It seems counterintuitive: how can it be that making software “stronger” (as in reducing vulnerabilities) can increase risk on the Internet (as in creating more incidents)? But it happens frequently. The trick to understanding this conundrum lay in thinking like…
Highlights
Advanced Malware Protection Evaluation Criteria
by Pete Lindstrom • • Comments Off
[Pete Lindstrom is VP of Research at Spire Security, LLC and host of the AMP Firehose 1-day Workshop (vendor bakeoff) coming up in Chicago on 10/29. Register at www.regonline.com/AMPFirehoseCHI.] I believe the folks at Gartner put a lot of research…
Do Enterprises Need AMP? An “Advanced Malware Protection” Market Assessment
by Pete Lindstrom • • Comments Off
Over the past few months I have been on an “advanced malware protection” (AMP) kick. I am fascinated by this topic because it ties together a set of market conditions that can be extremely challenging to navigate through, both for…
Do you need “Advanced Malware Protection” from 0days and the APT? Key Economic Considerations
by Pete Lindstrom • • Comments Off
Events over the past few years have heightened attention on attackers with more serious intentions than script kiddies or casual hackers. The “advanced persistent threat” has been outed, first generally by Google and RSA, then much more explicitly by Mandiant.…
Who Do You Trust? Is it Time for a CyberSwitzerland?
by Pete Lindstrom • • Comments Off
A brief Twitter conversation with Phil Cox (@sec_prof) and Dave Piscitello (@securityskeptic) and the latest PRISM / NSA news got me thinking about trust. Phil suggested that the time is ripe for some sort of Internet “Switzerland” where a U.S.…
The 7-day Itch: Ups and Downs of Google’s New Disclosure Policy
by Pete Lindstrom • • Comments Off
Recently, members of the security team at Google made an important announcement about “real-world exploitation of publicly unknown vulnerabilities.” While it was done on the Google Online Security blog, all indications are that this is an official Google policy statement.…
Cognitive Dissonance or Spite?
by Pete Lindstrom • • Comments Off
I happened to see a tweet the other day that said: “If you want a bug fixed quickly, sell it on the Russian black market. It’ll be so heavily abused that the vendor will patch out of cycle.” Now, it…
How Much did Amazon Lose in Yesterday’s Outage?
by Pete Lindstrom • • Comments Off
One of the crucial aspects of risk management for infosec pros to learn is how to estimate consequences. It can be helpful to review incidents and create a model for thinking about losses. Amazon’s outage for an hour yesterday, is…