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Spooks-as-a-Service Swarm RSA Conference
itwbennett writes "As the list of victims of sophisticated cyber attacks expands, so does the need for specialized, high-priced, and hard-to-find talent to help investigate and recover from those attacks. The latest solution: hosted services offering access to cyber intelligence and incident response. 'At the RSA Security Conference this week, companies large and small are trumpeting the spy agency connections of senior staff as never before,' writes Paul Roberts. 'These new offerings — think of them as spooks-as-a-service — typically combine some degree of network and endpoint monitoring with a cloud-based management platform to gather and analyze data against data aggregated from other customers and third-party threat intelligence.'"
Spy vs. Spy slapstick at it's finest.
This world is getting so ludicrous, it makes those 1970's acid trips seem tame in comparison.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Aren't the spy agencies the ones doing most of the cyberattacks ?
Why do I want them associated with my security company ?
Accept your Masters and you will feel much better.
That might be the case, but it might also not be the case.
Thank you Dave Raggett
With all due respect, but most companies don't need this, they need to get and keep their IT secured and that should be enough.
If you *do* need this, you may not want to rely on a third party to provide you with this sort of service. Your assets are probably way too valuable to solely rely on a third party. The only reason you may want them is to keep tabs on the performance of your own resident spooks and SpookWare(tm), not to entrust the future of your company upon. While I do see a place in the market for these companies, the way they sell themselves is despicable and makes companies act lax and irresponsible towards having their security sorted out properly.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Fixed the title for you
That's what it sounds like: Playing both sides.
Mentioned in the article, the company has a cool video showing how hacking works:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8iUUirFjW5s
Regardless of your connections as a businessman, you're not getting information out of a spy agency.
I also would trust anyone who claimed they could.
I also wouldn't trust the spy agencies not to be behind this as well.
Spy vs. Spy slapstick at it's finest.
Before this, whatever we put online we have to worry about the spooks from China as well as the spooks from NSA.
Now, we have to worry about the spooks from China, spooks from NSA, and the RESIDENT spooks.
Whatever you want to call it - progression or regression - I call it scary.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I read that as "Spocks-as-a-Service". That'd be a waay cooler market.
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
Either unplug completely, or become a full time hacker! The digital world is so intermixed with economics that everyone will need black-hat cyber-warfair battle skills for basic survival! It's appearantly a free for all, crazy, just crazy... I say take a hammer to the box, and physically smash it!
They want Archer back !
in all seriousness, will this lead to multiple independent spy agencies ala Control, KAOS, ISIS? That cant be a good thing.
No-one's ever going to trust the NS..sorry, RSA again - might as well big-up the whole "we're in it together" thing while it lasts.
What was it you called a country where the government and powerful, "connected" private business interests merge?
Ohhh, silly me! *Now* I remember!
A Fascist Oligarchy, of course!
Welcome to the DRNA comrades! (Democratic Republic of North America) The new flag will be a black silhouette of a boot stomping a human face on a blood-red background.
Just wait until they run out of money they can rape from the domestic economy and begin a policy of international aggression to keep their hookers and blow flowing. The world is going to burn.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Senior staff having spy agency connections turns my money to the direction of other providers. Selling their services to custom projects for the spy agencies doesn't, however, as long as they firewall their government businesses from the rest of market.
I just hope this doesn't become the IT equivalent of defense contractor morphing into DOD consultant and then back again.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Why would you trust one of these clowns? This is kind of like trusting a 'reformed' black hat.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Just like 70's and 80's banana republics, where every larger business had to have a one or more generals or colonels on its Board, in order to gain "business agility". Even small businesses and individuals usually saw it expedient to gain access to some retired military officer - to smooth over necessary procedures and eventual "misunderstandings". Such as having a kid arrested on a whim, or because of a jealous neighbor, etc., by thugs demoralizing their uniformas inside-out.
Congratulations. Thugs for hire. Corporate, or "business" verion. Or, rather, "simply honest businessmen" version. As below, so "above". The same scam. It's a gangster Board. And, using the past to foresee the present it's backsliding into : "It gets even worse. Losing the metaphorical House, while trying to hold on to the devalued (I mean, inflated. No, devalued!) pennies.
Remember how the markets escalated themselves down to a collapse when lots of automated trading programs, all watching each other's moves, made market buys and sells in a stupendous hurry and followed each other off a cliff?
Now imagine how the politics will escalate into hell as the automated spying programs watch each other.
One, two, four, eight, sixteen little actions ... after a while it's real trouble.
The one and only definition I know for the word spooks is an offensive, racist term for black people. What exactly are they using it for?
Take a look at the real deal here. Spoke with these guys at the con. Know their stuff and have a legacy running back 8 years