Roger Halbheer on Security
As you all know, I have two main pet themes: Risk Management and Compliance Management as I see very often that there is room for improvement when it comes to such processes within our customers. Internally, we often think about how we can make it easier for our customers to manage compliance in their networks.…
I just worked my way through the list SANS published. Looking at the list it is not surprising but scary to see which errors made it to the top of the list: Cross-site Scripting SQL Injection Classic Buffer Overflow Cross-Site Request Forgery Improper Access Control It shows as we often say that the attacks moved…
I read this article this morning: Safer Internet Day: How children can undermine corporate security and it actually reminds me of all the PCs I looked at in my private environment. When I see a heavily infected PC, the parents always keep telling me that the Peer-to-Peer network software on the PC was installed by…
When I travel through Africa, the high piracy rate is often something we address. Not necessarily from a commercial perspective but much more from a security angle. We know that pirated software is often infected with malware and therefore used for criminal activities. However, the discussion is a difficult one as a lot of people…
When I talk to customers, the different attacks are often something we discuss (obviously). I often mention that Virus and Worm attacks on a broad scale (like Conficker etc.) are a serious problem but at least one we see, one we understand and one we can fight (because we see and understand it). However, my…
As most of you as well, I was looking for information and opinions on Cloud Security over the last year. I found a lot of papers but when I talk to our customers I realize that they think about the Cloud but Cloud Security is mainly something for the specialists – which it is not…
As you might know, it was time for the Data Protection Day in Europe again. Unfortunately I did not find the videos from this year’s competition yet but I guess we will find them later on the page and on YouTube. However, we released a study on Privacy which is pretty interesting. Find the summary…
Just to make sure you have seen that: We just released a blog Security Advisory 979352 – Going out of Band Quoting the blog: Based on our comprehensive monitoring of the threat landscape we continue to see very limited, and in some cases, targeted attacks. To date, the only successful attacks that we are aware…
There was and still is a lot of noise regarding the Internet Explorer vulnerability reported in Microsoft Security Advisory 979352 – including the normal discussion about which browser is most secure. A discussion I do not want to get into here but I think it is necessary to lay out the facts instead of all…
I guess you might have seen it by now but if not, please make sure you read and understand the material available: This night we released a Security Advisory on a Vulnerability in Internet Explorer Could Allow Remote Code Execution. The reason for that is that our investigations have shown that this vulnerability was one…
The recent IE attacks have show again that the current technology built in Windows Vista and Windows 7 could at least help to mitigate the attacks. One of these technologies which could be used more broadly is Data Execution Prevention (DEP). Here is how to switch DEP on (it is fairly well hidden). First, enable…
Often when I talk to our customers and they ask me about the cloud, a lot of questions come up. Most of them are security related (obviously) but some of them are more management focused. For example the question about how to manage a hybrid environment, where part of your business is run on premise,…
A few days ago, I blogged on Tired of Web 2.0? Kill your Online Identities – an automated way to “disappear†from Web 2.0 (actually Facebook has banned the tool since…). Today, I was reading an article called Un-Google Yourself. Trust me, I am not explicitly looking for such approaches but seem to find them…
No, this is not a joke. If you are tired of all the discussions about Web 2.0, the privacy breaches and the related problems, you can commit Web 2.0 Suicide. There is a Web 2.0 Suicide Machine – but we warned before you do it – this process seems to work and is not reversible.…
When the industry prepared for the Year 2000, I was working in a consulting company living good from doing reviews on Y2k-projects. Then the year 2000 came and nothing happened (besides a big party). Then year 2010 came – and the bug actually got hold of us. Initially I thought that I was reading a…
Well, in my last post I wrote about the prices for malware. Today I read the next evolution of this: The possibility to have malware tested against anti-malware tools – not to make sure malware is really recognized, no, the other way round: To make sure it is not recognized. I read this article on…
I know that Christmas is over and I know how my kids actually compile a Wish List: They take most of the ads (which are targeted to them) and glue them onto a piece of paper for Mom and Dad to make sure that everything can be found under the Christmas tree… I guess you…
When I tweeted last week that I am on my way to Algeria, I got quite some reactions and questions that I shall report how it was. So, let me try to briefly summarize my impressions. I was invited to speak at a conference on certification in Algiers. Well, initially I pushed back as I…
Today we were adding 17 additional markets to our Microsoft Security Essentials offering. I am really excited about that as all these markets are in EMEA: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, India, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. Additionally we added Russian an Romanian…
This is a pretty interesting approach: During the Copenhagen conference now, United Nations Environment Programme, esa and the European Environment Agency launched a website called the Environmental Atlas of Europe. The goal of this atlas is to give examples where people, organizations or communities are already working on the climate change challenge and what they…
