Today I attended the BSides security conference in St. John's, Newfoundland. Although it's not particularly an area of interest or an area pertinent to my current position, there were some interesting talks.
Morning Talks
The Basics & Other Things We're Probably Doing Wrong
Mark Nunnikhoven talks about three things he believes we should be using more (in ops):
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Automation is key.
- Stop doing repetitive tasks, because that's what computers were designed for!
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Document everything.
- Comments help keep you on track and simplifies the ramp-up process
- Use plain text documents instead of word, because it's more likely to be read. Need something more readable? Use something like markdown, which is human-readable, but with more semantics.
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Don't focus on awareness, educate.
- Engage users and integrate them into the flow.
Anatomy of an Apache vulnerability report, and Secure Release Management
Jamie Goodyear introduces us to the process of submitting a vulnerability report to Apache whenever some exploit/vulnerability exists in an Apache project. Roughly, this process goes like the following:
- Report the vulnerability
- Investigation into whether or not the problem is pertinent to the project
- Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVE) number requested (internally)
- The project team discusses and agrees on a fix
- Release
- Announcement for the fix, with full disclosure of the vulnerability
This is followed with a section on secure release management. Apache focuses on two technologies:
- MD5 hashes for all artifacts released
- PGP signatures to verify the release came from a trusted source
Key Considerations in Securing Internet Access
Russ Doucet talks about webfiltering and making the right web use policy in your company:
- A typical webfilter may
- Monitor/log/report everything
- Blocking by categories and sub-categories
- Block unknown sites
- One should have
- Policy, to ensure consequences are clear. The policy needs to be clear.
- Webfiltering, so that action is being taken.
- Monitoring, e.g., for referencing of multiple offences.
Command & Control And Data Exfiltration 2.9
Karim Nathoo introduces us to interesting of dealing with C2 (command and control), a malicious piece of code or software that facilitates controlling and/or ex-filtrating data on a system, and Exfiltration, the process of extracting data from a secure system. He shows several examples using file sharing services (e.g., Box.net, DropBox) and DNS tunneling.
Afternoon Talks
How NOT To Do Security: Lessons Learned From the Galactic Empire
Kellman Meghu takes us on a whimsical journey into data loss incidents, using a "Star Wars" perspective on how to do security. The moral was simple: the most basic security policies are often the ones that mitigate issues.
Have Credentials. Will Travel... Literally.
Darryl MacLeod gave his opinion on becoming a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), and what he felt it has done for him. To sum up his opinion: "it's worth it."
Today's Threat Landscape – Facts, Figures, Myths and Perceptions
Symantec representative Stefano Tiranardi talks about the internet security threat report from 2011. Four trends were discovered:
- Malware attacks up 81%
- Targeted attacks expand
- Mobile threats expose all
- Data breaches on rise
Services defense in depth: an emerging paradigm for protecting the Data Center
Bruno Germain focused on how he believes it's time for security to consider a different model for defending one's systems. He introduced a service-centric approach to security.