<![CDATA[[SecurityRatty] tag: differentiation]]> http://securityratty.com/tag/differentiation Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:02:39 +0000 iRatty Engine http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <![CDATA[New Web Malware Exploitation Kit in the Wild]]> http://securityratty.com/article/b14bf267debe94a6c65be57f5460b9a5 http://securityratty.com/article/b14bf267debe94a6c65be57f5460b9a5
Oops, they keep doing it, again and again - trying to cash-in on the biased exclusiveness of web malware exploitation kits in general, which when combined with active branding is supposed to make them rich. However, despite the low price of $300 in this particular case, this copycat kit is once again lacking any signification differentiation factors besides perhaps the 20+ exploits targeting Opera and Internet Explorer included within.

Marketed for novice users, despite lacking any key features worth being worried about, it's still managing to maintain a steady infection rate of unpatched Opera browsers. Such statistics obtained in an OSINT fashion always provide a realistic perspective on publicly known facts, like the one where millions of end users continue getting exploited due to their overall misunderstanding of today's threatscape driven by the ubiquitous web exploitation kits. 

Related posts:
Modified Zeus Crimeware Kit Gets a Performance Boost 
Zeus Crimeware Kit Gets a Carding Layout
Web Based Malware Emphasizes on Anti-Debugging Features
Copycat Web Malware Exploitation Kit Comes with Disclaimer
Web Based Malware Eradicates Rootkits and Competing Malware
Two Copycat Web Malware Exploitation Kits in the Wild
Copycat Web Malware Exploitation Kits are Faddish
Web Based Botnet Command and Control Kit 2.0
BlackEnergy DDoS Bot Web Based
A New DDoS Malware Kit in the Wild
The Small Pack Web Malware Exploitation Kit
The Nuclear Grabber Kit
The Apophis Kit
Nuclear Malware Kit
The Random JS Malware Exploitation Kit
Metaphisher Malware Kit Spotted in the Wild
]]> Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:15:01 +0000 malware malware exploitation kit web based malware nuclear malware kit ddos malware kit zeus crimeware kit wild key features worth metaphisher malware kit New Web Malware Exploitation Kit in the Wild <![CDATA[DIY Skype Malware Spreading Tool in the Wild]]> http://securityratty.com/article/7529aecdb25c1d7756e201282f8fb4a0 http://securityratty.com/article/7529aecdb25c1d7756e201282f8fb4a0
Who needs to build hit lists by harvesting user names when a usability feature allows you to expose millions of users to your latest social engineering campaign? That seems to be the mentality of yet another Skype malware spreading tool, which just like the majority of publicly obtainable tools is aiming to contact everyone, everywhere.

The tool's main differentiation factor is its feature of harvesting the personal information of users it has managed to detect randomly, that's of course in between the mass spamming of malicious URLs. However, despite it's DIY nature allowing someone to easily launch a malware campaign spreading across Skype, the tool is lacking the segmentation features offered by related Skype spamming tools. Just like in a cybercrime 1.0 world where DIY exploit embedding tools were favored due to the lack of web malware exploitation kits, in a cybercrime 2.0 world these DIY tools matured into IM malware spreading modules easily attached to any infected host given the botnet master is looking for such a functionality.

Related posts:
Skype Spamming Tool in the Wild - Part Two
Skype Spamming Tool in the Wild
Harvesting Youtube Usernames for Spamming
Uncovering a MSN Social Engineering Scam
MSN Spamming Bot
DIY Fake MSN Client Stealing Passwords
Thousands of IM Screen Names in the Wild
Yahoo Messenger Controlled Malware
]]> Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:43:28 +0000 skype skype malware malware tool tools publicly obtainable tools wild malware campaign diy tools DIY Skype Malware Spreading Tool in the Wild <![CDATA[Risk or Security Management: What's In a Term?]]> http://securityratty.com/article/0136fe88d711ff0de5b473f4a5b2d0c4 http://securityratty.com/article/0136fe88d711ff0de5b473f4a5b2d0c4
Well, maybe such a clear differentiation is not always required. Maybe security and risk management is so intertwined that continuously trying to separate them becomes counterproductive. Let's try to look at this objectively: I can make a clear argument that security is an integral part of risk management. But I can make a similarly cogent argument that risk management is an integral part of security management. The definition is largely in the eye of the beholder. It is contextual and situational. Maybe security and risk management are not the two sides of the same coin - maybe these disciplines are so integrated that they ARE the coin. The business is interested in the coin, not the pictures embossed on either side of it.

I am not arguing that the security and risk management are one and the same. They are indeed discrete disciplines with different functions and activities. And from an organizational perspective, is it important the different roles are named appropriately to the responsibilities of the individuals concerned. But let's be frank, does your business really care whether you call yourself a security manager or a risk manager? All they want is for (both of?) you to help them manage your information security and IT risks appropriately.

Risk management and security management. It's not either/or. Black or white. So here is my call: Let's spend less time debating and arguing the differences, and more time on using and maturing these extremely important, completely interrelated disciplines.]]> Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:59:18 +0000 security risk management risk management interchangeably information security security management terms information risk management terms security gartner security Risk or Security Management: What's In a Term? <![CDATA[Pseudo Email Marketing Tools Empowering Spammers]]> http://securityratty.com/article/7568db3beb1fe59141f6ec74902d2ae7 http://securityratty.com/article/7568db3beb1fe59141f6ec74902d2ae7
Largely ignoring its real life applicability, a vendor of "email marketing" tools continues the development of a DIY spamming tools, whose features greatly evolved throughout the last couple of years. Originally released in 2004, the vendor appears to have been actively improving the real-time metrics of the campaigns, next to building interactivity into the spamming process through the WYSIWYG editor.

For better or worse, despite that these applications are empowering spammers and lowering down the entry barriers into spamming, the tools have gotten largely replaced by the increasing number of managed spamming services, whose quality assurance features of bypassing spam filters act as a main differentiation factor. Here are some of this tool's features :

"- High speed distribution - 200,000 letters per hour.
- Contains an embedded SMTP server that allows you to send letters directly to the recipient's mailbox without using your provider's SMTP server.
-  If you are accessing the Internet via modem, and distribution using the SMTP server, you do not fit - also allowed to send mail through any number of remote SMTP servers (relay), or via SMTP server provider.
- Support for SMTP authentication.

- Supports up to 500 concurrent streams to send to each mailing.
- Automatic caching DNS requests to speed up distribution and reducing the load on the DNS server.
- Ability to run multiple independent shots at the same time.
- Ability to suspend delivery and continue later with a point.
- All modes distribution - TO, CC, BCC and PersonalCopy. In the latter case, the program generates a personal letter to each recipient.

- Ability to specify the size of BCC package regimes TO, CC, and BCC.
- Ability to specify the TO: field for mailing regimes and CS BCC.
- Full emulation signature letters Outlook Express to increase cross-your-mails through spam filters.
- Support for distribution via a proxy server.
- Automatically detect the bad (non-existent) and not by E-Mail addresses directly in the process of distribution based on a flexible, user SMTP rules. Thanks SMTP rules achieved a very precise definition of bad addresses virtually no false positives.

- Ability to create lists of addresses, depending on the specific responses of remote servers for SMTP commands.
- Organize automatically subscribe / unsubscribe to the mailing addresses.
- Perform any processing of existing lists.
- Develop a letter to the powerful WYSIWYG Html editor.

- Automatically apply to each recipient by name, as well as paste in a letter to a specific, personalized information through powerful Mail Merge templates.
- Set the calendar to automatically launch shots at the right time.
- Quickly send out mail."

With managed spam services' on-demand, risk forwarding and completely outsourced processes, they're not only going to replace such DIY tools, but also, position them as a dynamically evolving cybercrime platforms.
]]> Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:28:30 +0000 bad addresses addresses tools smtp server smtp server provider e-mail addresses directly distribution modes distribution speed distribution Pseudo Email Marketing Tools Empowering Spammers <![CDATA[Web Based Malware Emphasizes on Anti-Debugging Features]]> http://securityratty.com/article/64ebe557625edfe9bcc0cbdc14885fe7 http://securityratty.com/article/64ebe557625edfe9bcc0cbdc14885fe7
Following the ongoing development of a particular web based malware, always comes handy in terms of assessing the commoditization of anti-debugging features within modern malware. With plain simple, "managed binary crypting and firewall bypassing verification" on demand in February, to August's overall anti antivirus software mentality as a key differentiation factor of the malware.

So what are they working on? Anti tracing and emulation protection, PeiD and PESniffer protection, as well as anti heuristic scanning with a simple junk data adding feature in order to maintain a smaller binary size.

Here's a translated description :

"- The binary works under admin and under normal user
- The binary is always run as the "current user"
- An unlimited number of bots can be loaded and integrated within the command and control, and with the geolocation feature, filters can be applied for a particular country
-After successful infection, the binary which is tested against popular firewall and proactive protection security ensures that the actions it takes and their order do not trigger protactive protection mechanisms in place
- binary file size is 25k, the size can be reduced once it's crypted


- Doesn't take advantage of BITS protocol
- Doesn't allow an infected host to be infected twice
- Bypassing NAT and supporting "always-on" connections
- A simple, easy to configure web based admin panel"

What if the buyer doesn't care about the quality assurance practices applied? Managed lower AV detection and firewall bypassing service comes into play.
]]> Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:42:00 +0000 malware web based malware binary file binary simple plain simple anti simple junk data firewall Web Based Malware Emphasizes on Anti-Debugging Features <![CDATA[Interop NY Keynotes: Cisco]]> http://securityratty.com/article/c55a3293fe594f4363a5830f6da4d48c http://securityratty.com/article/c55a3293fe594f4363a5830f6da4d48c After some rousing introduction music, Marie Hatter, Vice President, Network Systems and Security Solutions Marketing / CMO of Cisco began her presentation on virtualization.

Introduction

Virtualization is a word used by consumers and also by IT. But, do we all mean the same thing?

A very cool video from Cisco provided answers to “what is virtualization” from an  engineering perspective, data center perspective, IT perspective and the user perspective (virtual world).

Virtualization is about breaking the bonds between applications and server hardware, nodes and networks, applications and operating systems.

Why is this interesting? Virtualization holds the promise to transform the way we work, live, learn and play.

Why virtualize?

The real estate boom over the last 30 years has driven people to the suburbs. People didn’t mind commuting for an hour with lower gas prices. Today, we have a weak economy and gas prices are high. Something has to change.

Many are opting to stay at home. Businesses are trying out telecommuting, some (like Cisco) are even offering telepresence. This helps by reducing carbon footprint. Corporations are breaking free from physical requirements. The global workforce is also having an impact on the network. These changes are having a huge impact on the network.

We are on the cusp of transitioning from virtualization to VIRTUALIZATION.

“One to many….many to one.”

This is Cisco’s idea of virtualization.

Consider the different roles we play in life - one to many. Spouse, executive, friend, parent, gym rat. This would be “one to many”. This is exactly what virtualization does. It allows you to partition resources off that you can use on the fly.

Where do I start?

Virtualization starts with server and storage. But, it’s the network that touches everything - it spans the physical, the virtual, and the cloud. This provides the connectivity to all these resources. The network brings transparency to the picture. It allows you to better monitor performance and better implement security - great benefits!

Why do I need this?

At Cisco, we saw that we were only using 20% of our storage utilization. We wanted to virtualize our datacenters. When we did that, we were able to get 68% storage utilization. For each year that we were able to defer buildup, we saved $40 million.

From a business standpoint, virtualization helps you differentiate and work faster. Provisioning in minutes, improved productivity and competitive differentiation, using less power (environmental impact), and up the ante of business continuity. If VMWare fails? It’s OK. You can reprovision it on the fly.

Is it for everyone?

IT organizations tend to be siloed. You have the IT side and the Operations side. Each has responsibility. For virtualization to work, these walls have to come down. The concept of virtualization depends on shared resources.

Metcalfe’s Law of the Network Effect

Everytime you add a node to the network, you increase the value. This is what happens with virtualization. Every device you virtualize increases the power of each device. More control of environment and more efficiency.

This leads to…

Cloud computing.

Wow, show of hands from the audience when Marie asked “how many are using cloud computing?” and “how many are using your own clouds?” - not a lot of hands were raised. Interesting considering the coverage cloud computing has and the focus of it.

Cloud computing has three possibilities at Cisco:

  • Flexible infrastructure (hosting)
  • Abstract services (APIs)
  • Application services (SaaS)

Automation is going to be key, and will need to integrate virtualization-aware elements.

Can you imagine if you wanted interoperability in the cloud? People haven’t even begun thinking about it.

Conclusion

As you virtualize, your role will change. You will think more about strategy. But keep in mind these “minefields” of virtualization:

  • Insufficient planning
  • Lack of standards
  • Weak security

Security cannot be an afterthought. It has to be planned. We’ve seen new forms of malware, hypervisor attacks, and root kit infections.

As higher expectations from end users evolve, we’re becoming not server oriented, but SERVICE oriented.

Tips:

  • Think holistically
  • Consider IT culture - equipment and people
]]> Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:11:05 +0000 virtualization virtualization starts virtualization helps helps virtualization depends virtualization holds network network brings transparency cisco Interop NY Keynotes: Cisco <![CDATA[Copycat Web Malware Exploitation Kits are Faddish]]> http://securityratty.com/article/ba56aabae03bad418cbbf5ae497d3769 http://securityratty.com/article/ba56aabae03bad418cbbf5ae497d3769
For the cheap cybercriminals not wanting to invest a couple of thousand dollars into purchasing a cutting edge web malware exploitation kit -- a pirated copy of which they would ironically obtained several moths later -- with all the related and royalty free updates coming with it, there are always the copycat malware kits like this one offered for $100.

Taking into consideration the proprietary nature of some of the kits, the business model of malware kits was mostly relying on their exclusive nature next to the number, and diversity of the exploits included in order to improve the infection rate. This simplistic assumption on behalf of the coders totally ignored the possibility of their kits leaking to the general public, or copies of the kits ending up as a bargain in particular underground deal where the once highly exclusive kit was offered as a bonus.

"Me too" web malware kits were a faddish way to enjoy the popularity of web malware kits like MPack and Icepack and try to cash in on that popularity by coming up average kits lacking any significant differentiation factors in the process. But just like the original and proprietary kits, whose authors didn't envision the long term growth strategy of integrating different services into their propositions or the kits themselves, the authors of copycat malware kits didn't bother considering the lack of long-term growth strategy for their releases. Branding in respect to releasing a Firepack malware kit to compete with Icepack which was originally released to compete with Mpack, has failed to achieve the desired results as well.

And with malware kits now a commodity, and underground vendors excelling in a particular practice with the long term objective to vertically integrate in their area of expertise -- think spammers offering localization of messages into different languages and segmented email databases from a specific country -- would we witness the emergence of managed cybercrime services charging a premium for providing fresh dumps of credit card numbers, PayPal, Ebay accounts or whatever the buyer is requesting?

That may well be the case in the long term.

Related posts:
Web Based Botnet Command and Control Kit 2.0
DIY Botnet Kit Promising Eternal Updates
Pinch Vulnerable to Remotely Exploitable Flaw
The Zeus Crimeware Kit Vulnerable to Remotely Exploitable Flaw
The Small Pack Web Malware Exploitation Kit
Crimeware in the Middle - Zeus
The Nuclear Grabber Kit
The Apophis Kit
The FirePack Exploitation Kit Localized to Chinese
MPack and IcePack Localized to Chinese
The Icepack Exploitation Kit Localized to French
The FirePack Exploitation Kit - Part Two
The FirePack Web Malware Exploitation Kit
The WebAttacker in Action
Nuclear Malware Kit
The Random JS Malware Exploitation Kit
Metaphisher Malware Kit Spotted in the Wild
The Black Sun Bot
The Cyber Bot
Google Hacking for MPacks, Zunkers and WebAttackers
The IcePack Malware Kit in Action
]]> Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:18:08 +0000 malware kits web malware kits kits copycat malware kits proprietary kits term long-term growth strategy icepack icepack exploitation kit Copycat Web Malware Exploitation Kits are Faddish <![CDATA[Web Based Botnet Command and Control Kit 2.0]]> http://securityratty.com/article/4f945955ba8a424fe6b9352583602062 http://securityratty.com/article/4f945955ba8a424fe6b9352583602062
The average web based command and control kit for a botnet consisting of single user, single campaign functions only, has just lost its charm, with a recent discovery of a proprietary botnet kit whose features clearly indicate that the kit's coder know exactly which niches to fill - presumably based on his personal experience or market research into competing products.

What are some its key differentiation factors? Multitasking at its best, for instance, the kits provides the botnet master with the opportunity to manage numerous different task such as several malware campaigns and DDoS attacks simultaneously, where each of these gets a separate metrics page.  

Automation of malicious tasks, by setting up tasks, and issuing notices on the status of the task, when it was run and when it was ended. Just consider the possibilities for a scheduling malware and DDoS attacks for different quarters.  

Segmentation in every aspect of the tasks, for instance, a DDoS attacks against a particular site can be scheduled to launched on a specific date from infected hosts based in chosen countries only.  

Customized DDoS in the sense of empowering the botnet master with point'n'click ability to dedicate a precise number of the bots to participate, which countries they should be based in, and for how long the attack should remain active. Quality and assurance in DDoS attacks based on the measurement of the bot's bandwidth against a particular country, in this case the object of the attack, so theoretically bots from neighboring countries would DDoS the country in question far more efficiently.  

Historical malware campaign performance, is perhaps the most quality assurance feature in the entire kit, presumably created in order to allow the person behind it to measure which were the most effective malware and DDoS campaigns that he executed in the past. From an OSINT perspective, sacrificing his operational security by maintaing detailed logs from previous attacks is a gold mine directly establishing his relationships with previous malware campaigns.

Bot Description:  
1. Completely invisible Bot work in the system.
2. Not loads system.
3. Invisible in the process.
4. Workaround all firewall.
5. Bot implemented as a driver.
Functions Bot (constantly updated): 
1. Downloading a file (many options).
2. HTTP DDoS (many options, including http authentication).
The web interface 
-- Convenient manager tasks.
-- Every task can be stopped, put on pause, etc. ...
-- Interest and visual scale of the task.  
-- A task manager for DDoS and Loader
    
-- For DDoS tasks
Bots involved in DDoS 'f.
Condition of the victim (works, fell).
2. Bots manager
-- Displays a list of bots (postranichno).
-- Obratseniya date of the first and last.
-- ID Bot.
-- Country Bot.
-- Type Bot.
-- The status Bot (online / offline).
-- Bot bandwidth to different parts of the world (europe, asia).
-- The possibility of removing bots
-- When you click on ID Bot loadable still a wealth of information about it
3. Statistics botneta
-- Statistics both common and build Bot.
-- Information on the growth and decline botneta dates (and build).
-- Bots online
-- All bots
-- Dead bots.

4. Statistics botneta country
-- All countries to work on 
-- New work by country 
-- Online work from country to country
-- Dead bots by country
5. Detailed history botneta 
6. Convenient user-friendly interface adding teams
8. Admin minimal server loads
-- Use php5/mysql
Upcoming features :
1. Form grabber (price increase substantially), for old customers will be charged as an upgrade
2. Public key cryptography
3. Clustering campaigns and DDoS attacks

Despite it's proprietary nature, it's quality and innovative features will sooner or later leak out for everyone to take advantage of, a rather common lifecycle for the majority of proprietary malware kits in general.

Related posts:
]]> Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:02:15 +0000 ddos attacks based ddos attacks malware previous malware campaigns ddos attacks simultaneously botnet country country bot ddos Web Based Botnet Command and Control Kit 2.0 <![CDATA[Dissecting a Managed Spamming Service]]> http://securityratty.com/article/a86a7c12b2395b3c5ee8667c3a4d13e0 http://securityratty.com/article/a86a7c12b2395b3c5ee8667c3a4d13e0 With cybercrime getting easier to outsource these days, and with the overall underground economy's natural maturity from products to services, "managed spamming appliances" and managed spamming services are becoming rather common. Increasingly, these "vendors" are starting to "vertically integrate", namely, start diversifying the portfolio of services they offer in order to steal market share from other "vendors" offering related services like, email database cleaning, segmentation of email databases, email servers or botnets whose hosts have a pre-checked and relatively clean IP reputation, namely they're not blacklisted yet.

How much does it cost to send 1 million spam emails these days? According to a random spamming service, $100 excluding the discounts based on the speed of sending desired, namely 10-20 per second or 20-30 per second. Let's dissect the service, and emphasize on its key differentiation factors, as well as the customerization offered in the form of a dedicated server if the customer would like to send billions of emails :

"-- High quality and percentage of spam delivery 
-- Fast speed of delivery
-- Spam database on behalf of the vendor, or using your own database of harvested emails
-- Easily obtainable and segmented spam databases on per country basis
-- Randomization of the spam email's body and headers in order to achieve a higher delivery rate
-- Support for attachments, executables, and image files

The cost - $100 for a million for letters delivered spam, with the large volume of spam discounts 20% -30% -40% based on the value-added Do-it-yourself customer interfare based on a multi-user botnet command and control interface :
 
-- Automatic RBL verification
-- Support for many subjects, headers,
-- Total customization of the email sending process
-- Autogenerating junk content next to the spammers email/link in order to bypass filtering
-- Faking Outlook Message ID / Boundary / Content-ID
-- Interface added. Now do not necessarily understand all the features into the system to start the list.
-- Convenient management tasks.
-- A high percentage of punching, on the basis of good europe - 40-60% (For the United States - less because there aol and others).
-- Improved metrics, whether or not the emails have been sent, lost, unknown receipt, or have been RBL-ed

With the weight of a billion - even discounts and the possibility of making a personal server. "

Rather surprising, they state that European email users have a higher probability of receiving the spam message compared the U.S due to AOL. What they're actually trying to say is due to AOL's use of Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM). As far as localization of the spam to the email owner's native language is concerned, this segmentation concept has been take place for over an year now.

This service, like the majority of others rely entirely on malware infected hosts, which due to the multi-user nature of most of the malware command and control interfaces, allows them to easily add customers and set their privileges based on the type of service that they purchase. This leaves a countless number of opportunities for targeted spamming, and yes, spear phishing attacks made possible due to the segmentation of the emails based on a country, city, even company.

In the long term, the people behind spamming providers, web malware exploitation kits and DIY phishing kits, will inevitably start introducing built-in features which were once available through third-party services. For instance, hosting infrastructure for the spam/phishing/live exploit URLs, or even managed fast-flux infrastructure, have the potential to become widely available if such optional features get built-in phishing kits, or start getting offered by the spamming provider itself. And since the affiliate based model seems to be working just fine, the ongoing underground consolidation will converge providers of different underground goods and services, where everyone would be driving customers to one another's services and earning revenue in the process.
]]> Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:32:44 +0000 spam spam message spam discounts spam database spam databases spam email email emails based email servers Dissecting a Managed Spamming Service <![CDATA[Q&A with Doug McClure: What Makes BSM Successful?]]> http://securityratty.com/article/ac3c26a14f128a8ecb49f7c474cbb36e http://securityratty.com/article/ac3c26a14f128a8ecb49f7c474cbb36e Yesterday we featured our initial Q&A with Doug McClure, who took some time to answer some strategic questions on BSM Lite. Today, Doug shares his thoughts on BSM and CMDB strategies for companies and how his stint in the U.S. Navy helped shape his future passion for BSM.

ScienceLogic: Can you share any of the strategies/advice that you give to companies embarking on their BSM journeys?

Doug McClure: Well, first they’ve got to have a BSM strategy. Nearly all the clients I talk to or hear about wanting to do BSM do not have a BSM strategy. I talk a lot about this on my blog and with clients and it is relevant whether you’re going to think about “BSM Lite” or “BSM Heavy” approaches.

Once we have a BSM strategy, we need to establish a BSM roadmap that guides us in how we’ll implement the BSM strategy in a more tactical manner, focusing on short term iterative quick wins and 30-60-90 day projects. For more of my thoughts on BSM strategy and roadmapping, see the following blog posts.

As I’ve alluded to previously, a client first must define and understand what “BSM Lite” may mean to them. Don’t take what the analysts or the vendors pitch for what you should do to achieve BSM or what value you should get from it.

For any type of BSM to be successful, each client must define what BSM means to them and state what they expect to get from BSM. They must make it personal, make it a part of their company culture and elevate it to be as an important initiative as compliance, risk management, SOA, ITIL, or other initiatives may be within the company.

Please don’t get scared off from this strategy thing. Please don’t blow this off as something that the secret enterprise architecture council should be doing. If you’re unable to get an audience in these areas within your company, start within your own sphere of influence.

Your strategy could be as simple as enabling the local operations center to more efficiently classify, triage and resolve problems based on a simple business service or application contextual understanding. Focus on how this changes the game within your environment. Come up with your own metrics and measures to assess the value this has to this organizational use. Trust me, you’ll need to justify your investment some time in the future.

Another trait of successful BSM implementations is that of the formal monitoring and management tools group has established some sort of database or knowledge repository that enables them to “manage the business of IT management and monitoring” if you will. In my opinion, the vendor community has let their clients down significantly in this area. The CMDB may be the correct answer, but most companies just don’t value monitoring enough to demand that this be included in their formal CMDB initiatives.

In my last job, we developed an application that I referred to as the “Service Management Database” or “SMDB”. Others may call it something else, but in essence, it was the database that captured what was monitored, how it was monitored, who owned it, what business services and applications it supported, the impact an outage or event from it had on the business services or applications, etc.

One key component of this “SMDB” was establishing the relationships of real and synthetic user and transaction monitoring steps to associated servers and applications. This is a significant gap area in many tools and vendor CMDBs.

Clients who have instituted something formal such as this generally have a very good handle on management and monitoring within their environment. Far too many clients do not have adequate monitoring (read visibility) in place to begin their BSM journey.

I’d strongly recommend a good hard look at how well the client’s monitoring and management practices are implemented and managed. Simply put, if they don’t have adequate visibility into how well those business services and applications are performing, you can’t expect to manage what you can’t “see” that may be impacting the business, clients, revenue, etc.

Just ask yourself this – can you explicitly state what monitoring is in place for a given business service or application? Can you quantify the impact of a simple event to a business service or application? Can you explain why something is red, yellow, purple or green and what causes it to change from one color to another? If you can’t, your BSM journey will be challenging.

Those with formal CMDB initiatives have their hands full with high risk, long time to value projects to just get a handle with traditional configuration management models. Taking these low level configuration items (CI’s) and establishing application and service dependencies comes after a lot of work getting through the organizational challenges of getting systems access to populate the CMDB.

I strongly recommend that the formal monitoring and management tools group create an authoritative database that enables them to establish end-to-end visibility into the service and application delivery chain and the impacts it has on the business, customer, etc. This ultimately becomes part of a more realistic federated CMDB within the business.

ScienceLogic: Can you provide an example of a successful implementation of BSM? Were there specific factors that especially contributed to its success?

Doug McClure: I’ve touched on the highlights of the most successful BSM implementations throughout my previous answers. Clients that have rallied around an organizational change or transformation focusing every team member’s efforts and energy towards ensuring that the business goals and objectives are being met through the delivery of highly available business services and applications.

Far too often the “change” never happens and it’s the “talking heads” that are preaching to the choir about what should be done. Every person on the front line, in the support teams, at the help desk, etc. must understand how they support or impact the business in business terms. Try putting this simple phrase after job titles “Hi, my name is Doug. I’m a Systems Administrator, Supporting the Business”.

That was a mouthful, but simply put, these clients have an impressively instrumented business and IT environment with the right amount of visibility into each area, joined together with an organization that thinks, operates and responds based on their understanding of the business goals and objectives and how these business services and applications enable business success.

The operational model for an organization fully adopting BSM identifies ways to establish a service management mentality across the entire business service and application delivery and support chain. The delivery, operations and support organizations must be incented to manage the services and applications being delivered with this end-to-end context.

A leading, outside the box “service management organization” may include the traditional IT silos but within a matrixed fashion focused on one or more key business services and applications. The “service management organization” is then incented to work together, as a team, for the end-to-end delivery and support of these services or applications.

It’s no longer one’s job to just be the systems administrator, database administrator or network engineer, their job is now to support specific business services and applications. They provide the subject matter expertise needed to support the services and applications together, as a team, eliminating the finger pointing or “not my problem” attitudes that exist in the majority of IT organizations today.

Overall, the KISS approach is what will enable BSM of any type (lite, heavy) to be the most successful. If it just feels natural, doesn’t take any additional effort, clicks or tasks to do then it’s going to work. BSM should be transparent and not just another buzz word. It’s not a form that gets filled out or a special process to follow in the run book. It’s doing the right thing for the business, no matter what the situation, crisis, buzz word or technology initiative of the day is.

ScienceLogic: How did you get involved in BSM?

Doug McClure: I think the foundations of my service management background and passion were initially established during my service in the US Navy. Today, I relate that experience to what I call BSM for the Military or Mission Services Management (MSM).

We had been taught over and over that extreme attention to the details of the mission at hand (aka “the business”) was the number one priority and that all of our technology, services, and applications existed for those Sailors and Marines on the other end (the “customer”). I can recall countless instances where mission critical communications services (telephony, orderwires, teletypes, command and control systems, etc.) were impacted in one way or another. It was extremely critical that we understood who was impacted and to what degree so that contingency plans could be activated. We weren’t just talking about lost revenue, poor sales or customer experience; we were talking about human lives and the security of the United States.

It is that military bearing, attention to detail and real world experience that drives me with many of my modern day BSM endeavors. That migration from “Mission Services Management” to BSM was honed working for over 10 years working in the Internet Service Provider (ISP) and datacenter, hosting and colocation business.

In those rapid growth businesses during the Internet boom, service differentiation was what “made you millions” or paved your way to bankruptcy. The companies I worked for had an extreme passion and focus on ensuring that their services, applications and Internet access products were of the highest quality, highly reliable and just plain better than the competition.

Again, the IT infrastructure, service quality and customer experience relationship was ingrained in all of our heads. It was all hands on deck when Webmail, Internet access, DNS, or the network experienced problems. We were measured in terms of how many customers experienced a busy signal or dropped connection or if you couldn’t log in fast enough to read your email. Companies like Keynote Systems and LionBridge/Veritest/Inverse tested the quality of our networks, services and applications and publicly ranked us against our competition. We thought in terms of customer experience and impact every minute of the day, 24×7.

It was in my last job managing a traditional enterprise management and monitoring development group for a nationwide ISP where I was able to work with emerging technology to help get a handle on the complexities of these rapidly growing IT environments filled with emerging technologies and products. Applying this early technology to complex service problems in our environment proved to me that the technology, coupled with the right emphasis on how the technology was implemented and an emphasis on the people and processes within the organization could bring BSM to life.

Where I felt left out in the cold was with my vendor relationship. While their technology gave me the potential, they didn’t teach me how to work through the organizational and technological problems to successfully implement the BSM strategy. My very first end-to-end BSM pilot was extremely successful and provided visibility into the IT environment and business service impact that have never been available before.

And here I am today, working at a software vendor for the first time. Welcome to the “dark side” as they say. The approach and methodology we followed for BSM has become the basis of the core BSM Methodology that I teach IBMers and our clients around the world today.

My personal mission and drive here at IBM Tivoli is to ensure that BSM is something that the typical monitoring tools administrator can actually implement and that our BSM story is something that any of our clients can be successful with. The sales and marketing slicks must be backed up by something like this whomever you are these days. Clients shouldn’t put up for “marketecture”, me too and gee whiz buzz words.

BSM takes a partnership and commitment to every client’s success, and I want to be involved in those BSM efforts in every industry or market worldwide. We need more thought leaders collaborating together in an open and public forum to change legacy attitudes about BSM and do what we can to enable client’s to be as successful as they can be.

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]]> Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:02:39 +0000 management service management database management tools service management mentality business service management business service business service impact mission services management database Q&A with Doug McClure: What Makes BSM Successful?