This post discusses evolutionary changes in SIEM, focusing on how underlying platform capabilities have evolved to meet the requirements discussed in the last post. To give you a sneak peek, it is all about doing more with more data. The change we have seen in these platforms over the past few years has been mostly under the covers. It’s not sexy, but this architectural evolution was necessary to make sure the platforms scaled and could perform the needed analysis moving forward. The problem is…
Today’s post discusses the changing needs and requirements organizations have for security management customers, which is just a fancy way of saying “Here’s why customers are unhappy.” The following items are the main discussion points when we speak with end users, and the big picture reasons motivating SIEM users to consider alternatives.
Endpoint protection has become the punching bag of security. Every successful attack seems to be blamed on a failure of endpoint protection. Not that this is totally unjustified – most solutions for endpoint protection have failed to keep pace with attackers. In our 2014 Endpoint Security Buyers Guide, we discussed many of the issues around endpoint hygiene and mobility. We also explored the human element underlying many of attacks, and how to prepare your employees for social engineering…
Just in case you had nothing else to do during the holiday season, you can check out our latest research on Application Denial of Service Attacks. This paper continues our research into Denial of Service attacks after last year’s Defending Against Denial of Service Attacks research. As we stated back then, DoS encompasses a number of different tactics, all aimed at impacting the availability of your applications or infrastructure. In this paper we dig much deeper into application DoS attacks.…
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems create a lot of controversy with security folks; they are one of the cornerstones on which the security program are built upon within every enterprise. Yet, simultaneously SIEM generates the most complaints and general angst. Two years ago Mike and I completed a research project on “SIEM 2.0: Time to Replace your SIEM?” based upon a series of conversations with organizations who wanted more from their investment. Specifically they wanted…
We started this Security Assurance and Testing (SA&T) series with the need for testing and which tactics make sense within an SA&T program. But it is always helpful to see how the concepts apply to more tangible situations. So we will now show how the SA&T program can provide a quick win for the security team, with two (admittedly contrived) scenarios that show how SA&T can be used – both at the front end of a project, and on an ongoing basis, to ensure the organization is well…
As we discussed in the introduction to this Security Assurance & Testing (SA&T) series, it is increasingly hard to adequately test infrastructure and applications before they go into production. But adversaries have the benefit of being able to target the weakest part of your environment – whatever it may be. So the key to SA&T is to ensure you are covering the entire stack. Does that make the process a lot more detailed and complex? Absolutely, but you can’t be sure what will happen…
I have not done a Friday Summary in a couple weeks, which is a blog post we have rarely missed over the last 6 years, so bad on me for being a flake. Sorry about that, but that does not mean I don’t have a few things I to talk about before years end.
Datacard Group, a firm that produces smart card printers and associated products, has announced its acquisition of Entrust. For those of you who are not familiar with Entrust, they were front and center in the PKI movement in the 1990s. Back then the idea was to issue a public/private key pair to uniquely identify every person and device in the universe. Ultimately that failed to scale and became unmanageable, with many firms complaining “I just spent millions of dollars so I can send encrypted…
As I sit down to write the last Incite of the year I cannot help but be retrospective. How will I remember 2013? It has been a year of ups and downs. Pretty much like every year. I set out to prove some hypotheses I had at the beginning of the year, and I did. I let some opportunities pass by and I didn’t execute on others. Pretty much like every year. I had low lows and very high highs. Pretty much like every year.