So I was very interested when I heard that Opus Interactive, a customer of ours, had “joined the VMware vCloud initiative as a VMware Service Provider”. I talked to Eric Hulbert, CTO of Opus Interactive, to get some details directly from the source.

Eric shared our own caution about making “cloud-ready” announcements. There have simply been too many companies talking about cloud solutions that lack any substance – usually based on definitions of cloud computing that are hazy or just too broad. The backlash against the cloud hype is often quite justified. But in Opus’ case, there are real components that if they don’t add up to a “full” cloud computing solution just yet, are well on their way – and enabled by VMware’s program for service providers (VSPP).

Opus Interactive is serious about virtualization, which is an indispensable tool in their stated goal of creating a high-density micro-data center with the smallest footprint possible. They are 100% wind-powered and have already virtualized much of their data center, reducing the amount of hardware necessary to run the business and driving down costs to produce even more competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace.

VSPP for vCloud provides a rental model of VMware licenses – e.g., for Enterprise ESX or VDI. VMware Service Providers report on their customers’ virtual machines (vm) and pay only for what is actually used. This model lets Opus Interactive quickly spin up a vm to get a new customer up and running in about an hour and stay very cost competitive at the same time; Opus offers their vClustr entry-level virtual server for only $99.

Cost-effective, rapidly scalable computing “on-demand” based on shared resources, managed by “expert” third-parties, enabled by virtualization technology and pay-per-use vm licenses. Cloud computing? Instead of thinking about a single definition of cloud computing, perhaps it’s more relevant as the market matures to think about a continuum of cloud computing. And by that definition, Opus Interactive is providing cloud services, enabled by VMware’s VSP program. Next on the schedule, automated provisioning and perhaps in the future, API’s that make it even easier for application developers to test and deploy apps on Opus Interactive’s cloud platform – which, by the way, uses EM7 for its core management solution.

1. Sad, but VERY insightful story of Alan Shimmel getting 0wned (1,2,3,4, others on his blog)
2. A very good essay on security industry/market/community "Evolution is Punctuated Equilibria" ("Right now, Internet security is due for another period of rapid change.")
3. As I like to say, most everybody in out industry is confused about risk (myself included, in fact) - here is some nice reading about the subject: "Quant love", "What is Risk?" ("The probability of a threat overcoming security controls resistance to exploit a vulnerability that results in a loss.") While you are at it, check this blurb about risk and CVSS (BTW, CVSS is about "V" - vulnerability, not "R" for risk!)
4. Solid gold on "running IT as business" (and where it hits the wall) - Richard, the original CIO.com piece ("If you've tried managing an internal IT department as a bona fide business you already know that you can't take that very far, for the obvious reason that your IT department isn't a business.")
5. More fun stuff from Richard on insiders and why NOT look for them (sadly, same logic applies to not looking for owned boxes in your environment...).
6. Analyst firms shocking discovery: wireless MAY have security issues (I guess count it as humor...)
7. Fun read: "Challenges of Enterprise Cloud Computing" ("By moving the data into the cloud, enterprise, for now, will lose some capabilities to govern their own data set.")
8. Raffy on visualization. ("One of the dangerous things is if you don't understand the log file itself, don't assume you'll understand the visualization of it or even generate a visualization that makes sense") Amen to that! BTW, Raffy's book is finally out.
9. Compliance and checkbox mentality: fun pickup from my original "DLP and Compliance" post - Rich and TechTarget. Good stuff! ("Don’t Sell ‘Compliance’ If It Isn’t A Checkbox ")
10. RedHat is nicely 0wned (more info)
11. BGP hole to dwarf the DNS hole?
12. Chris continues the virtualization and PCI DSS theme here. The jury is still out on this one, even though the common sense approach (that virtualization is OK in regards to PCI) will probably win.
13. NEWS FLASH! Privacy dies. The date of death? 1967. While reading it, think just how visionary some folks are...
14. Finally, just for laughs: How to Spin Bad News

Enjoy!

BTW, I am saving some fun reading for dedicated posts soon :-)

Here's the story. Every Oyster card has a radio-frequency identification chip that communicates with readers mounted on the ticket barrier. That chip, the "Mifare Classic" chip, is used in hundreds of other transport systems as well — Boston, Los Angeles, Brisbane, Oslo, Amsterdam, Taipei, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro — and as an access pass in thousands of companies, schools, hospitals, and government buildings around Britain and the rest of the world.

The security of Mifare Classic is terrible. This is not an exaggeration; it's kindergarten cryptography. Anyone with any security experience would be embarrassed to put his name to the design. NXP attempted to deal with this embarrassment by keeping the design secret.

The group that broke Mifare Classic is from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. They demonstrated the attack by riding the Underground for free, and by breaking into a building. Their two papers (one is already online) will be published at two conferences this autumn.

The second paper is the one that NXP sued over. They called disclosure of the attack "irresponsible," warned that it will cause "immense damages," and claimed that it "will jeopardize the security of assets protected with systems incorporating the Mifare IC." The Dutch court would have none of it: "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."

Exactly right. More generally, the notion that secrecy supports security is inherently flawed. Whenever you see an organization claiming that design secrecy is necessary for security — in ID cards, in voting machines, in airport security — it invariably means that its security is lousy and it has no choice but to hide it. Any competent cryptographer would have designed Mifare's security with an open and public design.

Secrecy is fragile. Mifare's security was based on the belief that no one would discover how it worked; that's why NXP had to muzzle the Dutch researchers. But that's just wrong. Reverse-engineering isn't hard. Other researchers had already exposed Mifare's lousy security. A Chinese company even sells a compatible chip. Is there any doubt that the bad guys already know about this, or will soon enough?

Publication of this attack might be expensive for NXP and its customers, but it's good for security overall. Companies will only design security as good as their customers know to ask for. NXP's security was so bad because customers didn't know how to evaluate security: either they don't know what questions to ask, or didn't know enough to distrust the marketing answers they were given. This court ruling 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 unclear how this break will affect Transport for London. Cloning takes only a few seconds, and the thief only has to brush up against someone carrying a legitimate Oyster card. But it requires an RFID reader and a small piece of software which, while feasible for a techie, are too complicated for the average fare dodger. The police are likely to quickly arrest anyone who tries to sell cloned cards on any scale. TfL promises to turn off any cloned cards within 24 hours, but that will hurt the innocent victim who had his card cloned more than the thief.

The vulnerability is far more serious to the companies that use Mifare Classic as an access pass. It would be very interesting to know how NXP presented the system's security to them.

And while these attacks only pertain to the Mifare Classic chip, it makes me suspicious of the entire product line. NXP sells a more secure chip and has another on the way, but given the number of basic cryptography mistakes NXP made with Mifare Classic, one has to wonder whether the "more secure" versions will be sufficiently so.

This essay originally appeared in the Guardian.

Recently several NAC customers have been stepping up and talking about how they use NAC and why. Last week there was a good article on Estee Lauder using NAC first for guest access control and most recently an expansion of their NAC deployment to help with PCI compliance.  This week in an article with the usual left-handed compliments, Tim Greene in between quotes by the so called analyst experts, talks about several NAC companies rolling out NAC.  One is American Bancard, another StillSecure customer who uses NAC to help with PCI and keep their network secure. The article talks about several other companies using NAC solutions from other vendors as well, which is also very encouraging.  Of course the companies I have spoken about I know for a fact are using NAC.  With some of the competition, you cannot always be sure as I have written about in the past.

In any event, I think it is important that we are starting to see some real public references for NAC deployments.  Nothing proves the point of a products value than real live customers stepping up and talking about it!

With all this talk and reporting about security concerns, lets change the channel for a moment and assess the potential security benefits of Cloud Computing.

In my view, there are some strong technical security arguments in favour of Cloud Computing - assuming we can find ways to manage the risks.

With this new paradigm come challenges and opportunities.  The challenges are getting plenty of attention - I’m regularly afforded the opportunity to comment on them, plus obviously I cover them on this blog.  However, lets not lose sight of the potential upside.

In this post, I walk through seven technical security benefits.  Some are immediate, others may arise over time and have conditions attached (some unstated for the sake of brevity).  However, I’m including the longer-range benefits now to raise awareness.  Some of the outcomes listed are available today without the Cloud, but they are either complex and slow to implement (and thus less likely to happen) or prohibitive for capital cost reasons.  I don’t claim this is a definitive list - it reflects where my thinking is today.

Some benefits depend on the Cloud service used and therefore do not apply across the board.  For example; I see no solid forensic benefits with SaaS.  Also, for space reasons, I’m purposely not including the ‘flip side’ to these benefits, however if you read this blog regularly you should recognise some.

On a sidenote, I believe the Cloud offers Small and Medium Businesses major potential security benefits.  Frequently SMBs struggle with limited or non-existent in-house INFOSEC resources and budgets.  The caveat is that the Cloud market is still very new - security offerings are somewhat foggy - making selection tricky.  Clearly, not all Cloud providers will offer the same security.

Seven Technical Security Benefits of the Cloud

1. Centralised Data

• Reduced Data Leakage: this is the benefit I hear most from Cloud providers - and in my view they are right.  How many laptops do we need to lose before we get this?  How many backup tapes?  The data “landmines” of today could be greatly reduced by the Cloud as thin client technology becomes prevalent.  Small, temporary caches on handheld devices or Netbook computers pose less risk than transporting data buckets in the form of laptops.  Ask the CISO of any large company if all laptops have company ‘mandated’ controls consistently applied; e.g. full disk encryption.  You’ll see the answer by looking at the whites of their eyes.  Despite best efforts around asset management and endpoint security we continue to see embarrassing and disturbing misses.  And what about SMBs?  How many use encryption for sensitive data, or even have a data classification policy in place?
• Monitoring benefits: central storage is easier to control and monitor.  The flipside is the nightmare scenario of comprehensive data theft.  However, I would rather spend my time as a security professional figuring out smart ways to protect and monitor access to data stored in one place (with the benefit of situational advantage) than trying to figure out all the places where the company data resides across a myriad of thick clients!  You can get the benefits of Thin Clients today but Cloud Storage provides a way to centralise the data faster and potentially cheaper.  The logistical challenge today is getting Terabytes of data to the Cloud in the first place.

2. Incident Response / Forensics

• Forensic readiness: with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers, I can build a dedicated forensic server in the same Cloud as my company and place it offline, ready for use when needed.  I would only need pay for storage until an incident happens and I need to bring it online.  I don’t need to call someone to bring it online or install some kind of remote boot software - I just click a button in the Cloud Providers web interface.  If I have multiple incident responders, I can give them a copy of the VM so we can distribute the forensic workload based on the job at hand or as new sources of evidence arise and need analysis.  To fully realise this benefit, commercial forensic software vendors would need to move away from archaic, physical dongle based licensing schemes to a network licensing model.
• Decrease evidence acquisition time: if a server in the Cloud gets compromised (i.e. broken into), I can now clone that server at the click of a mouse and make the cloned disks instantly available to my Cloud Forensics server.  I didn’t need to “find” storage or have it “ready, waiting and unused” - its just there.
• Eliminate or reduce service downtime: Note that in the above scenario I didn’t have to go tell the COO that the system needs to be taken offline for hours whilst I dig around in the RAID Array hoping that my physical acqusition toolkit is compatible (and that the version of RAID firmware isn’t supported by my forensic software).  Abstracting the hardware removes a barrier to even doing forensics in some situations.
• Decrease evidence transfer time: In the same Cloud, bit fot bit copies are super fast - made faster by that replicated, distributed filesystem my Cloud provider engineered for me.  From a network traffic perspective, it may even be free to make the copy in the same Cloud.  Without the Cloud, I would have to a lot of time consuming and expensive provisioning of physical devices.  I only pay for the storage as long as I need the evidence.
• Eliminate forensic image verification time: Some Cloud Storage implementations expose a cryptographic checksum or hash.  For example, Amazon S3 generates an MD5 hash automagically when you store an object.  In theory you no longer need to generate time-consuming MD5 checksums using external tools - its already there.
• Decrease time to access protected documents: Immense CPU power opens some doors.  Did the suspect password protect a document that is relevant to the investigation?  You can now test a wider range of candidate passwords in less time to speed investigations.

3. Password assurance testing (aka cracking)

• Decrease password cracking time: if your organisation regularly tests password strength by running password crackers you can use Cloud Compute to decrease crack time and you only pay for what you use.  Ironically, your cracking costs go up as people choose better passwords ;-).
• Keep cracking activities to dedicated machines: if today you use a distributed password cracker to spread the load across non-production machines, you can now put those agents in dedicated Compute instances - and thus stop mixing sensitive credentials with other workloads.

4. Logging

• “Unlimited”, pay per drink storage: logging is often an afterthought, consequently insufficient disk space is allocated and logging is either non-existant or minimal.  Cloud Storage changes all this - no more ‘guessing’ how much storage you need for standard logs.
• Improve log indexing and search: with your logs in the Cloud you can leverage Cloud Compute to index those logs in real-time and get the benefit of instant search results. What is different here?  The Compute instances can be plumbed in and scale as needed based on the logging load - meaning a true real-time view.
• Getting compliant with Extended logging: most modern operating systems offer extended logging in the form of a C2 audit trail.  This is rarely enabled for fear of performance degradation and log size.  Now you can ‘opt-in’ easily - if you are willing to pay for the enhanced logging, you can do so.  Granular logging makes compliance and investigations easier.

5. Improve the state of security software (performance)

• Drive vendors to create more efficient security software: Billable CPU cycles get noticed.  More attention will be paid to inefficient processes; e.g. poorly tuned security agents.  Process accounting will make a comeback as customers target ‘expensive’ processes.  Security vendors that understand how to squeeze the most performance from their software will win.

6. Secure builds

• Pre-hardened, change control builds: this is primarily a benefit of virtualization based Cloud Computing.  Now you get a chance to start ’secure’ (by your own definition) - you create your Gold Image VM and clone away.  There are ways to do this today with bare-metal OS installs but frequently these require additional 3rd party tools, are time consuming to clone or add yet another agent to each endpoint.
• Reduce exposure through patching offline: Gold images can be kept up securely kept up to date.  Offline VMs can be conveniently patched “off” the network.
• Easier to test impact of security changes: this is a big one.  Spin up a copy of your production environment, implement a security change and test the impact at low cost, with minimal startup time.  This is a big deal and removes a major barrier to ‘doing’ security in production environments.

7. Security Testing

• Reduce cost of testing security: a SaaS provider only passes on a portion of their security testing costs.  By sharing the same application as a service, you don’t foot the expensive security code review and/or penetration test.  Even with Platform as a Service (PaaS) where your developers get to write code, there are potential cost economies of scale (particularly around use of code scanning tools that sweep source code for security weaknesses).

Your Thoughts?

What benefits do you see that I haven’t included in the above list?  Where do you agree/disagree and importantly, why?

Stacey Higginbotham adds a “dose of reality” to the cloud computing craze in her post on “10 Reasons Enterprises Aren’t Ready to Trust the Cloud”. Check the link for the full list which include security, portability and reliability. Cloud Computing – the next big thing, emphasis on “next”.

This just tickled my funny bone. And made me feel sorry for a certain technical marketing manager… But really, if it’s that hard to explain where the name came from, you’re not paying your marketing people enough. ;-p

As IT spending growth slows, virtualization (and the ROI it promises) rises to the top. According to a Goldman Sachs report, “server virtualization” and “consolidation” are the top priorities for technology executives. Goldman predicts the overall growth in spending to slip from “7 percent to 5 percent this year.”

Butler Group analyst Roy Illsley shares his advice for implementing holistic systems management or “simplification, so that the IT department can manage the technology stack at a higher level, and therefore enable it to manage a wider range of technologies more efficiently. Hmm… simplifying IT, breaking down silos, automation, visibility across heterogeneous infrastructure…sounds very very familiar.

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