by Ross Sivertsen | Oct 31, 2007 | Blog, Information Security
Link: Home Depot and Iron Mountain report missing data.
Ok, I was
looking in to Iron Mountain’s Live Vault online backup service when I ran across this story from searchsecurity.com.
Apparently,
in two separate incidents, home improvement Goliath Home Depot has lost
information, including social security numbers, on some 10,000 employees when
the notebook computer was stolen from the car of a company manager.
Then in a
separate incident, data protection megalith Iron Mountain lost a decade worth of data from the state of Louisiana,
including social security numbers, of almost every state college applicant for
the last decade.
In both
incidents, lax security practices were to blame including the lack of
encryption of the data lost. This brings us to the whole point of this post;
with the capacity of media (tapes, disk, USB drives, etc.) becoming almost
cavernous, the ability to transport multi-gigabytes of personal information for
entire organizations becomes trivial. I personally have a USB drive on my key
chain that has a capacity of 16GB.
This
entire large capacity media presents an enormous security risk for information
theft of people and organizations. The need for data encryption of media is
critically important. We can no longer rely on information being secure within
the organizational perimeter; the simple loss of a laptop, the loss of a USB
drive or backup tapes creates an opportunity for theft of identity and loss of
confidentiality.
This isn’t
about garrisoning the organization either; management of a PKI in most
organizations is difficult to manage. Pareto was right, and the 80/20 rule goes
a long way to mitigating risk. Solutions for removable media include simple
open source applications like TrueCrypt
(an great open source tool) that provides 256 bit AES
encryption, this application can be used for creating secured virtual disks on laptop
drives and USB drives.
For other
types of removable media, tapes and so forth, most backup tools, ArcServe, etc.
provide means of encryption of tapes.
You can
find more information of commercial and open source encryption software at this
Wikipedia
article.
by Ross Sivertsen | Oct 25, 2007 | Blog, Information Security
Link: Storm worm strikes back at security pros – Network World.
Ok, you saw me post an
article earlier that compute cycles on the Storm
Worm botnet network appear to be for sale. Now it appears that Storm Worm
network is fighting back against attempts to do reconnaissance on its internal
architecture.
In an article today posted
both on Slashdot
and Network
World, the worm can “figure out which users are trying to probe
its command-and-control servers,
and it retaliates by launching DDoS attacks
against them” notes Network World senior editor and story author Tim Greene.
When I read the story the
first time through, I got a cold chill down my spine. It’s not that things like
this haven’t happened before, but honestly, this is the first time I’ve seen
something as wide spread as a malicious botnet retaliating against users.
Flashes of Skynet from the Terminator
movies and Colossus: the Forbin Project
immediately came to mind.
This has more to do with what’s
next? Is it possible that we are too clever for our own good? I hate fear
mongering, I really do. We look around at the amount of state sponsored
terrorism in the world, and yes don’t be naïve, we do it too, building
technological infrastructures such as what we’ve been reading about here is positively
chilling.
by Ross Sivertsen | Oct 22, 2007 | Blog, Business
Link: Bringing ‘Lean’ Principles to Service Industries — HBS Working Knowledge.
In his book "The Machine That Changed the World," Jim Womack, et al. discusses the inception of "Toyota Production System," eventually to become known as lean manufacturing.
The basic concept is simple (ok, for all you lean experts, I know this is an oversimplification, but give me a break), figure out how long it would take to make something and how much material is needed, if everything went according to plan; no delays in assembly, no part shortages, no rework, and so forth. Whatever happens to make that ideal time take longer and use more material is called waste (or muda in Japanese). For example, if I’m making a red Swingline stapler, and I can’t finish an order for a customer because either the red plastic housings were late, or I had to pay an expedite charge to get them on time, or I had to throw a bunch of them out because I ran over them with a forklift, all of that is considered waste.
Waste in a process, any process, is bad; it doesn’t contribute in the least adding any type of value to the thing you’re making. Waste is also inevitable; you simply can’t get around it. So, the basic notion of lean manufacturing is to remove as much waste from a process as is possible. It’s a balancing act, between capacity, quality, and efficiency.
Ok, I said all of that to say this… Over the last 20 years tremendous strides have been made in implementing lean manufacturing concepts in a number of manufacturing settings. What have been lagging behind, dramatically, are similar concepts in “soft” or office processes. Office processes are notoriously wrought with all sorts of waste. When was the last time you had waited on a reply to an email on some issue that required an answer prior to completing some other task? I’m not being self-righteous, I engage in waste myself, and waste is unavoidable because we are human and flawed.
That said small incremental improvements (called kaizen in Japanese) is what is required to move forward. We’re talking evolutionary, not revolutionary. You can’t fix the world all at one time, so how do you, as the cliché goes, eat an elephant? The answer is one bite at a time. That’s what kaizen is all about making small incremental and measurable improvements in processes.
In the referenced article from the Havard Business School, the author Julia Hanna discusses the ideas of bringing lean principles to the office process and services industries. There are so many sectors that need this kind of help, the social services and non-profit sectors are prime candidates for this type of assistance. The non-profit sectors are often overworked, but have people with a passion for what they’re doing, and they’re often doing and re-doing tasks over and over again. I’m involved as a board member of two non-profits and see this as an ongoing problem, and for these organizations to succeed, simplifying processes to minimize labor, material, in short waste, is a key business concept.
Trying to make the connection for the office folks is another story though, it’s often the case that conveying the need for this type of improvement is difficult to effectively communicate if the individuals involved don’t really have a background for it. Also, not all lean principles translate into lean office concepts; some creativity in plying the lean concepts is in order.
This is an excellent article discussing some of the research in implementing lean in an office, and perhaps we’ll see more of it in the social and NPO sectors.
Here are some good references to read:
Wikipedia: Lean Production
SME: Lean Office
Now, I’m off to Poke Yoke a purchasing process.
by Ross Sivertsen | Oct 19, 2007 | Web/Tech
Link: HTC Kaiser gets unboxed – Engadget Mobile.
Ok, I have to admit I don’t get too excited over mobile phones and devices; they just don’t trip my trigger. I mean I had my Palm Treo 650 for over two years before it finally gave up the ghost earlier this summer. I had an HTC Hermes for a while, and I have a couple of Blackberry’s (I use to support my end users here). A phone is a phone, can I place and receive calls reliably (and in most cases every carrier has its set of warts)? I didn’t go ga-ga over the iPhone, I mean come on, standing in line overnight for a cell phone that I get the privilege of paying a premium for on BOTH the hardware AND service?
Soooo, I wouldn’t exactly call myself an early adopter, I’m more in to foundations, reliability, security and flexibility (try supporting nearly 600 people with a staff of 6 and you’ll know what I mean).
So when I got my hands on this HTC Kaiser (branded the AT&T Tilt), I was, at best, skeptical, and it was announced in March of this year. But this thing is really cool, it’s actually a bit heavier than the Hermes, but a bit thinner too, it uses Windows Mobile 6 with the TouchFlo technology allowing much easier one-handed operation of the handheld. The wireless data is HSPDA (AT&T’s 3G) in most metro areas. But the one feature that really sent me over the edge was the on-board GPS. After I loaded Windows Live Search Mobile, I had real-time mapping and turn-by-turn navigation on my mobile phone, since it’s connected to AT&T’s network, and this is the cool part, I got the name of a restaurant from a friend, used live search to find the phone number, called the place, and got the address and location with real-time GPS directions all on my MOBILE PHONE!
I can now use this handheld to do some basic but remote support of my servers back at the office; I added Microsoft’s voice command for hands-free dialing.
All of this including my standard calendar/email/phone/voice-mail/messaging applications, and for the first time I feel the realization of the promise of a personal digital assistant made by the Apple Newton in the early 1990’s.
Of course it’s not perfect, even with the improved processor it’s still sluggish in some functions. But this is a tremendous leap ahead of anything I’ve had up to this point.
Read more about the Kaiser/Tilt in the referenced Engadget article.
by Ross Sivertsen | Oct 16, 2007 | Blog, Information Security
Link: Slashdot | Storm Worm Botnet Partitions May Be Up For Sale.
Holy BOTNET Batman!
Having JUST posted a message about the NVD from US-CERT, I’m trying
to get back to work and read this feed from Slashdot. It seems that Joe
Stewart, an information security research specialist with SecureWorks
has seen evidence that the massive Storm Worm botnet is being broken up
and the resulting compute cycles are up for sale to the highest bidder.
Not just for pimple faced teens anymore, this represents one of the
first trends of mercenary computing I’ve seen. The Storm Worm network
has been described as the worlds most powerful supercomputer in this
ZDNet article: (Storm Worm botnet could be world’s most powerful supercomputer).
So what does this mean? It means that this isn’t about hacking anymore,
cyber-terrorism is a real threat to government and commercial
enterprise.
