I traveled quite a bit during the month of October - which was National Cyber Security Awareness month here in the U.S. - and there was one issue that came up frequently during my various business trips to locations around the U.S. and one to London: software assurance. It's really a continuation of a theme that I have come across during the course of the last couple of years: as breaches of information security have become more and more frequent - whether perpetrated by cyber-criminals looking to make a fast buck; or by nefarious actors breaking into systems to commit espionage; or in the case of entire countries (e.g. Estonia) that have seen their critical infrastructure attacked via cyberspace - governments have become increasingly focused on product security. The issue of security within products that are integral parts of systems or networks is clearly gaining the attention of government decision makers around the world...