I recently came across quite an interesting paper from Dalhousie University in the US on the psychology of Information Security professionals called "profiling the defenders"[pdf]. While being admitedly limited in it's scope (they surveyed only 79 people), it nonetheless opens the door to an interesting and (afaik) not well-researched area of psychological analysis on the IT Security 'good guys'.
Typically the 'bad guys' are the ones being profiled, to better understand their motivation, to 'get into their heads' and therefore be able to second-guess them. There are plenty of courses [pdf] and certifications that are designed to help you 'think like a hacker', but how do the defenders think, and what needs to be changed over on the blue team to make them better?
Findings such as that IT Security Pros were 10 times more likely than the (US) average to be INTJ-type personalities is interesting/ Also that there was such a difference between IT Security Pros and law-enforcement personalities, who are largely ESTJ-type personalities -- a type that was not reflected in any of the surveyed IT Pros.
While I certainly have no background in Psychology (and parts of this paper are well over my head!), it is well worth a read for those interested and I'd like to see the results of a study done with a larger, more representative, survey group.
Some good further reading on different aspects of Psychology and Security is available here.
I was pointed to some more information on Aurora by a Uni classmate. HBGary have a slightly more in-depth threat review of Aurora here [pdf] and are offering a 'Aurora inoculation shot' with details here. The inoculation does not address the social engineering aspect of the attack, it is more of a scanner to tell if you're already infected and help clean the infected machine (which to me seems like more of an after-the-fact action than the name 'inoculation' implies).
One thing in the HBGary report is the CRC algorithm used is claimed to "indicate the malware package is of Chinese origin". This was originally announced by Joe Stewart and widely reported, but there has since been some dispute as to whether the CRC is a 'smoking gun' indicating China.
We may never know...
On a somewhat related topic (malware in general), I often use virustotal to scan 'suspect' files, but a colleage recently pointed me to a coupleof other sites that provide a similar service: virusscan.jotti.org and threatexpert.com. All three are worth investigating if you haven't seen them before.
One thing in the HBGary report is the CRC algorithm used is claimed to "indicate the malware package is of Chinese origin". This was originally announced by Joe Stewart and widely reported, but there has since been some dispute as to whether the CRC is a 'smoking gun' indicating China.
We may never know...
On a somewhat related topic (malware in general), I often use virustotal to scan 'suspect' files, but a colleage recently pointed me to a coupleof other sites that provide a similar service: virusscan.jotti.org and threatexpert.com. All three are worth investigating if you haven't seen them before.
Monday, March 8, 2010
iSec has published a brief report [pdf] into the widely-reported "Aurora" attacks on Google (and others) that allegedly orginated from the Chinese Government. The report provides an interesting insight into a recent sophisticated attack that I suspect few organizations would have been able to repel, and is well worth reading.
An important point from the end of the report is that the:
"...most interesting aspect of this incident is that a number of small to medium sized companies now join the ranks of major defense contractors, utilities and major software vendors as potential victims of extremely advanced attackers. This is concerning for many reasons, not the least of which is that even most Fortune-500 companies will not be able to assemble security teams with the diversity of skills necessary to respond to this type of incident."
An important point from the end of the report is that the:
"...most interesting aspect of this incident is that a number of small to medium sized companies now join the ranks of major defense contractors, utilities and major software vendors as potential victims of extremely advanced attackers. This is concerning for many reasons, not the least of which is that even most Fortune-500 companies will not be able to assemble security teams with the diversity of skills necessary to respond to this type of incident."
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce is running it's annual awareness campaign this week with the theme 'Online Offensive - Fighting Fraud Online'.
With identity theft often listed as the fastest growing crime, it's good to see the Government promoting awareness through sites such as scamwatch.
On a similar note, Bruce Schneier highlighted on his blog recently a facinating interview with a Nigerian Scammer that is well worth reading. It can be found here: part one, part two, part three.
With identity theft often listed as the fastest growing crime, it's good to see the Government promoting awareness through sites such as scamwatch.
On a similar note, Bruce Schneier highlighted on his blog recently a facinating interview with a Nigerian Scammer that is well worth reading. It can be found here: part one, part two, part three.
Monday, March 1, 2010
I recently picked up a copy of Information Security: Managing the Legal Risks by Nick Gifford. What caught my attention is that it is written from an Australian point of view, which seems rare as most books that deal with the legal aspects of InfoSec are heavily US-centric.
I'll post a review once I have a chance to have a good read.
I'll post a review once I have a chance to have a good read.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Security is hard right? It must be or everybody would be doing it right. OWASP have released their new Top 10 web vulnerabilites for 2010, which still contains 7 of the items in the top 10 from 2007 and 6 items from the 2004 top ten. Progress in educating developers and eliminating some of the biggest threats seems slow. I'm not sure why.
I (along fellow Security Circus poster Richard) recently spent a day working our way through some rather incomplete and arcane documentation from a large software vendor trying to determine how they required SSL to be implemented between both the seperate elements of their product and the endpoint clients.
Between poor documentation, requiring OpenSSL & Java KeyStore/keytool and the software not trusting common 3rd-party CAs (such as Verisign), it was a long and frustrating experience. And that was for two guys with a reasonable understanding of PKI. For a developer or sysadmin who was new to security or unsure about PKI in general it would have been a nightmare.
The knowledgebase for the product was not much better, leaving me with little doubt that while many people may understand the need for security, the 'how' can be sorely lacking - and is not helped when the software developer/vendor (or integrator) seems to have little grasp of security themselves - or a disinclination to explain the details to their customers.
It reminds me a little of a UNIX sysadmin I worked with many years ago, before I was full-time in IT, who was so secretive about the system and how it worked he had three assistants quit in 12 months out of frustration. Was it secretive paranoia or simply keeping the 'knowledge' to himself as a power trip? (personally I suspect the latter...)
While there are always elements of security and IT in general that require secrecy, the how is not one of them. Explaining how to implement security so even a home user (or my Mom!*) can easily understand it and follow the steps is a good thing.
*Actually my Mom isn't too bad with her PC!
I (along fellow Security Circus poster Richard) recently spent a day working our way through some rather incomplete and arcane documentation from a large software vendor trying to determine how they required SSL to be implemented between both the seperate elements of their product and the endpoint clients.
Between poor documentation, requiring OpenSSL & Java KeyStore/keytool and the software not trusting common 3rd-party CAs (such as Verisign), it was a long and frustrating experience. And that was for two guys with a reasonable understanding of PKI. For a developer or sysadmin who was new to security or unsure about PKI in general it would have been a nightmare.
The knowledgebase for the product was not much better, leaving me with little doubt that while many people may understand the need for security, the 'how' can be sorely lacking - and is not helped when the software developer/vendor (or integrator) seems to have little grasp of security themselves - or a disinclination to explain the details to their customers.
It reminds me a little of a UNIX sysadmin I worked with many years ago, before I was full-time in IT, who was so secretive about the system and how it worked he had three assistants quit in 12 months out of frustration. Was it secretive paranoia or simply keeping the 'knowledge' to himself as a power trip? (personally I suspect the latter...)
While there are always elements of security and IT in general that require secrecy, the how is not one of them. Explaining how to implement security so even a home user (or my Mom!*) can easily understand it and follow the steps is a good thing.
*Actually my Mom isn't too bad with her PC!
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
So maybe I was a little harsh on singling out the Waikato District Health in an earlier post about a conficker outbreak, as it seems a couple of hospitals of the NHS (National Health System) in the UK have since suffered the same problem as have Manchester Police.
As much as Security pros may preach the message to end users about opening attachments from unknown senders or downloading software from dodgey sites can it be that we haven't been focusing enough on ensuring the IT Admins have heard the security message? There may be other circumstances, such as the usual under-resourcing (do more with less!) or management negligence, but surely patching and AV are the very basics that every admin understands?
Even if the worm was introduced via USB, which seems to be the case, other simple precautions such as disabling autorun can greatly limit your exposure. Going further, limiting the use of USB storage (both who has access and what type of drives can be used) provides further protection.
If businesses (and government bodies) haven't taken the basic steps to protect themselves from the most highly publicized virus/worm of recent years, it doesn't bode well for protecting against threats that aren't as highly visible in the mainstream media.
As much as Security pros may preach the message to end users about opening attachments from unknown senders or downloading software from dodgey sites can it be that we haven't been focusing enough on ensuring the IT Admins have heard the security message? There may be other circumstances, such as the usual under-resourcing (do more with less!) or management negligence, but surely patching and AV are the very basics that every admin understands?
Even if the worm was introduced via USB, which seems to be the case, other simple precautions such as disabling autorun can greatly limit your exposure. Going further, limiting the use of USB storage (both who has access and what type of drives can be used) provides further protection.
If businesses (and government bodies) haven't taken the basic steps to protect themselves from the most highly publicized virus/worm of recent years, it doesn't bode well for protecting against threats that aren't as highly visible in the mainstream media.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
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