Beyond the perimeter

Searching for privacy in a world without secrets

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:07:43 GMT

'I am not a number, I am a free' IDC reported that we generated and replicated 1.8 zettabytes - that's 1.8 trillion gigabytes - of data in 2011. To give you an example of scale you would need to stack...

Class-action lawsuit against HP for not disclosing vulnerabilities has huge implications

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:15:05 GMT

On December 1, 2011 a Class-action lawsuit was filed in United States District Court Northern District of California against Hewlett-Packard, alleging violations of The California Consumer Legal Remedies Act for Injunctive Relief and the California Unfair Competition Law based...

Incomplete thought: Are you really data-driven or just using data to prove a point?

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:34:04 GMT

I love data, I love the benefits that data analysis offers, and I love the concept of large amounts of data being massaged, queried, and providing insights through a whole new set of technical innovations - and there are many...

Big data: Are you creating a garbage dump or mountains of gold

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:45:22 GMT

You’re not really sure how it happened, but some time between last year and the summer of 2011 you were suddenly facing a big data problem, or you were being told you were facing a big data problem, or more...

The good, bad and ugly of technology acquisitions

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:52:08 GMT

It is the foundation for the free market system and capitalism and it is every entrepreneurs dream; build a great technology, execute and achieve excellence in GTM, deliver fantastic value to customers and take great pride in watching your passion...

2011: The death of security as we know it or operationalising security

Amrit Williams — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 10:34:38 GMT

There is a dull hum permeating the industry of late - security is dead some say, others think it to be too costly to maintain, others still believe that what is needed is a change of perspective, perhaps a radical...

Security Out of focus; an incomplete thought

Amrit Williams — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:34:05 GMT

Someone sent me this quote in an attempt to convince me that we should focus on vulnerabilities and not threatsI don’t think they are mutually exclusive, but here nor there "Our data tells us that focusing on vulnerabilities is more...

IBM to acquire BigFix – Hallelujah! can I get a witness

Amrit Williams — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 08:51:00 GMT

I will post more later but given all the blood, sweat, and tears we have poured into BigFix we are extremely excited about this move. IBM and BigFix are a great fit. The product portfolios are very complementary (datacentre...

Rolling Stone: “The Biggest Cyber Crime in History – Sex, Drugs, and Hackers Gone Wild”

Amrit Williams — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 09:19:00 GMT

I wouldn’t normally read Rolling Stone but strolling through the airport I noticed “The Biggest Cyber Crime in History – Sex, Drugs & Hackers Gone Wild” on the cover. Like passing a train wreck, you can’t help but stare...

Should your local police officer be a cybercop?

Amrit Williams — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:38:00 GMT

In very short order and in relatively short time the world has changed. With the advent of the Internet and its widespread adoption one can reach out and touch someone almost anywhere on the planet in near real-time. Computer...

Securing the mobile workforce

Amrit Williams — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:49:00 GMT

The rising tide of mobile computing, driven by the introduction of consumer devices such as the iPhone and iPad, is crashing against the shores of many an IT shop. Most IT organisations have lived on a diet of corporate...

Respect, prudence, and combating identity theft

Amrit Williams — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:20:00 GMT

Whenever I hear the phrase “identity theft,” I can only imagine what the late, great Rodney Dangerfield would have made of it: “Some guy in Moldova stole my identity. The FBI said, ‘…and you want it back?’ No respect!”...

The broken windows economics of IT security

Amrit Williams — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:50:00 GMT

To economists, the term “Broken Windows” refers to the question that if a shopkeeper pays a glazier to repair a broken window at his store, does this deliver an economic benefit to society? Many people would say yes, because...

Cyber warfare: Should we be on the cyber offensive?

Amrit Williams — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:28:00 GMT

There is much discussion of the changing dynamics and technologies of warfare but references particularly to cyber warfare have increased recently. Many people in the information security industry believe that we have entered an era of ‘cyber warfare’ and...

Top 10 reasons your security programme sucks and why you can’t do anything about it

Amrit Williams — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:31:00 GMT

In the security industry we like to fool ourselves into thinking that we can materially impact an organisations security posture. We believe that new tools, a new framework, a new regulation, a new school of thought will lift the...

Of pirate movies and movie pirates

Amrit Williams — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:54:00 GMT

I love movies! I love how an idea flashes like lightning from a twinkle in the eye, to paper, greenlighting, storyboard, production and ultimately to a hyper-teraplex a short drive from my house. Well it’s a little more involved...

Note to self: 2009 holiday gift list

Amrit Williams — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:48:00 GMT

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone. Now it’s time for Amrit Wednesday, or Thursday, or Friday—oh, whatever—to pay our industry back for all the dubious cheer it spread in 2009. Believe me, when it comes to...

Conficker: Isn’t this thing dead yet?

Amrit Williams — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:04:00 GMT

I didn’t exactly run out to Toys “R” Us to buy a present when I heard that the Conficker worm was celebrating its first birthday. What we really should have done was smother the little monster in its crib...

Does any of it matter?

Amrit Williams — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:35:00 GMT

The work we do, the toil, the trouble, the late nights reading and mapping and coding to fight against an unknown foe? The testing, the evaluating, the deploying, the constant struggle to make “them” aware of the impending digital...

2009 The Year of Computing Dangerously

Amrit Williams — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:02:00 GMT

The FBI has just stated that just behind a nuclear bomb and a bomb in one of our cities that an attack on the US computing infrastructure is the greatest threat we face. Advisors to the US treasury have...

Exorcising the PCI demons

Amrit Williams — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:28:00 GMT

Josh Corman, Principal security strategist with IBM Internet Security Systems, is on the record stating, “PCI is the Devil.” He is not alone; there is a fairly large group of security professionals that decry PCI. For non-security specialists, the...

Should the US President have the power to turn off the internet?

Amrit Williams — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:18:00 GMT

Currently pending before the US Congress, the proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2009 contains provisions that would give the US President power to “declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any...