Computer Security & Technology

Working in Computer Security, one of the biggest threats we face today is the threat of an Insider, an Employee who might casually walk in with his 4 GB USB Flash drive, plug it in to their computer within the corporate network and walk away with valuable data. I have seen solutions ranging from expensive Intrusion Prevention Systems to disabling access to the USB drive all together.

In the first scenario, a company might not have enough financial resources for such an expensive IPS solution. The second scenario is impossible to implement in a corporation, think about the external USB keyboards, mouse or a LCD screen.

Prevent a user from writing to a USB drive

In this scenario, let us think that a corporation has migrated to Windows Vista from Windows XP. It does not wish to use an expensive solution but at the same time lock down users from having access to the WRITE capability with regard to a USB device.

1. Open Notepad and copy the following

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
“EncryptionContextMenu”=dword:00000001

2. Save the file as USBNoWrite_Vista.reg

go on reading »

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Operating Systems Security: Year 2007 Vulnerability Report

This paper analyzes the vulnerability disclosures and security updates during the year 2007 for Windows Vista Operating System when compared to its predecessor, Windows XP, along with other modern Client Operating Systems Red Hat, Ubuntu and Apple Mac OS X.

The results of this analysis based on the Vulnerability Count Metric and Days of Risk suggest that Windows Vista is the most secure Operating System when compared to the other leading Desktop Operating Systems for the year 2007 based on its lower vulnerability profile. Windows Vista is also significantly easier to administer for IT Security of various corporations as well as individual users based on the number of Security Bulletins and updates it issues besides the excellent security support provided through Microsoft TechNet Security Center.

With the vulnerability and risk data available, I also wanted to tackle the topic of Browser security. The analysis reveals that Firefox 2.x on Ubuntu platform was the most secure browser for the year 2007 in terms of the lowest Days of Risk and vulnerability profile. While these results represent only the vulnerability dimension of security risk, they do provide insight into the aspects of security quality that are under the control of the vendors – code security quality and security response. These metrics however, must be considered in combination with several other important qualitative factors when choosing a platform based upon security maintenance and likelihood of a security breach in your environment.

Beyond patches and vulnerabilities, there are “softer” qualities of security that are difficult to quantify but undeniably impact deployed security. Qualities like security lifecycle support, bulletin descriptiveness, default security features and the like all have a direct impact on deployed role security.

Note: This report is an update to the previously published Windows Vista One Year Vulnerability Report by Jeff Jones1, a VP at Microsoft, who concluded that Windows Vista is more secure by analyzing vulnerability data of Windows Vista and other Operating Systems based on the first year of their operation. However, as Jeff admits, this kind of first year analysis may be good to evaluate the security practices and product development methodologies of a vendor more than measure the security of an Operating system. This paper expands on his findings while following a similar structure used in Jeff’s report presenting a deeper level of analysis and comparison of the modern workstation Operating Systems using the entire 2007 vulnerability and risk data which would more accurately reflect the “present security state” of these different Operating Systems.

Also, please note for non-windows fans, this is a Vulnerability Report not a ranking the most secure operating system report. Before you make any conclusions, I have presented the data used to come to the conclusions in this paper for everyone to access. I tried my best to level the playing field by having similar components for all Operating Systems accessed in this report. go on reading »

This is a great presentation by Johnny Long at Defcon. He talks about how easy it is to gain access to secure locations without any “hacking” aka physical security.

It is very easy to miss something you are not looking for. How many passes does the team in white make? Test you awareness and Do the Test!

Ryan Naraine over at eweek.com has come up with an interesting list of the top 15 most influential people in Computer Security.

1. Tavis Ormandy, Google Security Team’
2. Ivan Krstic, One Laptop Per Child’
3. Chris Paget, IOActive’ , Google
4. Bunnie Huang, Bunnie Studios’
5. Michal Zalewski, Google’
6. Window Snyder, Mozilla
7. The MOAB Hackers’
8. Dino Dai Zovi’
9. Michael Howard, Microsoft’
10. HD Moore, Metasploit ‘
11. Dave Aitel, Immunity’
12. Bronwen Matthews, Microsoft’
13. John Pescatore, Gartner’
14. Rob Thomas and Team Cymru’
15. Stefan Esser, Hardened PHP Project’

Check out Ryan’s list of the most influential people in Security, in this slideshow at eweek.