projects and reduced performance.
We don't need an internet web 2.0, we need a PC 2.0 and push the data and decisions out to the people.
The best way to improve a company's efficiency is to eliminate internal gestapo security.
This is my sig.
In my understanding, most sensitive data is stolen from improperly configured applications that permit access to weakly secured databases. See TJX for an example. File permissions have nothing to do with this (except on a very low, irrelevant level).
This is a people problem. People write bad code, configure servers poorly, and manage security inefficiently.
Most sales people went into that field because they are good at manipulating people on an emotional level; some actively hate any quantatative methods, and cannot do basic statistical analysis.
Can you blame them, though? How many people really buy based on scientific evidence and through research, rather than emotions? E.g. we all "know" that Linux is more secure than Windows...
I've been saying for years: More computer security is not better computer security!
Most security can sometimes even lead to less security! A system that is too hard to access because of it's security will eventually be bypassed by the normal users, leaving you with a bigger security hole is one example of this. Customers who put three different firewall programs on their computer, plus the one on their router is another example.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I seriously believe that one of the reasons throwing money at the problem hasn't been working is that people who are implementing these things aren't the best possible candidates.
How many IT projects have you worked on where the company hires one of these huge consulting firms, spends millions of dollars, and still has problems after all is said and done? I think one of the problems is the business model of these firms. The head schmooze crowd takes the CIO for a round of golf or two, and convinces them that the firm is the answer to all their security questions. The next day, a bunch of barely-trained "security consultants" descend on the company and begin making all sorts of recommendations/purchases. Sounds cynical, but I've seen it many many times. It's also applicable for any system replacement project, development project, etc.
The other problem is marketing of security products. How many times have you heard from a relative, "Oh, I've got Norton Internet Security, I'm safe." Vendors have a lot of people convinced that if they install their toolset, they can totally drop their guard.
That actually is a pretty good argument... I would agree that no technology in the world will stand up to someone simply giving the information away... :)
Computer security begins and ends with the user common sense. If the user is not informed on common data security practices, up to date exploits, viruses, mal-ware, spyware, what have you, then they don't really have sense enough of where to start in the first place. Sure, you can buy yourself all the Anti-virus protection you want, but that isn't going to protect you from ignorance. Security software protects users from security breaches. It doesn't protect them from dumb.
"... Microsoft has likely spent more on security than China has spent on democracy"
Very creative. I can do that, too! My example: Women spend more money on makeup than children spend on trapping hedgehogs.
Microsoft makes more money when computers are less secure, because many people who have malware buy new computers: Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster.
In a conflict between weapons and armor, weapons eventually win.
What is going on in "computer security" now is a conflict where the bad guys use weapons and the good guys only use armor.
Just as with ordinary security - safes, locked doors, walls, armor, military "defense", etc. - attempts at IT infrastructure security only slow, not stop, the perpetrators. In ordinary security the "war" must be taken to the enemy - with self-defense deterrence and counterattacks, arrest/trial/incarceration, or retaliatory war. Why should information security be any different?
But as of now there is essentially no consequence - except occasional failure and the need to adjust tools to evade the latest security tweaks. The result has been an opportunity, and financial incentive, to develop a powerful security-breaking infrastructure and several very lucrative businesses based on it.
So things will keep getting worse until there is retaliation that creates enough consequences to knock the perpetrators down in number of perpetrators and longevity of activity.
Retaliation produces collateral damage, so this won't be pleasant. But systematically letting bad guys get away with their crimes creates a rising exponential of wrongdoing that eventually sucks the lifeblood out of the rest of the population. Eventually this will become so egregious that the rest of the population will be willing to accept the collateral damage if it knocks down the problem.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You'd still be moving the document, of course -- just, in this case, as a bitmap -- possibly JPEG-compressed. And if you're X-forwarding, then the text is actually available, in fact.
The problem is basic to the technology, but I think it's much more fundamental.
Analog electronics had a problem: Data was degraded as it was processed. Digital electronics solved the problem -- by copying the data in order to restore it at each step. Copying is inherent to the nature of digital technology. The minute I give you a D-flip-flop, you can copy a bit.
Adding layers of abstraction -- like "we'll send bitmap snapshots of the document to you instead of an ASCII stream" -- complicates matters a little, and might foil casual copying, but it doesn't fundamentally change the situation.
That said, I think you may be on to something. Crypto took a giant leap forward when people said, "let's use a crypto function that everybody understands, but which is simply hard to invert." Likewise, perhaps data management problems can be solved by saying, "We acknowledge that you can copy whatever bits we give you; we're just going to choose a horrendously inefficient coding scheme (like representing text documents as bitmaps) so that there are too many bits for you to copy using the available time and bandwidth without someone noticing." In fact, this even has some mathematical foundation: There is currently no way to determine the Kolmogorov complexity of a sequence. (Although we have some good compression algorithms, they still make assumptions which can be easily broken: Try dumping the output of a million calls to rand() to a file and zipping it. It'll be huge, even though you can represent the sequence with just the definition of your rand() function and the seed you used). I'm thinking this basic idea is a large part of the MPAA's motivation the move to higher and higher HD, for instance; in the extreme, they could give up on encryption, and replace it with a known nontrivial problem: Downsampling and recoding video. It's not quite the same magnitude as factoring products of large primes, but it's still a computational pain in the butt when you're talking about a 50GB Blu-Ray disc.
Another question, though, would be this: Is copying documents the main security issue companies face?
"It is 2008 and never has so much been spent in information security. ... Every indicator, every pundit, everything points to more security breaches, vulnerabilities and incidents."
Hey, you don't suppose there's a connection, do you?
Engineers became engineers because they have no social skills. What? Don't like generalizations? Don't think anyone can read someone's mind, let alone a whole group of people? No? Then don't be part of it. Jus' sayin'
I've found in the commercial world that security in all of its flavors makes up no more than 10% of any outsourcing deal no matter how large or complex either the outsourcing deal is or the security requirements themselves. 8% is closer to the norm with some deals in the 3-4% range. That cost represents the total cost over the entire lifecycle including all labor and hardware. So I'm left wondering what people mean when they complain that so much money is being spent on security. If you're spending 1.6 million a year on an 80 million dollar deal, is that a lot?
You guys are just about hitting the nail on the head. The problem is not so much in the complexity or quantity of security measures, but the policies and training presented to the users. I believe that over half of the users in my organization could not recognize a security threat and would most likely give their password out over the phone if the person calling them said they were in the IT department. Imagine if companies held a short class or training session about once a week to identify, react, and report threats. A little bit of training goes a long way. You don't need an expert to tell you that.
PYROPHOR
as it leads to apps not working and it can slow work down so much that high up people tell the people under them to by pass it and do your job with out waiting for the over worked, under staffed and under payed IT guys to get around to it.
Information security is not dysfunctional. The author's logic is flawed. "Billions of dollars of information security products have been sold". "... everything points to more security breaches, vulnerabilities and incidents." [Therefore] "information security [is] so dysfunctional." I think most working Security professionals would point to other "things" that lead to this state of bad security. Probably the two largest factors being: bad decisions by management and the lack of accountability (for both management (CEO/CIO) and software vendor). With all of these breeches when was the last time we heard of anyone going to jail or being fine in a large way? If someone breaks into your site by means of a vulnerability in the Operating system or Web server, can you hold the software company liable for their crappy software? Until society or corporations decides to make people accountable then there is no incentive to make security work. And until this happens the "New school" will not be anymore successful than the "Old school."
The problem with IT security is that the solutions are that of being reactive to problems, and that we're asking for "secure" computing from nontrusted resources. There's never any proactive look at resources and doing proper planning for what sort of problems might develop (at least in my workplace). Project Managers and accountants never like to dole out money for dealing with exploits and issues that "might, in the future, become a hazard," and so the IT team is only rushing around putting out fires instead of fireproofing the place. Security needs to be taken seriously, and in first and foremost consideration, from end point to end point in software/hardware products rather than slapped on almost as an afterthought. Also, We need to do away with concepts like Service Oriented Architectures and Netcentric Warfare. /rant
disclaimer: IANACSE (I am not a computer security expert)
This space intentionally left blank
Money spent on something doesn't mean it's well spent or even useful, if you work with idiots.
.extensions at the time as a crude early measure to prevent them being executed. Now her computer is acting all funny and can we take a look at it?
Witness a former manager who got an executable attachment through our email system. She proceeds to tell me how she thought the email must have been IMPORTANT since it was from someone in her address book that she kenw, and it said URGENT. So she renamed the attachement to get around the fact we were mangling
ARRRGHHH!
Fight poison with poison.
"The New Age. The New Beginning."
To say INFOSEC is dysfunctional comes from someone who doesn't understand just how complex it can be.
I don't think the parent is talking about standardizing his password across every service he uses. I think he's talking about standardizing what a password can consist of and what constitutes a standard length, and a *tiny* bit of sanity regarding human factors in memory and use.
I understand in practice that might allow people to collapse to a narrow set of passwords. But I think it's also possible that this kind of standardization could allow people's ideas about what constitutes a good password to coalesce around a few basic points, which might let them more readily create a few.
And the parent is absolutely right that rotating random strings of characters every three months presents a use problem. One type of security analyst might say "suck it up, there's a tradeoff between security and use," and if you can get the user to suck it up and that works in the context of the organization, that's great. But if not, this brings us to the point in the "Amateurs study crypto, pros study economics" phrase. If you really want a secure system, solve both problems. Provide the user with some security practice that isn't going to cost him cycles the operation of the organization is going to demand he use somewhere else.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
---I'm thinking this basic idea is a large part of the MPAA's motivation the move to higher and higher HD, for instance; in the extreme, they could give up on encryption, and replace it with a known nontrivial problem: Downsampling and recoding video. It's not quite the same magnitude as factoring products of large primes, but it's still a computational pain in the butt when you're talking about a 50GB Blu-Ray disc.
I think its fair to say that even if cpu speeds hold steady, our cores will grow. Given that, I'd venture how one beats the resolution problem is thus: scene detection and video computation per scene. Parallelization solves much of those perceived complexity issues.
And it only takes 1 pirate to transcode it to smaller.
One of the most "worrying" trends?
Crypto isn't the problem it used to be 20 years ago. Nowaday, if you want to implement a cypher that no governments on earth will ever be able to break, you actually can. Sure, there are still research being made, but it has stop being the major issue in information security it once was.
Schneier was very smart to switch the focus of his energy. He correctly saw the emerging issues of his domain of expertise. And he did it in a period when way too many IT professional thought being secure meant installing firewalls.
Any security person worth his salt knows that you need to do analysis of the effectiveness of the control vs cost of the product.
If security practitioners dont practice defense in depth, and rely on a security black box, then that organization isn't doing their job with regard to due diligence.
People have been practicing defense-in depth for over a decade. Where things are failing is security as a process, and they are failing in how they are selecting tools. SIEM, NAC, and DLP are all pretty much smoke and mirrors. They can be replaced with solid policies, outbound access controls, and centralized logging.
I seriously believe that one of the reasons throwing money at the problem hasn't been working is that people who are implementing these things aren't the best possible candidates.
:)
It's a specific case of a larger problem: when it comes to hiring (whether a consultant or employee), "it take one to know one." If you don't have a good eye for quality industrial design, how will you be able to pick out a good industrial designer? If you don't really know something about information security, how will you recognize a competent individual or company?
The fallback alternatives aren't great. Reputation is trusting someone else (or groups of other people) to solve the problem... but this reduces back to the original problem (how will you know whether their estimation of someone's ability is reliable if you don't know what it takes to make that estimation accurately?). Certification is essentially institutionalized reputation. Resumes are trusting someone to distill their own reputation. And these are the *better* alternatives to simply swallowing marketing.
This extends into the realm of "best practices" -- which best practices? How do you know which ones are right for your organization? If you know them only by reputation, you won't understand the principles behind them and will likely apply them incorrectly.
A good chunk of industry has a major problem with both of these. I don't know how to solve it per se, but I'm glad to see the technical discipline of Info Security looking beyond the technical issues to the organizational and human ones. This kind of issue is what they're going to have to come to grips with if any progress is to be made on IT problems.
Tweet, tweet.
"In my opinion, one of the most worrying trends in the computer security world was Bruce Schneier's turn from crypto guru to security consultant"
You're entitled to your opinion, in the great scheme of things, a worse trend was when billg decided to embed Internet Explorer in the OS so as to kill Netscape.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Far too much of the security industry has its roots in FUD.
And so does this review.
love is just extroverted narcissism
You can have the latest, most sophisticated (and probably expensive) security hardware and software imaginable, use military-grade encryption on every single file, and post armed guards at the entrance to your data center.
But guess what? NONE of the above will make the slightest bit of difference as long as there are still people who write their passwords on sticky-notes without a second thought, and paste them to the front of their monitor, the inside of their desk drawer, or wherever.
None of the above will help as long as you still have people who are gullible enough to fall for phishing E-mails, and give up sensitive personal data, passwords and SSN's included, as long as the mail looks remotely legitimate.
Most especially: None of the above will help until each and every person that uses a computer starts getting a little bit paranoid and thinking "Is what I'm doing right now sensitive? Could it be compromised? If so, how? How would I do it if I were the attacker?"
Whatever else you may think of Bruce Schneier(sp?), he's got one thing absolutely spot-on: The first and most vulnerable point of attack in ANY computer setup, networked or not, is the person making use of that computer and/or network. If there's more than one person involved (and there almost certainly is these days), there are multiple vulnerabilities available to any would-be attacker.
Personally, I think that a world of good could be done by teaching people to read at least the essential parts of the headers in any E-mail, and showing them how to spot a fraud. I think if even 5% of the computer-using population would bother to check the headers inside any E-mail asking for personal data, it'd probably put a huge dent in phishing.
Heck... Teaching people to be just a little bit paranoid would probably do more good than anything else...
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
We will not make any headway on this, as a profession, until we stop making rudimentary mistakes such as the ones Ranum has identified, along with a few others that are worthy additions to that list. No initiatives, no certifications, no appliances, nothing will change that -- because none of those change the attitudes of the people who are building systems and networks. Until those people manage to step back from irrelevant details like "which iframe exploit is current today?" and look at larger questions like "why are iframe exploits even possible?" or "why are browser exploits even possible?", then they will continue to waste effort "solving" the wrong problems.
Sadly, after observing this situation close up for many, many years, I've concluded that some, possible many, people will never get that far. They simply Do Not Get It, and despite essays like Ranum's or books like this one or anything else, they're not going to get it. And they will continue to fail, and so the systems/networks they've built will continue to fail. I'd say that will make for a bleak future, but -- look around! -- we're living in a bleak present.
I'm note sure about that. I think the biggest issue is the "monetitization" of "cracking". This stuff used to be done for fun and thrills, geek cred, etc. Now a huge Botnet is a cash cow, criminal organiztions pay money for comprimized ID's & CC #'s. Yes, human fallibility plays into this, but the premise that the resources being spent on security are wasted is nonsense
Perhaps you can fill that hole you think Bruce Schneier has left. Agreed. While crypto has its place, it's a very small piece of the security pie. Firewalls, Anti-malware, policy enforcement, anti-phishing, etc. The threats faced today are too numerous to list on a whim...You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Gurus are fine if you're some wacko harikrisha but in the real world one has to make profit else...else...one becomes a open source, brainwashed drone !!
The reason why there are so many people willing to steal data is not because it is easy, well yes it is easy, but because the justice system is to squeamish to punish the perpetrators.
I don't want anyone to think that they can steal data and get away with it. I want to see some dead hackers swinging from the lamp posts in Los Angeles.
This will tell the hacker community that they will need to run for fast and far if they want to live to see the fruits of their crime.
Just my $0.02 worth.
As of today, you could argue are enough combinations of technologies to reasonably secure a computer. That doesn't change the fact that the password is posted on post-it notes, and everybody who works for that department knows it and could tell somebody else in an instant. There needs to be more focus on incorporating computer security as a part of the next generation's work force training, ethics, and culture. Can't expect folks to configure iptables manually, but you CAN expect and HOLD ACCOUNTABLE folks for other factors such as pornography, spyware, etc. Sadly, this needs to be a decision from the top-down to be successful "Yes, computer security IS a part of your annual goals. If we hire you and you don't it seriously, we'll find somebody who will". Find me a book which addresses computer security as a company culture issue and then I'll read it.
I suppose the only reason MS-bashers haven't mentioned this yet is because nobody bothered to click on the Amazon link and read it!
About the Author:
Adam Shostack is part of Microsoftâ(TM)s Security
Development Lifecycle strategy team
The problems are therefore deep and structural. One cannot blame one segment of the industry.
In terms of what developers in IT can control, I would recommend that we take design seriously. Design does not mean waterfall process. And design is critical for security. Programmers work in a much too ad-hoc manner. We need to stop embracing the latest cool thing, the latest trendy language, and try to be more critical and thoughtful. We should ask ourselves, "is this a good tool - even if few currently use it?" and "what language would enable me to develop a well-designed system?" instead of "what is everyone else doing?"
It so happens that my book provides a great amount of guidance at an architectural level, and I feel that one should start there. But it does not end there. One must also be aware of the shortcomings in current technologies (that is what most hacking books are about). The foundation is a good understanding of secure design principles and architecture. Security is about careful design and good process. Unfortunately, the tools and languages that are generally in use do not make it easy to design and implement secure systems: it is all up to the programmer. Thus, it is essential that the programmer be extremely knowledgeable, and develop a secure architecture from the outset - at least until secure design languages emerge (if they ever do).
1. The bad guys are also smart.
2. The reward is higher for the bad guys than the good guys.
3. The risk for the bad guys isn't that high - they operate from different jurisdictions and with many cutouts between them and their operation.
4. They have cookies.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Give it a couple of years, and even I will be able to sell ice to Eskimos, in bulk.
Why is it that everyone who posts on security is immediately compared to Bruce in derogatory terms? He certainly isn't the most influential practitioner within the field and he does not try to be. His focus is on describing what is reasonably close to state of the art to non-specialists.
Frankly, why would you want to read a book from someone who didn't think he could do a better job or at least a different job than Bruce?
On the book itself, I have not yet finished it. What I have read seems reasonable enough. And it is certainly true that in some cases the way to improve security is to focus on the economic issues (I make a related but similar case in my book in the same series). Where I suspect I will have an issue is that I suspect that there are a lot of crimes we simply don't have good measurements for yet and will find it hard to get measurements for them.
ObDisclosure, Addison Wesley have sandwiched a chapter from my book, the dotCrime Manifesto at the end of the New School.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
>>>>one of the most worrying trends in the computer security world was Bruce Schneier's turn from crypto guru to security consultant.
Read his book and you can understand why exactly he made the jump.
Crypto is one small piece in the security pie. He saw that firsthand.
>>>doesn't seem to seek to empower the community,
so why do 500+ people come when he talks?
and that is precisely the point schneier is making!!!
>>>He certainly isn't the most influential practitioner within the field
who would you say the most influential practitioner within the field is?
Irony, yes. Logic, no.
you missed the connection.
In a world: complex systems.
MSFT can't do it all!
I was about to take this article seriously until I saw that company attached to this review. No further comment.
The solution just is so obvious. *Start* using the technology the way it was meant to be used by the original designers. And *stop* using open protocols (HTTP etc.) and the web browser to support application development. http://www.responsive.co.nz/source.html [responsive.co.nz]
The New School of Information Security is an oxymoron and Information Security professionals are a dying breed. Wake up and smell the coffee. The industry has moved onto risk based approaches for security - just look at any of the Fortune 100 (USA) or FTSE 100 (UK) companies and how many have rebranded their security teams with names such as "IT Risk", "Technology Risk" or "Information Risk".
Microsoft can't do it all?
Microsoft actively makes it worse, with fundamentally insecure designs like ActiveX, and the most unnecessarily complex systems on the planet.
When I started having to reinstall user's computers because a bug in Internet Explorer made the Control Panel break so badly I couldn't even bring it up to back it out in safe mode I decided they'd created a whole new kind of complex system event horizon.
"The immediate financial impact of IT security problems has lessened, costing UK businesses about £6bn a year, compared with £10bn in 2006"
from today's financial times
"The immediate financial impact of IT security problems has lessened, costing UK businesses about £6bn a year, compared with £10bn in 2006. This is because fewer businesses are falling victim to computer viruses, which have caused substantial financial losses in the past"
ft.com
I always love how nut job capitalists think if you are poor then you deserve to live without dignity or the ability to make ends meat.
Did I say that? I said that poor people are often poor because of the choices that they make. That's not the same as saying they don't deserve to eat. Why is it that the sense of entitlement has to be buoyed by victimization?
This is my sig.
Disproof by contradiction [wikipedia.org]. And just in case you decide to say that "getting rich" doesn't include inheriting (even though inheritance is the biggest factor in persisting inequitable distribution of wealth), note that Ms. Hilton probably earned about $7M in 2005-06.
The disprove case is weak. It's like arguing that global warming isn't happening because it snowed later in one part of the world. By and large, most people get ahead in life because they work smarter or harder. Being evil is largely a myth self reinforced by liberal types largely because they cluster in socialist style institutions where, in fact, the only way you can get ahead is by being evil. But in the real world, working harder, more honestly and better matters and a lot of people succeed for that reason.
This is my sig.
Ahem. Schneier's change of focus is not a "trend."
However, there is a "trend" of people in our industry abusing terms like "trend" and horribly mangling the underlying concepts and mathematics. This is why this book sounds so good to me: No more FUD. Just the facts.
Germany certainly did not fail because of secrecy, but rather because they had a madman at their helm. Soviet Russia just had an unsustainable government structure... The US economy is currently failing not because of our secrecy, but rather because we want to try grow our economy on the ever continued consumption of debt... :)
Well, part of the consequence of Germany having a madman at the helm was that there were a number of different weapons projects, all running in parallel and in secret from each other. Had they shared their information, they could have had a more coordinated economy, but, even then, when you look at sheer numbers, lowly Great Britain, was also bombed, but managed to not only produce more aircraft than Germany (in addition to fielding a real heavy bomber), 18 aircraft carriers, I think at least 6 battleships, and quite a few destroyers, better radars and, while they were at it, gave us the mathematics upon which all computers were based, and the first computer... and did it all despite having quite a bit less of a population than Germany did. I think you have to attribute some of that to an open society.
I agree with you, overall though. I think openness is more efficient although I too am guilty at looking at everything through a political lens. With that said, one has to wonder if the Bush administration (and I supported it), have been more successful had they merely been more open and forthcoming with information, invited participation and feedback. Instead of hunkering down and tightening up the security screws because "there's a war on", maybe the Bush administration should have opened up -everything-, because, "there's a war on."
One wonders.
This is my sig.
>>>>Microsoft actively makes it worse
and users make it even worse by using MSFT products!!
In other words, treason is a crime that does not exist except where there is war.
Well that's the point, and you missed it. If you declare yourself a non-citizen of a country, than, your act of inhabiting its lands while refusing to obey its laws is an invasion. That makes you in a state of war against the country, and it against you, satisfies your argument that requires a state of war for treason to exist, and makes you a traitor.
This is my sig.
and users make it even worse by using MSFT products!!
Go ahead, make me feel guilty, rub it in.
sorry :(
who would you say the most influential practitioner within the field is?
I had the pleasure of hearing Adi Shamir give a number of talks about his recent work at the Weizmann Institute. I think he's definitely a more influential figure than Schneier (albeit less well-known by the public). I don't think I'm informed enough to say he's "the most" influential though.
I agree with you 1000%.
for those that don't know, he is the S in RSA.