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A recent article on CSO online ponders the question of whether or not passwords are dead – since they are not much of a security countermeasure anyhow (or so the article intimates). The article quotes a person who seems to believe that SQL injection attacks have to do with password security. Christopher Frenz, CTO at …

With all the news about credit card breaches, there are probably a lot of people scurrying about trying to figure out the cheapest and fastest way to reduce the risk of some Saudi hacker stealing credit cards or mounting a DDOS attack on their web site. I have written here, here and here about how …

Don’t break the build. There is absolutely no question that the build process is a pivot in the software quality process. Build every day, don’t break the build and do a smoke test before releasing the latest version. This morning, I installed the latest build of an extremely complex network security product from one of …

Ethical breaches or data breaches. I was standing in line at Ben Gurion airport, waiting for my bag to be x-rayed. A conversation started with a woman standing next to me in line. The usual sort – “Where are you traveling and what kind of work do you do?”. I replied that I was traveling …

In a previous post The Microsoft Monoculture as a threat to national security, I suggested that the FDA might consider banning Windows as an operating system platform for medical devices and their accompanying information management systems. One of my readers took umbrage at the notion of legislating one monoculture (Microsoft) with another (Linux) and how …

Sold down the river. A phrase meaning to be betrayed by another. Originated during the slave trade in America. Selling a slave “down the river” would uproot the slave from their from spouses, children, parents, siblings and friends. For example: “I can’t believe that Microsoft gave their source code to the Chinese in a pathetic …

We normally associate the term “small business” or SME (small to medium sized enterprise) with commercial operations that buy and sell, manufacture products or provide services – lawyers, plumbers, accountants, web developers etc… However – there is an important class of small business operations that is often overlooked when it comes to information security and …

This is probably a topic for a much longer essay, but after two design reviews this week with medical device vendor clients on software security issues, I decided to put some thoughts in a blog post. Almost 8 years ago, Dan Geer, Rebecca Bace,Peter Gutmann, Perry Metzger, Charles Pfleeger, John Quarterman and Bruce Schneier wrote a …

Hot spots for medical device software security I think that 2011 is going to be an exciting year for medical device security as the FDA gets more involved in the approval and clearance process with software-intensive medical device vendors. Considering how much data is exchanged between medical devices and customer service centers/care givers/primary clinical care teams and …

If you are an IT person, this article may be a waste of your time. But – if you are in the business of making and delivering products with software inside – read on. What threats really count for your business? No question is more important for implementing an effective security and compliance program for your …