Writing

In the xkcd comic on password strength, Randall Munroe triggers a discussion on the effectiveness of password algorithms. While he raises valid points, the real risk lies in password reuse and breaches. Moving away from passwords and exploring alternatives like SSL certificates or one-time passwords may be a more promising approach.

NSEC3 is a DNSSEC specification that addresses the issue of authenticated denial of existence in DNS. It replaces the NSEC method by using a hashing function and signed hash ranges to prevent easy collection of zone file contents. While NSEC3 improves secrecy, it raises questions about the need for semi-secret public DNS names and suggests…

After attending CSO Perspectives, Bill Brenner has some observations on contract negotiations with SaaS vendors. While his panel demonstrated a breadth of customer experience, it was, unfortunately, lacking in a critical perspective: that of a cloud provider. Much of the point of SaaS, or any cloud service, in the economy of scale you get; not just in…

Much ado has been made of the “Advanced Persistent Threat”. Unfortunately, pundits look at the ease of some of the attacks, and get hung up on the keyword, “Advanced.” How do we know the adversary is so advanced, if he can succeed using such trivial attacks? The relative skill of the adversary is actually uninteresting;…

At the RSA Conference, participating in a panel discussion on the PCI Data Security Standard, it was evident that PCI has significantly impacted the industry. The standard’s simplicity, broad applicability, and narrow focus on protecting specific data have improved security more than any other standard. It serves as a model for future compliance standards.