RE: ZDNnet: Securing data from the threat within [by buying products]

["Michael S Hines" <mshines () purdue edu>]

Nontechnical answer..  

A couple of cliché's come to mind.

"Consider the source."
--Who wrote the article and what was their interest in providing this news.  IMHO - all
news is biased with some persons particular spin on it.   Vendors who write technical
articles tend to find solutions in their products.  Surprise, surprise, surprise.

"Follow the money." (with all due respect to Jerry McGuire/the movie) 
--Newspapers need money to pay staff, pay for materials and distribution, etc.  Some of
that comes from subscribers.  A large portion comes from advertisers.  Those who pay the
bills get special considerations*.  Again, consider the source and the particular
financial interest they have in 'informing' the community on issues.  In some cases we may
see writings from 'consultants or groups' with a particular vendors message.  Again, one
should follow the money (if they can) to see what source of funds may have influenced the
report.  It's as if they start with a particular hypothesis to prove, and set out to find
the evidence this is so.  

I won't mention names but there is one that is really annoying to me.  It's highly
flaunted.  It's so obviously biased that it's nauseating.  It's accurate for what it
says..  But it's intended to help you not think about what's obviously being said.  And
there are no disclosures about the sources of funding for the report, that just might have
influenced the outcome.   

They write with that bias.  We should also read with the same bias.  Is the information
provided "marketing media" or really intended to inform?  

We used to read the news to learn what had happened.  Now the news makes things happen (or
tries too - I could mention CBS for example, but I'll pass on that one).  The issue is
wider than one report on one network.   

Least wise that's my opinion - since you asked. 

Mike Hines

* like large ads that come before the Table of Contents.  It gets harder and harder to be
able to scan the TOC for articles of interest, when you can't even find the TOC due to all
the frontispiece ads.  Like all those inserts that litter the floor when your trying to
read a trade publication.  Like all those 10 page heavy slick stock inserts inside
magazines.  Well.. You get my drift...

-----------------------------------
Michael S Hines
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 


-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Kenneth R. van Wyk
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 9:33 AM
To: Secure Coding Mailing List
Subject: [SC-L] ZDNnet: Securing data from the threat within [by buying products]

Greetings all,

I saw a moderately interesting article this morning on ZDNet (see 
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5520016.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed for the 
full text).  The premise of the article is about how companies have been 
building external perimeters for years and now they need to also protect 
themselves from insiders, because, "...now discontented, reckless and greedy 
employees, and disgruntled former workers, can all be bigger threats than the 
mysterious hacker."

The article goes on to list some new products, technologies, and methods for 
protecting data from the insiders.  It says, "a whole new class of products 
has sprung up aimed at keeping employees and other insiders from sending 
confidential information outside the company."  It describes network-level 
products as well as the need for client-level products for monitoring and 
controlling data flow.

IMHO, what's missing here is a discussion on writing better enterprise 
applications that make effective use of concepts like role-based access 
control, transaction/event logging and monitoring, etc.  In fact, the article 
would lead an IT security manager to think that the only solution to insider 
problems is to buy more security products.  Frustrating...

To find a fairly "mainstream" article like this that is (again, IMHO) so 
thoroughly off base really makes me wonder whether the Software Security 
community is making progress or not.  Opinions?

Cheers,

Ken van Wyk
-- 
KRvW Associates, LLC
http://www.KRvW.com