Koobface Analysis

Today Facebook announced that it will share the data it has collected about the group of people behind the Koobface virus. Facebook didn't provide any details about the "Koobface gang". However, in a separate blog post independent researchers Jan Drömer and Dirk Kollberg of SophosLabs did provide details of their analysis. I found the SophosLabs article a very interesting read in that it details the painstakingly slow process investigators must endure to piece security incidents together and that given enough time and resources "cybercrimes" can be solved.

"Up until now, Drömer and Kollberg's research has been a closely-guarded secret, known only to a select few in the computer security community and shared with various law enforcement agencies around the globe" ... "At the police's request we have kept the information confidential, but last week news began to leak onto the internet about Anton 'Krotreal' Korotchenko - meaning the cat was well and truly out of the bag." -- Graham Cluley, Sophos analyst

Link to Analysis: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/koobface/

Related articles

• Twitter worms (ggl): Web Gang Operating in the Open - New York Times (nytimes.com)

DHS Cybersecurity Strategy and New California eCrime Unit

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A couple of interesting items within the information security world...

I. The Department of Homeland Security has released a new cybersecurity strategy document with a two-pronged approach:

1. Protecting critical infrastructure today
2. Building a more secure cybersecurity ecosystem for the future

Download the Blueprint for a Secure Cyber Future document (PDF).

II. California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris has announced the creation of a new eCrime Unit to investigate and prosecute technology crime.

"The primary mission of the eCrime Unit is to investigate and prosecute multi-jurisdictional criminal organizations, networks, and groups that perpetrate identity theft crimes, use an electronic device or network to facilitate a crime, or commit a crime targeting an electronic device, network or intellectual property." READ MORE

Related articles

• Blueprint for a Secure Cyber Future: The Cybersecurity Strategy for the Homeland Security Enterprise (bespacific.com)
• DHS Releases Blueprint for Cybersecurity (govsellingsolutions.com)
• California targets cybercrime, identity theft (sfgate.com)
• State attorney general launches eCrime Unit (sfgate.com)
• California unveils new unit to fight cybercrime (news.cnet.com)
• California Creates Special Unit to Fight Computer Crimes (bits.blogs.nytimes.com)
• California Forms Cyber Crime Unit (informationweek.com)

America the Vulnerable

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During my commute to and from work I recently began listening to the audiobook, "America the Vulnerable: New Technology and the Next Threat to National Security" by Joel Brenner, narrated by Lloyd James. The audiobook was downloaded from Audible.com.

I’m currently half-way through the unabridged audio and am enjoying it. The book is an eye-opening reminder of what many of us within the InfoSec industry are already aware of as we analyze security events on a daily basis. American national security, our economy, physical and energy infrastructure, financial system and our own privacy are at risk and that if security isn't built into our systems, our systems won't be secure. From what I’ve listened to so far, Brenner does a good job of laying out the cyber-threat facing the United States.

I hope to finish the audiobook by the end of this week as I’m interested in hearing what Brenner has to prescribe as a solution to the problem. Though I have yet to finish the audiobook, I recommend it as a must read for anyone interested or with career in cybersecurity.

Related articles

• Normative Cyber Security (bloginfosec.com)
• America the Vulnerable (csmonitor.com)

New Reader Poll - CISSP Exam

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I just posted a reader poll that's now viewable on the right-hand column of this blog. I want to get opinions from those of you that have your CISSP certification. There are two questions in the poll:

1. If you are a CISSP, did your employer at the time encourage you to take the CISSP exam? (Yes/No)
2. If you are a CISSP, did your employer pay for you to take the CISSP exam, or did you? (Employer paid/you paid)

The poll can also be accessed directly from here.

As for the value of a CISSP vs. other certifications ... that's for yet another posting.

The Pony in the Dung Heap Joke

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I recently came across a humorous, yet insightful, joke. You may have heard it before. It's the pony in the dung heap. Last week I read it for the first time within, "How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life", by Peter Robinson. Here's an exert from the book containing the joke:

-----BEGIN EXERT------

Chapter One 
The Pony In the Dung Heap 
When Life Buries You, Dig 
Journal Entry, June 2002:


Over lunch today I asked Ed Meese about one of Reagan's favorite jokes. "The pony joke?" Meese replied. "Sure I remember it. If I heard him tell it once, I heard him tell it a thousand times."


The joke concerns twin boys of five or six. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities -- one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist -- their parents took them to a psychiatrist.


First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears. "What's the matter?" the psychiatrist asked, baffled. "Don't you want to play with any of the toys?" "Yes," the little boy bawled, "but if I did I'd only break them."


Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his out look, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. "What do you think you're doing?" the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. "With all this manure," the little boy replied, beaming, "there must be a pony in here somewhere!"


"Reagan told the joke so often," Meese said, chuckling, "that it got to be kind of a joke with the rest of us. Whenever something would go wrong, somebody on the staff would be sure to say, "There must be a pony in here somewhere.'"

-----END EXERT------

It's a great joke to tell ourselves when we're feeling buried under heaps of work and life responsibilities as a reminder to persevere and make the best out of any given moment. For me, it'll take a lifetime to fully grasp, and even then, I might not have made it an automatic process and I'll still see "the glass half empty" at times.

Free Security Awareness Training - Part 5 of 5

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Today's post concludes the series of five posts whereby I wanted to give you links to 25 security awareness courses and videos that are publicly available.

I strongly believe that security awareness training is an essential component to good security. Throwing money and technology at the security problem might be worthwhile in the early stages of maturity of an originzatzion's information security program. However, the problem with this approach is that there are diminishing returns; more technology becomes less and less effective at improving security. Something needs to improve beyond installing and patching technology on a daily basis, forever running around attempting to deal with security incidents and emerging threats and doing work simply for work's sake. The human dimension is a critical part of this, and security awareness training helps sharpen this human component; the HumanOS.

1. Analytical Investigative Tools (Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Task Force Training)
   
2. What Every Law Enforcement Officer Should Know About DNA Evidence – Investigators and Evidence Technicians (DNA Initiative)
3. Food Security Training (US Food and Drug Administration)
4. Explosives, Booby Traps and Bomb Threat Management (Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Task Force Training)
5. HAZMAT Transportation Security Awareness Training (Dangerous Goods International)

Related articles

• Free Security Awareness Training - Part 1 of 5 (zenone.org)
• Free Security Awareness Training - Part 2 of 5 (zenone.org)
• Free Security Awareness Training - Part 3 of 5 (zenone.org)
• Free Security Awareness Training - Part 4 of 5 (zenone.org)

Free Security Awareness Training - Part 4 of 5

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This week I'm sharing with you links to 25 security awareness training sites. The training links are being broken up into groups of five, published within five separate postings. Today we reach the forth set of training links for an accumulative total of 20.

The 2008 information security survey by Pricewaterhouse Coopers revealed that investment in security technologies had increased but “the acute focus on technology over the last year has not been matched by an equally robust commitment to other critical drivers of security’s value, such as: (1) many of the critical business and security processes that support technology, and (2) the people who administer them.” Security awareness training helps address the second item.

"The security discipline has so far been skewed toward technology - firewalls, ID management, intrusion detection - instead of a risk analysis and proactive intelligence gathering. Security investment must shift from the technology-heavy, tactical operation it has been to date to an intelligence-centric, risk analysis and mitigation philosophy. We have to start addressing the human element of information security, not just the technological one; it i only then that companies will stop being punching bags." - PricewaterhouseCoopers

Below is the next set of security awareness training links.

1. The History of Bio-Terrorism (Center for Disease Control and Prevention)
2. Detecting Bio-Terror (Center for Public Health Preparedness)
3. Radiological Terrorism: Just in Time Training for Hospital Clinicians (Center for Disease Control and Prevention)
4. Nuclear Terrorism: Pathways & Prevention (Center for Public Health Preparedness)
5. Preparedness & Community Response to Pandemics (Center for Public Health Preparedness)

Related articles

• Free Security Awareness Training - Part 1 of 5 (Zenone.org)
• Free Security Awareness Training - Part 2 of 5 (Zenone.org)
• Free Security Awareness Training - Part 3 of 5 (Zenone.org)