So, here is my next monthly "Security Warrior" blog round-up of top 5 popular posts and topics.

1. Shockingly, AGAIN this month, the "Top 11 Reasons to Secure and Protect Your Logs" came up as #1 most popular post (maybe driven by my poll).  BTW, see my other logging polls.
2. Security ROI - and its parent topic "security metrics"/"measuring security" - is definitely an ongoing HOT debate. Indeed, the old post "Security ROI Pile-Up!" takes the #2 spot this month, possibly propelled by a more recent post "Second ROI War."
3. Some say that "short blog posts rule", but, in reality, good, fun content is the best. Here is an example:  "Dumb Luck IS a Strategy!" post makes the top list. In it, I try to explore why people still ignore security concerns even if stare people in the face...
4. Discussion on what you can do to soften the impact of "getting 0wned" ( "What CAN You Do?") made the top list. Good!
5. As before, my post "11 Signs That Your SIEM Is A Dog or "Raffy, You Killed SIM!"". It is both humorous and sadly true (and backed up by other sources)
6. Still burning hot is a post with my irreverent comments on a Terry Childs saga. Namely, "On Doomsaying (Terry Childs case)", "So ... Am I? Maybe I Am!" and "Admins , Good Guys or "I am NOT an Idiot!""

See you in October.

Possibly related posts / past monthly popular blog round-ups:

• Monthly Blog Round-Up - August 2008
• Monthly Blog Round-Up - July 2008
• Monthly Blog Round-Up - June 2008
• Monthly Blog Round-Up - May 2008  
• Monthly Blog Round-Up - April 2008  
• Monthly Blog Round-Up - March 2008  
• Monthly Blog Round-Up - February 2008  
• Monthly Blog Round-Up - January 2008  
• Monthly Blog Round-Up - December 2007  
• Monthly Blog Round-Up - November 2007  
• Monthly Blog Round-Up - October 2007  
• Monthly Blog Round-Up - September 2007
• Monthly Blog Round-Up - August 2007

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

The session took place at the beginning of Partner Day. The “regular” conference sessions actually begin tomorrow. Today is spent focusing on partner issues and enablement.

The panel for this session included:

• Mark Chuang Group Manager, Product Marketing, VMware, Inc.
• Kenon Owens Staff Systems Engineer, VMware, Inc.

You have to remember that most of the Partners here are not vendors like ScienceLogic, but big and small shops that are selling IT, networking and now virtualization solutions into end-customer environments. For these guys, understanding what virtualization partner programs and tools are at NetApp, for example, is very useful. And many of these companies are already selling Microsoft software and surrounding services for Microsoft products. So if you’re VMware, what’s the message to these partners in the face of the Microsoft juggernaut?

Microsoft to partners: “You may not like to admit it, but you’re probably already in bed with us.”

VMware to partners: “Our hypervisor technology outperforms Hyper-V and Xen, especially at scale. And anyway, it’s not about the battle at the hypervisor. It’s about the V-services on top of the hypervisor – VMotion, Storage VMotion, DRS, etc.”

Interesting and what we all already know, or think we know. The scale issue is an interesting one – too soon for Hyper-V and who uses Xen? But also interestingly enough, no announcement or even talk about extending VMware management tools to other hypervisors. The point, as the VMware product marketing guy made a point of saying, is that the question they needed to answer used to be “Why Virtualization?” and now it’s “Why VMware?”.

One more tidbit – this survey run by VMware asking their customers:

What are the top 6 apps you are running on VMware today

• IIS
• Apache
• Active Directory
• SQL Server
• Sharepoint
• Exchange

That means, 5 of 6 are Microsoft applications. Certainly it makes it even more challenging for VMware to navigate a path here.

The change since 2004 – would have talked about why virtualize. And now why VMware. (Duh.)

Talking to partners – many of which already have a successful Microsoft business. How VMware enhances your existing Microsoft business.

Top 6 apps running on VMware today (5 of 6 are Microsoft applications)

• IIS
• Apache
• AD
• Sql server
• Sharepoint
• Exchange

Source: VMware survey

Esxi - VMware – true thin hypervisor; maximizes resources utilization (over 100% memory commitment – allows avg of 2:1 memory overcommit) – host system memory is usually the resource bottleneck – plus Advanced Scheduler runs VMs better under load and to a greater capacity (hard to show this part); performance acceleration – using binary translation (32bit), para-virtualization and Hardware Assist (for 64-bit)

(rvi – rapid virtualization indexing)

No parent partition that all hypervisors have to go through

Vs ms/xen

Parent partition – dom 0 => potentially problem at scale; i/o that could be a bottleneck

Hyper-v SPECjbb comparison

= 9 vms on VMware and hyper-v hypervisors

Outperform (CPU) by 50% - general purpose scheduler isn’t able to keep up? “got to be”

(cpu only test)

Also used VMmark – to demonstrate again that VMware is performance tuned and designed to run at scale vs Hyper-V

Size Does Matter:

Vmware ESXi: 32MB

Hyper-v – 2.6 GB

Xen – 1.2 GB

Hyper-V uses Microsoft Server Core – so the last two Patch Tuesdays had to make changes to Server Core (nothing to do with Hyper-V) but service interruption for Hyper-V.

VMware VMsafe – “Provides an unprecedented level of security” “virtual is more secure than Real” (uh oh – clearly didn’t read about the

*****************

VMware TEST:512 mb vms on server w/ 4gb ram –

7 vms - xensource (w/no memory overcommit)

6vms – hyper-v before error (w/no memory overcommit)

14vms - w/memory overcommit and management

Running sql io sim – heavy workloads

TCO – not just license; now ESXi is free – so hardware

809 - ESXi

871 – vi3 foundation ($995)

1168- vi3 enterprise ($5750)

1621 – hyper-v – 2x cost because of hw

Xen – 1618

Memory overcommit (89% in production vs. test/dev)

Survey – 37% of respondents at 2:1 RATIO OR HIGHER; real average is around 1.8: 1

*********************

This guy Mark sounds like a used car salesman:

“Always On, On Demand Data Center”

Hypervisor is very important but what is more important are the v-services on top of this. Manage shared, pooled resources. “Value Above the Hypervisor”

How does all this save “your customers” $$?

VMotion – saves cost on planned maintenance: no more overtime, no more time scheduling maintenance windows (see cost framework below)

10 (# of servers) x 6 (@ of updates) x [ (overtime cost 2hrs x $150/hr) + (scheduling downtime # of apps per server 15 x time spend scheduling per app 0.75 hr x $50/hr)] = $58,500

Same thing with using VMware Storage VMotion

Overtime cost + scheduling downtime + planning move + alternative tool cost - $68,750 (2.5 TeraBytes)

The Value of High Availability

- cost of lost business, lost work

- cost of lost productive time

4 hours of downtime x # of users per vm 10 x number of vms per host 15 x cost of user productive time $50/hr x failures per year in 10-host cluster 2 = $60K

(10 servers, 150 vms)

SAVINGS (using enterprise version)

Update management 149,760

HA 60K

DRS, VMotion Storage VMotion 187,250

808,259 – hw, power cooling, etc.

Just a few months after CEO and founder Diane Greene was ousted, it comes as no surprise that her husband and co-founder, Mendel Rosenblum, has also resigned via a company wide message last night. Turns out he’s going back to Stanford to teach. What a lovely way to get out of the political mess VMware has become. Admit it, haven’t we all had a point where we get fed up with the latest work snafu and wondered, maybe I should go back to college and teach? I had a really good time in college… Kudos to Rosenblum for doing it and doing it in style.

And if you believe Tarry Singh, the company knew this was going to happen but waited until after registrations were closed for VMworld before making it official. Hmm.

From the New York Times, more on Greene’s firing and just what kind of atmosphere is forcing executives to leave VMware:

After Ms. Greene made a special presentation to VMware’s board, Mr. Tucci, who heads VMware’s parent company, EMC, pulled her aside, according to people familiar with the events, who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal company decisions.

Inviting Mendel Rosenblum, Ms. Greene’s husband and the co-founder of VMware, into the room, Mr. Tucci told Ms. Greene she was fired, effective immediately. And he said the board wanted Mr. Rosenblum, VMware’s chief scientist, to take her seat on the board. Mr. Rosenblum declined the offer.

Honestly, what kind of a judgement call was made to first fire the man’s wife in front of him and then offer him her board seat? Has Tucci never seen an episode of Survivor?

The "Oyster card" used on the London Tube was at issue in the Dutch case, and a similar fare card used on the Boston "T" was the center of the U.S. case. The Dutch court got it right, and the American court, in Boston, got it wrong from the start -- despite facing an open-and-shut case of First Amendment prior restraint.

The U.S. court has since seen the error of its ways -- but the damage is done. The MIT security researchers who were prepared to discuss their Boston findings at the DefCon security conference were prevented from giving their talk.

The ethics of full disclosure are intimately familiar to those of us in the computer-security field. Before full disclosure became the norm, researchers would quietly disclose vulnerabilities to the vendors -- who would routinely ignore them. Sometimes vendors would even threaten researchers with legal action if they disclosed the vulnerabilities.

Later on, researchers started disclosing the existence of a vulnerability but not the details. Vendors responded by denying the security holes' existence, or calling them just theoretical. It wasn't until full disclosure became the norm that vendors began consistently fixing vulnerabilities quickly. Now that vendors routinely patch vulnerabilities, researchers generally give them advance notice to allow them to patch their systems before the vulnerability is published. But even with this "responsible disclosure" protocol, it's the threat of disclosure that motivates them to patch their systems. Full disclosure is the mechanism (.pdf) by which computer security improves.

Outside of computer security, secrecy is much more the norm. Some security communities, like locksmiths, behave much like medieval guilds, divulging the secrets of their profession only to those within it. These communities hate open research, and have responded with surprising vitriol to researchers who have found serious vulnerabilities in bicycle locks, combination safes (.pdf), master-key systems and many other security devices.

Researchers have received a similar reaction from other communities more used to secrecy than openness. Researchers -- sometimes young students -- who discovered and published flaws in copyright-protection schemes, voting-machine security and now wireless access cards have all suffered recriminations and sometimes lawsuits for not keeping the vulnerabilities secret. When Christopher Soghoian created a website allowing people to print fake airline boarding passes, he got several unpleasant visits from the FBI.

This preference for secrecy comes from confusing a vulnerability with information about that vulnerability. Using secrecy as a security measure is fundamentally fragile. It assumes that the bad guys don't do their own security research. It assumes that no one else will find the same vulnerability. It assumes that information won't leak out even if the research results are suppressed. These assumptions are all incorrect.

The problem isn't the researchers; it's the products themselves. Companies will only design security as good as what their customers know to ask for. Full disclosure helps customers evaluate the security of the products they buy, and educates them in how to ask for better security. The Dutch court got it exactly right when it wrote: "Damage to NXP is not the result of the publication of the article but of the production and sale of a chip that appears to have shortcomings."

In a world of forced secrecy, vendors make inflated claims about their products, vulnerabilities don't get fixed, and customers are no wiser. Security research is stifled, and security technology doesn't improve. The only beneficiaries are the bad guys.

If you'll forgive the analogy, the ethics of full disclosure parallel the ethics of not paying kidnapping ransoms. We all know why we don't pay kidnappers: It encourages more kidnappings. Yet in every kidnapping case, there's someone -- a spouse, a parent, an employer -- with a good reason why, in this one case, we should make an exception.

The reason we want researchers to publish vulnerabilities is because that's how security improves. But in every case there's someone -- the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, the locksmiths, an election machine manufacturer -- who argues that, in this one case, we should make an exception.

We shouldn't. The benefits of responsibly publishing attacks greatly outweigh the potential harm. Disclosure encourages companies to build security properly rather than relying on shoddy design and secrecy, and discourages them from promising security based on their ability to threaten researchers. It's how we learn about security, and how we improve future security.

This essay previously appeared on Wired.com.

EDITED TO ADD (8/26): Matt Blaze has a good essay on the topic.